Jesus is Like (But Not Like) Others

[Faizal_Ali]

I am describing history as it is practiced. @jongarvey, who does not appear to be a materialist, agrees that this is how it is done, though he wishes it was done differently.

[structureoftruth (Matthew Dickau)]

@T_aquaticus, the reason is that the non-miraculous details recorded in the Gospels (and Acts, I might as well add) include things about what people believed or said or did, details which are best explained by the Resurrection having actually occurred.

I’m not going to lay out the whole argument here, but feel free to look at the article that I’ve been referring to.

[structureoftruth (Matthew Dickau)]

@Faizal_Ali

Then please cite the articles from peer-reviewed philosophy journals where it was calculated that 11 guys getting back together after their leader was executed is so improbable that it could only have happened if the leader came back from the dead.

The article that I have been referring to contains just the calculation you are looking for.

(Now, you might respond that it is merely published as a chapter in a scholarly-level book rather than in a journal, and I admit I don’t know how Wiley’s peer-review criteria differs between those two cases. But since peer-review does not magically confer truth, instead merely serving to weed out falsehood, what ultimately matters is whether the argument in the McGrews’ article is sound. And for that, if you think there is something wrong with it, I again welcome you to point out the flaw.)

@Faizal_Ali

So, then, how do we determine which of these is more probable:

1. Jesus came back from the dead.
2. The disciples all had temporal lobe seizures that caused them to have identical hallucinations of a resurrected Jesus at the same time.

Your complaint that if God exists, then anything is possible, doesn’t at all imply that anything is equally probable. We can easily know that (1) will never happen naturally and that (2) is so extremely unlikely to happen through merely natural causes that (practically) it is naturally impossible as well.

But then when it comes to the supernatural side, the context of Jesus’ life and death provides a reason God might have for bringing about (1) miraculously, one which is not ad-hoc or highly implausible, while there is no such reason for him to miraculously bring about (2).

[Faizal_Ali]

@structureoftruth

But then when it comes to the supernatural side, the context of Jesus’ life and death provides a reason God might have for bringing about (1) miraculously, one which is not ad-hoc or highly implausible, while there is no such reason for him to miraculously bring about (2).

Please explain the rigorous methodology that is used to determine what God might, and might not, have done. “The context of Jesus’ life and death” is vague to the point of uselessness.

[T_aquaticus]

@structureoftruth

the reason is that the non-miraculous details recorded in the Gospels (and Acts, I might as well add) include things about what people believed or said or did, details which are best explained by the Resurrection having actually occurred.

Could you give some highlights? Your reference is over 75 pages long.

[T_aquaticus]

@structureoftruth

This article provides exactly that.

The first problem we run into is this section:

Our argument will proceed on the assumption that we have a substantially accurate text of the four gospels, Acts, and several of the undisputed Pauline epistles (most significantly Galatians and I Corinthians); that the gospels were written, if not by the authors whose names they now bear, at least by disciples of Jesus or people who knew those disciples – people who knew at first hand the details of his life and teaching or people who spoke with those eyewitnesses – and that the narratives, at least where not explicitly asserting the occurrence of a miracle, deserve as much credence as similarly attested documents would be accorded if they reported strictly secular matters.

This is wrong. If Joseph Smith said it snowed on the 4th of December, 1830 we wouldn’t think much of it. If Joseph Smith says that an angel showed him where some golden plates were buried, we would tend to greet that statement with much more skepticism. This is especially true when you take into consideration that Joseph Smith is trying to start a religion based on his own accounts. The author of the article is essentially saying that he can prove the account of the Resurrection is reliable if you assume from the beginning that the accounts are reliable.

[structureoftruth (Matthew Dickau)]

@Faizal_Ali

Please explain the rigorous methodology that is used to determine what God might, and might not, have done.

Not every rational endeavor, even in science, comes attached to a “rigorous methodology”. For example: there is no rigorous methodology for coming up with new theories of physics in the search for a ToE. There is no rigorous methodology for deciding which interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct.

Determining what actions are probable or not for God is more akin to these examples of theory formation and evaluation than it is to, say, generating quantitative predictions from a physical theory and empirically testing them.

Nonetheless, there’s some constraints, which we can know from natural theological arguments about God. God does not act contrary to his nature, which is morally perfect. God only acts for good reasons, not bad ones. Etc.

Again, you have to wade into the details, but the upshot is as I’ve stated above: it’s not highly implausible for God to raise Jesus from the dead; it is for him to deceptively cause the disciples to hallucinate.

[Faizal_Ali]

@structureoftruth

Not every rational endeavor, even in science, comes attached to a “rigorous methodology”. For example: there is no rigorous methodology for coming up with new theories of physics in the search for a ToE. There is no rigorous methodology for deciding which interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct.

Yes. Which why no one claims to know any of those things. The rigorous methodology comes in when they figure out a way to test one of these hypotheses.

@structureoftruth

Nonetheless, there’s some constraints, which we can know from natural theological arguments about God. God does not act contrary to his nature, which is morally perfect. God only acts for good reasons, not bad ones. Etc.

How does one know these things about God? How do we know what is moral, or a good reason, for God?

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@T_aquaticus

This is wrong. If Joseph Smith said it snowed on the 4th of December, 1830 we wouldn’t think much of it. If Joseph Smith says that an angel showed him where some golden plates were buried, we would tend to greet that statement with much more skepticism. This is especially true when you take into consideration that Joseph Smith is trying to start a religion based on his own accounts. The author of the article is essentially saying that he can prove the account of the Resurrection is reliable if you assume from the beginning that the accounts are reliable.

Yep. By that standard, we will also be forced to accept all sorts of other and incompatible religious and miraculous claims, UFO and alien abduction stories and what have you.

Sorry, but we know too much about the psychology and sociology concerning the spread of religious ideas and concepts, such as the tendency for religious people to engage in producing fan fiction, exaggeration, confabulation, and embellishments, to take them at face value.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@structureoftruth

Nonetheless, there’s some constraints, which we can know from natural theological arguments about God. God does not act contrary to his nature, which is morally perfect.

How do we know that God is morally perfect? I’m not even sure we know what moral perfection is, much less that there is someone or some thing that has that quality.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Faizal_Ali

I will repeat: Science tells us that human beings come into existence by being borne of other human beings. So science is indispensable to assessing the claim that Gais and Aurelia were the parents of Julius Caesar.

Once again, you are very confused about how science works. You may want to review the lessons for your last attempt at this: Hypothesis: A Deceptive Being Makes Many Genealogical Adams.

[structureoftruth (Matthew Dickau)]

@T_aquaticus

If Joseph Smith says that an angel showed him where some golden plates were buried, we would tend to greet that statement with much more skepticism. … The author of the article is essentially saying that he can prove the account of the Resurrection is reliable if you assume from the beginning that the accounts are reliable.

Read what you quoted from the article closely again, and you’ll see that the correct analogy here is not that we’re assuming that Joseph Smith is reliable, but that the record of what he said is reliable.

(And I might add, while I totally agree with you about skepticism regarding Joseph Smith, the specific reason you cited for that skepticism can’t plausibly be applied to the disciples: their situation was entirely different. And that’s why the details matter.)

[Faizal_Ali]

@swamidass

Once again, you are very confused about how science works

I don’t see how.

Do you think there is no difference between a claim that Julius Caesar was born of two specific human parents, and that he sprung fully grown from the skull of Zeus? Does science not help us determine the likelihood of these two claims?

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@Faizal_Ali

I have no idea.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

So you accept that the Gospels are not primary eyewitness accounts. Good.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

Whereas that is what I am claiming. So if you are not denying my claim is true, what is there left to discuss?

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.

@Faizal_Ali

These are not established facts by consensus of scholars. Even a source as biased in favour of the resurrection as Gary Habermas accepts this. He only lists #1 and #4 above as among his “minimal facts.” (If you read carefully, you will note that he does not endorse #3, though he might seem to on superficial reading.)

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.

@Faizal_Ali

My position is that the whole distinction between “natural” and “supernatural” is pointless and unverifiable. We can only use observation and empirical evidence to determine the probability of certain occurrences and form principles and laws by which can predict which observations will be made in the future. Whether the things we observe are “natural” or “supernatural” is beyond our ability to know.

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.

[Faizal_Ali]

@structureoftruth

Read what you quoted from the article closely again, and you’ll see that the correct analogy here is not that we’re assuming that Joseph Smith is reliable, but that the record of what he said is reliable.

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

[T_aquaticus]

@structureoftruth

Read what you quoted from the article closely again, and you’ll see that the correct analogy here is not that we’re assuming that Joseph Smith is reliable, but that the record of what he said is reliable.

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.

[Faizal_Ali]

@dga471

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.

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

@dga471

That doesn’t prevent us as people from discussing the philosophical and theological implications of certain historical events.

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

@dga471

But it’s not the case that there’s a consensus that #2 didn’t happen, either

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.

@dga471

There’s a lot of good evidence for #3, btw

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.

@dga471

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?

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.

[structureoftruth (Matthew Dickau)]

@T_aquaticus

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.

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.

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@Faizal_Ali

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

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

@Faizal_Ali

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.

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.

@Faizal_Ali

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

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?

@Faizal_Ali

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

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.)

@Faizal_Ali

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.

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).

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@Faizal_Ali

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?

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.

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.