Torley Presents Alter's Case Against the Resurrection

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@vjtorley

3. That’s what “broke the dam” for me. In the end, I came to realize that I’d been making excuses for Scripture all these years, by making illicit use of “coulda-woulda-shoulda” logic. I was happy to let Scripture off the hook if I was able to find a way of reading it whereby its factual claims could be true. I now see that I was setting the evidentiary bar far too low.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else notice the similarity of this logic with those of anti-evolution arguments?

Any perceived gap in the record is taken as evince against [INSERT: scripture or evolution], and a mere just so story. This ends up being an uncharitable reading. All good stories leave out details. The particulars of all stories are phenomenally improbable, all the the more so when we are discussing singular events. This sort of discourse fixates us on the forest, rather than the trees.

That is why NT Wrights case has been so compelling. Taking a far more “scientific” approach, he compares the rise of Christianity with ten other Messiah movements from 100 years before and after, seeing several clear patterns. On several objective demonstrable and undisputed points, the rise of Christianity is different. Why? That is the crux of the “river” that historians are trying to cross. They need some good account of how a group of orthodox Jews, the least likely to adjust their understanding of faith, decided into turn their lives upside down and start welcoming Gentiles as equals, the least likely type of reform we should expect. We have to give an account of what changed Paul too. This is not a matter of accepting revelation. It is a matter of natural theology.

None of this, by the way, depends exclusively on the Scriptural account. The full case can be made without even appealing to Scripture, and just in reference to non-Christian sources. This is also where the historian’s experience is relevant. It appears that the key facts are more attested to than just about any event at that time. To ask for more evidence is equivalent to an ID proponent asking for a step-by-step mutational pathway. It is not reasonable, because by that standard we would not know anything about the past. There is no reason to subject these facts to a evidential standard higher that no other event could cross. To do so is an indication of prejudicial bias.

@vjtorley

I’ve been reading and studying arguments for the Resurrection for many many years. I’ve been debating skeptics for many many tears.

@vjtorley

I say that as someone who regularly takes on skeptics at Debunking Christianity, which I notice no-one around here bothers to do.

I take great exception to this @vjtorley. I encourage you to look more closely at my work. You are not the only one doing this.

@vjtorley

Over that time, I came to see how hollow, lazy and sloppy many arguments for the Resurrection really are.

I agree with this. That is not the point though, is it? Alter’s case looks like a sloppy argument against the Resurrection by picking on only the sloppy arguments for it, and then relying on a poor historical case.

Correct me if I am wrong, but he did not engage with NT Wright, did he? He did not engage with McDowell’s recent work on the Fate of the Apostles, did he?

Are there any historians anywhere that vouch for his work? Who are historians that he engaged to make sure he was making a valid argument? What do they say about his book?