Torley on The Resurrection: Take Two

Conversation Side Conversation
61

Hello Mung:

I would need to hunt through my library to locate specifically references (if any). The issue is the definition of independent, and who are we talking about: the gospel writers (being independent) or the supposed witnesses (being independent). Perhaps an example in the literature (but this is a stretch) is the apologetic that the narratives could be likened to four people witnessing a car accident and provide differing accounts without them being contradictory. Of course, I reject that line of reasoning (see p. 27).

You inquired: "You think that some of these authors borrowed from another of these authors. Others think they borrowed from an earlier source (named Q).’

Response: Yes, and so do numerous NT scholars. Your example of the Two-source hypothesis is a great illustration. Thank you!

Take care

Mike

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Hello Mung:

Thank you for the heads up.

Next week I will be in Atlanta for several days. During that time, I hope to be at the Emory-Pitts Theological Seminary. They have one of the best libraries in the nation and a great staff. Time permitting I will also go to the AUC library and a few other seminaries. So hopefully they have the book.

Take care

Mike

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63

Hello Joshua:

You asked about Gish Gallop. Being time constrained, I will defer to several internet articles. I hope that will suffice.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallophttps://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallophttps://
effectiviology.com/gish-gallop/

Google had: About 86,600 results (0.29 seconds

Take care

Mike

64

Fair enough: Be careful of the word prove. It is not really applicable in science as science is alway tentative. I think the same may go for history as well.

Another point I want to reiterate is if you start from a point of faith in God then the new testate becomes more credible as a historic document. Here is a lecture on the design hypothesis that may ring true to you.

65

Hello Joshua:

You inquired: 1. What is your historical methodology? Have you rigorously applied this to other events from the same period? Why is this important to us?

Response:

  1. I have previously detailed the methodology that I employed.
  2. No. My concern is the resurrection (1st century). Somewhat, I have employed this method in my research in Exercise Physiology as it relates to Flexibility, Stretching, and Enhancing Range of Motion (ROM). See The Science of Flexibility 3rd ed.
  3. Not at this time. Once again, please look at my previous discussion.
  4. First, you must define the term historian. That said, NO is the response to your request. I literally sent my book to many, many journals to be reviewed. Only one published a review. A logical reason that I have not had many reviews include:
    A. Self published
    B. No PhD in the field
    C. The length of the book (912 pages)
    D. No substantial contacts

In additional, I contacted many, many leading / foremasts Christian apologists [REALLY]. Response: too busy. I even visited several leading EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SEMINARIES and spoke to their instructors [They were instructors of apologetics]. I gave them a free book… They never did the review.

  1. No.

Nonetheless, I would recommended that you please examine three reviews:

  1. Jerry Caine [Conservative Evangelical Christian graduate from Talbot] -https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Critical-MICHAEL-J-ALTER/dp/149905405X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542744486&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Resurrection+A+Critical+Inquiry#customerReviews

  2. John Loftus [five degrees in theology, former Christian, now a leading atheist] - Debunking Christianity: Michael Alter's Encyclopedic Book On the Resurrection Destroys Natural Theology.

  3. Danelaw [As a scientist, attorney, and Southern Baptist by confirmation] Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry

Take care

Mike

66

I think that you misunderstood Joshua, Michael. He knows what a “Gish Gallop” is… rather he was asking about the summary of your conversation found elsewhere (TSZ, maybe, also posted here…) It said:

Professional Engagement, Gish Galloping, Impartiality

Torley Presents Alter’s Case Against the Resurrection

Swamidass begins by picking up from his comments from TSZ, claiming that professional scholars such as Tim McGrew had regarded Alter’s case as unworthy of serious engagement.

Swamidass accuses Torley and Alter’s case of being similar to a Gish gallop: a long series of weak arguments which are difficult to refute due to the sheer number of claims, but combined together might seem like a strong case. Later, Torley takes issue with the criticism that the Alter-Torley case is essentially a Gish gallop.

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Hi Michael
I have purchased your book and hope to get through it in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the conversation. If you are still around I will post then.

68

Hello Michael:

Thank you for the clarification!

  1. It seems that a pertinent issue boils down to what Joshua thinks are my text’s weak arguments. Obviously, not all arguments are equally weighted. However, collectively they can demonstrate a rational reason to question the reality of Jesus’s resurrection, especially if that resurrection is being employed to evangelize or witness.

  2. You wrote: “Swamidass begins by picking up from his comments from TSZ, claiming that professional scholars such as Tim McGrew had regarded Alter’s case as unworthy of serious engagement.”

Response: It would be appreciated if it could be confirmed whether or not Tim has examined my text.

  1. It seems odd that the assertion being raised is that I am employing “Gish Galloping” while the same technique is employed by virtually every Christian apologists, especially William Lane Craig. Gary Habermas and Mike Licona employ the Minimal Facts Approach. However, Gary often mentions that there are about 12 facts that he considers worthy of discussion. These, he boils down to four or five depending upon time limitations. And, many of these “Big 4 or Big 5” contain numerous subcomponents employed in his presentation. See: The Case for the Resurrection (pp. 50, 61, 63, 66, 69, and 74.)

Josh McDowell, in his classic text The Resurrection Factor employs the same approach. And, in reality, most Christian apologists employ the same strategy.

Then, there are those who use C. B. McCullagh’s Best Evidence strategy whereby seven criteria are detailed.

In terms of my text, as I have repeatedly stated, I start with the the arrest of Jesus, and, in general, proceed chronological through the accounts concluding with Jesus’s ascension. In doing so, I present to the reader 217 speculations: a speculation is a speculation. It offers an opportunity to examine the text and further our discussion and understanding. Similarly, I identified 120 potential contradictions. Throughout the text, I present BOTH sides of the aisle. And, a healthy bibliography is presented. In Volume 2, I will further elaborate on several important issues. There was only so much that I could discuss in 912 pages (Volume 1).

So, I guess that I must plead partially guilty, but on grounds of self-defense. Will you [Joshua] permit me the same courtesy and privilege to “gallop along” [bad pun] as do Christian apologists? If not, why? If yes, then they must respond to the points that I raise. Or, am I to commit a metaphorical suicide?

I hope that my comments successfully addressed Joshua’s concerns.

Take care

Mike

69

H Michael: You misunderstand what I was saying… I’m explaining to you that Joshua knows what a Gish Gallop is and he was asking you (based upon the TSZ article, which I had merely copied and pasted some of it above for your clarification).

The text originally can be found here:

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/michael-alters-bombshell-demolishes-christian-apologists-case-for-the-resurrection/

You have responded above as though I wrote those words. I did not… I was merely attempting to clear up a misunderstanding regarding your response to Joshua, further above, in this post in this same thread.

You may have answered Joshua in your post above, I don’t know. I merely wanted you to understand that you were responding to me as though I was involved in the initial text, but it was actually from TSZ.

I hope that makes sense and sorry for the confusion!

Best, Mike

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70

First, thank you for having the intellectual and scholarly integrity to obtain my text, and most import, to examine it.

Second, if you wish, I can point out a few of the errata. Nothing earth shattering. But, one is absolutely ridiculous and I have no idea how it got there.

Third, I appreciate your courtesy and decency.

I definitely cherish and look forward to our continued conversation.

Please note that next week, I will be in Atlanta from November 27 - December 3. My time will be extremely limited to about one hour a day for e-mails [usually 5:00am-6:00 am to write]. Then I need to walk to the library… I hope the weather is good. On Friday-Sunday, I will attend a family gathering. Family comes first…

So, take care and be safe.

Mike

PS Yes, it is a slow read, but hopeful it will pay dividends.

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Early in the book you make this claim:In contrast, the years and in many instances the exact days listed below of various ancient dates are known with absolute and total clarity.

Alter, Michael J… The Resurrection: a Critical Inquiry (Kindle Locations 2137-2138). Xlibris US. Kindle Edition.

How do we know those dates with absolute clarity?
BTW: I see you already knew exactly what a burden shift is :slight_smile:

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Hi Mike,
Welcome to PS. I have been reading the dialogue in this post with great interest over the last few days. Some of the interesting aspects in this conversation are -

  1. A difference in perspective (i.e your perspective is rare to this conversation as it is usually Christians discussing with “non religious” or athiests in recent times)
  2. Whether a theological bias exists in NT scholars.

Can you help me understand more about point 1?
What kind of theology do you hold to? I.e what aspects/theological branch of Jewish faith do you belong to ?
Do you believe what OT prophecies about a Messiah?
Since you are speaking from a Jewish POV, can i assume you believe in a God who intervenes in history, sends prophets, does miracles etc?
Since your arguments are addressed to Jews, understanding your perspective and basic beliefs on related subjects are important to have a quality conversation.

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Rather than making Michael have to repeat himself, please peruse the wiki post that I made: Guide to Alter and Torley on the Resurrection, specifically “Alter Enters the Conversation”.

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Hi Daniel,
I have read this.However, my question was totally different.
Why would the witness of secular historians matter much from a Jewish perspective?
If a case is made that Moses probably did not exist and the exodus did not happen through “expert testimony” from historians, would @MJAlter accept the same?

The way I see it, what should matter from a Jewish perspective is whether a Messiah is predicted?
Could Jesus be said Messiah?
Does Christianity teach a false God (by claiming Jesus is God)?

The way I understand it. The testimony of secular historians on the ressurection would at best be a supplementary argument. The main issue would be the testimony of scripture I(in this case the OT).For example,If @MJAlter is convinced that christianity teaches a false God and not the one revealed to Abraham,Isaac and Jacob, then would any amount of evidence suffice?

I am looking for background to the question. And this is important to understand where we share common ground and what are the important questions.

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75

Wow! What an interesting question.

  1. I think that it would be useful to read my bio at the the Wordpress homepage and read the Preface to my book… A brief overview on the internet reveals that only a few Jews are involved in this area of study / topic. Several names you should examine are R. Michael Skobac, R. Tovia Singer, R. Moshe Shulman, Gerald Sigal [has written several significant books - he was a significant contributor to JewsforJudaism], etc. You should also employ a search for counter missionaries / organizations on the internet. One should be humble - but I will agree that I am not typical. In general, it is my opinion that too many rabbis and members of the Jewish leadership are avoiding this topic. Why: In my opinion, they want Christian support for the state of Israel. This is a major error! They are also totally ignoring the number of Jews who have converted to Christianity. The numbers are staggering. In addition, a cursory review of the curriculum at a Jewish Yeshivah reveals that too many rabbis are not prepared to help their congregants or provide them with the necessary skills to “answer the Knock on the Door”… I could be wrong, but that is my opinion [Emet]

I am NOT frum.

I employ the Messianic prophecies to demonstrate that Jesus is NOT the Messiah. Christian Missionaries employ (to use a phrase by Joshua) Gish Gallop. Several cites and books list up to 300 supposed prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Just go to Jews For Judaism web cite to see a rebuttal. An about must to read are the books by Gerald Sigal. Toviai Singer’s book, and CD, pod casts are useful.

Since Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the disciples, Paul, were all Jewish; they lived in a Jewish environment, the claimed Messiahship is based on the Hebrew Bible - wouldn’t it make sense to examine Jesus’s life through a Jewish lens? Yes, an outside lens might be fruitful. However, carefully examining the often mistranslated and taken out of context Jewish texts will explain, respectfully, why in my opinion (and others), that Christians are inferior.

I need to head to the gym. Trying to maintain…

Later today I will try to answer question 2.

Take care

Mike

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76

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the detailed reply. I dont have access to your book. However i did go through your bio in wordpress.I found it very interesting. I was really intrigued by your series on flexibility!

I haven’t examined the other names given by you. I will try to find out in the coming days.

I noticed an interesting segment in your Bio saying that you are affiliated to Chabad. Can you point to where i can understand further about the beliefs of “Chabad”. Is it a a sect among Jews… ??

Also, i found the following in your Bio.

Alter’s resulting text, The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry , was a direct challenge raised by Anthony Buzzard, a prolific Biblical Unitarian. They corresponded over a lengthy period of time. Although they agree that Jesus is not God and that there is no such thing as the Trinity, Buzzard adamantly maintains that Jesus is the Messiah, a theological position that Alter totally rejects. It was during several communications that Alter was challenged by Buzzard to refute Jesus’s physical, bodily resurrection – supposedly the ultimate proof that Jesus is the Messiah (and also God for mainline Christianity). During a decade and more, Alter worked to meet Buzzard’s challenge, that Jesus was not physically, bodily resurrected.

Do you think its possible that your perspective/motivations created an inherent bias in how you approached the evidence? After all, you were trying to win a challenge!

Yes it would. Provided said lens exists today. I am not convinced the Jews of modern times are anything like those who encountered Jesus in the first century.
Though it’s interesting to note that the result seems to be the same in-spite of the differences between the Jews of old and those that exist today. Some are convinced about Jesus and many are not!.
However if you are going to point to historical evidence for the resurrection . Then its important that a unbiased perspective is maintained. i.e neither a christian perspective nor that of a jew.
Perhaps the perspective of an academic would be better here.

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77

Hello Ashwin:

Back from the gym:

You wrote: Whether a theological bias exists in NT scholars.
Response: Let’s be 100 percent honest! Probably everyone or virtually everyone has some baggage and bias, unless they are a Martian.

Being, human, I too, have limitations. And, as I have discussed earlier, I was challenged to research the topic. Of course, I wanted the “Jewish” side to win. However, my methodology at first, was to explore virtually exclusively the arguments in support of Jesus’s resurrection. The best “stuff”, at first that I found was by William Lane Craig and Josh McDowell. Afterwards, I explored texts specifically categorized as apologetics [BT1095-1100 Congress Library system] followed by Dogmatics and Systematic Theology [in general BT 65-100]. I also explored commentaries to the Gospels [usually very disappointing] and Introduction to the New Testament… After making my list of pro arguments it was then time to find rebuttals. Very little material exists that is/was written by Jews, REALLY. A healthy amount of material by atheists, agnostics, apostates [X-Christians, etc] exists, but often they repeat the same old and tired rebuttals. About ten years into the project, R. Moshe Shulman provided the suggestion that I go through the Christian Bible chronologically and employ Speculations and Contradictions. I re-wrote, deleted, added, etc material and eventually came out with my text. So, although I am biased, I believe that my research was intellectually honest. And, unlike most, if not all Christian apologists, I try to give them a real voice in my text. Just look at my bibliography. However, Volume 2 will specifically interact with Christian Apologists, at least that is my plan.

The ideal is to examine the topic starting tabula rasa. The comment by E.P Sanders (2000, 39) cited in my Preface (xlv) is an ideal but not always practical. See p. xlv…Also, see the comment of Taussig (2004, 249), my xlvii. In so far as burden of proof, see 14-24. Here, I present both sides of the aisle.

Finally, if you examine my home page, you will see I list a healthy selection of books: PRO and CON, about the topic. Be honest, how many Christian apologists list the best books of their opponents and place it/them on their homepage?

Take care

Mike

78

Thanks Daniel but I already responded to Ashwin.

What piece of music are you currently working on? In a few minutes, I will probably be listening to Philip Glass: Glassworks, and then his violin concerto.

Take care

Mike

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79

Hello Austin:

Chabad is an Orthodox Jews “sect” - Lubavitch = Chassidus. Its name is an acronym.They have an extensive web site or go to Wikipedia for a good over view. But please be aware that much of their point of view is based on Kabbalah. You will be clueless (about a lot of their commentaries) unless you understand that material. It is not for the feint of heart. Perhaps, the foremost text is Tanya. It requires a teacher to really understand it. I have learned at Chabad for over twenty years, and elsewhere.

I already discussed the topic of bias…

About the lens… One must attempt to analyze and understand a work: WHO wrote the work, WHEN it was written, WHERE is was written, WHO it was written for, the PURPOSE of that work… Yes, Judaism has evolved.

To be a bit controversial [but up front], Christians need to do the same work and ask is the Christianity of today or starting about the year circa 300 reflect the teachings and view points of Jesus and his disciples, or the INPUT of GREEK PAGANISMS. That is the view point of Anthony Buzzard and many Biblical Unitarians. They are not like most Unitarians of today…I am referring to the Unitarians of about 1700 - 1900. [No Trinity, No Jesus being Divine, etc.] They also need to ask do the teachings of Paul conflict / contradict with Jesus? Would Jesus be happy with the ideas originated by Paul? Just do a search on any search engine.

Time to work on my other books.

Take care

Mike

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I support the state of Israel but only for strictly secular reasons. They are there. They are not moving. We have to deal with that fact.

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