Hi @dga471,
Thank you for your response. You write:
We also don’t know how much an account of Josephus (or several of the others you mentioned) is representative of Pilate on a day-to-day basis. It could be that Pilate was a level-headed, fair ruler who just had a bad day and responded brutally, and what gets recorded are the bad things. Of course, I could be wrong. My point is that there is a lot of uncertainty here in assigning the prior probability of Pilate condemning Jesus (versus him not condemning Jesus),
P(S1)/P(S2)=0.1. It could be 0.01. It could be 0.2. Or it could be 0.5, if perhaps Pilate was feeling good that day and wanted to toy with the Jewish authorities instead of simply acceding to their request to execute someone they hated.
The example of Pilate was the weakest of the three examples I cited, and I readily grant that if that were the only odd-looking claim to be found in the Gospel Passion narratives, I wouldn’t be unduly troubled over it.
I have to protest, however, when you write that the prior probability “could be 0.5, if perhaps Pilate was feeling good that day and wanted to toy with the Jewish authorities.” Yes, it could, but you have to bring in gratuitous additional assumptions to bump up that probability. Anybody can play that game. The whole point about a prior probability, however, is that it excludes such gratuitous assumptions, arguing only from what we know. And given the guy’s track record as a cold-blooded killer, the prior likelihood that when faced with an angry mob baying for Jesus’ death, he would respond by saying, “But why? What harm has he done?” is surely quite low. (Interestingly, of all the Gospel accounts, Matthew is the only one who provides a semi-credible reason why Pilate might have been reluctant to condemn Jesus: Claudia Procula’s dream. Perhaps Pilate was superstitious.)
As a physicist, a result like the above would raise eyebrows on the soundness of this whole business of trying to micro-analyze the Gospels and assign priors based on limited historical data.
If you want to know how real historians assess the accuracy and reliability of a source, you might like to read this short response by a medieval historian.
Please note that I’m not saying that historians have to use Bayesian logic. Most don’t. That’s fine. The only reason why I brought up Bayes (whom I never mentioned once in my original post on Alter’s book, except briefly when discussing the McGrews’ approach, not mine) was to show that I was not simply appealing to low prior probabilities when discussing the 17 claims which I cited (as you and @swamidass suggested previously), but rather, to the fact that the evidence of the Gospels themselves wasn’t strong enough to swing the balance of probabilities the other way.
Now, when it comes to purely psychological probabilities, I agree that in some cases, it gets a little iffy. But when we’re talking about statements in the Gospels which go against legal or cultural conventions (which are much weightier than the psychological tendencies of a single individual), or which appear to be highly mythological, or which appear to be mutually contradictory, then it is the duty of an independent historian to be skeptical of such claims.
Of the 17 doubtful claims which I cited, only a couple could be described as purely psychological. Let’s look at them very briefly.
a. (i) Was the Last Supper a Passover meal? (ii) And did Jesus tell his disciples to drink blood? (i) Unlikely because certain key aspects of the Passover meal are missing. (ii) Unlikely because to a Jew, eating blood was taboo.
b. Did Jesus die on the Jewish Passover? Unlikely because the Gospels record the Jews doing various things on Good Friday which would have violated the Passover.
c. Do the Gospels accurately represent Jesus trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin? Unlikely, because the Jewish high priests would have been breaking just about every rule in the book - even back in the first century.
d. Was Pontius Pilate reluctant to convict Jesus? Unlikely because he’d previously killed innocent Jews on several occasions without any compunction, and he continued to do so in later years, as well.
e. Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and the accounts of his death Unlikely because the accounts grow in the telling from Mark onwards, and because the two accounts of his death are flat-out contradictory.
f. The chief priests’ mockery of Jesus on the Cross Unlikely because they would have been too busy slaughtering lambs in the Temple, if the Crucifixion was on the eve of the Passover.
g. The story of the good thief: fact or fiction? Unlikely because it’s only found in Luke (whose motivation for including it seems to be theological) and because the good thief would have had no way of hearing about Jesus’ innocence while languishing in jail.
h. Jesus’ last words on the Cross: fact or fiction? Unlikely because the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ last words completely contradict one another, and no-one would have been standing close enough to hear Jesus’ words anyway.
i. Did Jesus’ mother and the beloved disciple stand at the foot of the Cross? Unlikely because it goes against standard Roman practice: male disciples in particular would not have been allowed near the Cross.
j. The three hours of darkness: fact or fiction? Unlikely because similar mythological claims are found in both Jewish and Greco-Roman literature.
k. The earthquake at Jesus’ death: fact or fiction? Ditto.
l. Was the Veil of the Temple torn in two? Unlikely because it’s nowhere mentioned in Jewish records, even though other, less significant incident relating to the Temple from around that time are mentioned.
m. Were Jewish saints raised at Jesus’ death? Unlikely because only Matthew’s Gospel mentions such a marvelous incident, and because it would have surely resulted in mass conversions, if it happened.
n. Blood and water from Jesus’ side? Unlikely because no-one would have been standing close enough to see it, and because the story appears motivated by John’s desire to show that Jesus (like the Paschal lamb) didn’t have any of his bones broken.
o. Was Jesus buried in a new rock tomb? Unlikely because if he was buried, it would have either been in a tomb reserved for criminals (as per the usual practice) or (temporarily) in a family tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.
p. Was there a Guard at Jesus’ tomb? Unlikely because the story itself is massively internally implausible.
q. The women visiting Jesus’ tomb on Sunday: does the story add up? Unlikely as it stands, because (i) the women would have been traveling without men to escort them, (ii) they would have been trespassing (and violating Roman law) by entering a private tomb, and (iii) the Gospels don’t explain how the women planned to roll away the “very big” stone. Something is missing from the story.
As you can see, most of the rest are historically improbable because they go against cultural, religious or legal norms, or because they appear to incorporate mythological elements, or because they are either blatantly contradictory or massively internally implausible. In these cases, unlike the purely psychological improbabilities, historians would need solid reasons for crediting the Gospel accounts. Apologists haven’t provided any; all they’ve done is play a defensive game of showing how these unlikely claims could be true - which is setting the bar too low. No historian would buy that. The apologists haven’t established their case. That was all I wanted to say.