The Role of Historical Apologetics
I think we have very differing views of what apologetics is about and what role it should play in converting people. This might be an interesting topic of discussion in itself. I certainly don’t think any sort of apologetical argument is sufficient to conclusively prove the case for Christianity, such that non-Christians would be irrational to reject it. Maybe some hyper-apologists believe that - and they are wrong, and they were wrong since the time of Jesus.
I’m sure both of us would agree that Christianity spread fastest through social networks, doing good deeds, and the work of the Holy Spirit itself, not people making “historical bombshells” to unleash on their debate opponents.
It is immaterial to the discussion about the overall reliability to the Gospels with a skeptic. The discussion about the correct interpretation of the Eucharist is an in-house debate among Christians who already have a high view of Scripture, accepted based on faith.
Improbability and Historicity
Per Bayes’ theorem,
P(S1|E) = \frac{P(S1)}{P(E)} P(E|S1).
If P(E|S1) were high, and say P(E) = 1 to be conservative, then to make P(S1|E) low, you have to have a very small value for P(S1). The main disagreement between us is that you think for many incidents in the Gospels, P(S1) is incredibly small. For all of the 17 incidents that I’ve given some thought, P(S1) is at worse 50-50 to me. As you will note throughout my reply to you, I also criticize you for rashly assigning small P(S1) based on unclear and inconsistent historical methodology, and a prejudiced reading of the Gospels.
This is completely missing my point. In 3000 AD, a historian reads my diary entry for 9/29/2018, and using your method of historical reasoning, concludes that the probability of them being true is 0.1%. Thus, my diary is dated to 2150 AD, a fabricated legend made by an overzealous sect of my future disciples with faulty memory 
To me, that is a clear reductio ad absurdum. It shows that there is something seriously wrong with this method of historical reasoning.
It is interesting that sometimes you claim you have the consensus of historians behind you. At other times you switch to your own criteria of how history should be done, assuming that this is what “any rational person would do”. This rings alarm bells to me. You cannot simply wave around “60 years after the fact” without showing that such historical criteria is consistent with what the rest of the field regularly practices. Again, Vincent, can you show to me that your criteria doesn’t completely destroy much of our knowledge of the ancient world?
Precisely. My logic was a reductio ad absurdum. My point is that you cannot simply conjure up prior probabilities based on gut feeling, multiply them together and think that shows anything about history. The whole discussion is meaningless. There needs to be a more nuanced way of dealing with evidence, one that apparently neither of us have a full grasp on.
Alter and “fairness”
Is he really? Did you actually read all of the sources he cites on both sides? By read, I don’t mean do a simple Google search. I mean, can you summarize to me what are the main views of Keener with regards to the historicity of the Gospels? Kostenberger? Casey? Which school of thought was Casey influenced by? Who was his doctoral adviser, and what contribution did he make to the field? How do others view his contributions?
These are not rhetorical questions. As you yourself admit that you don’t have a degree in NT studies, nor have you made any original contributions to the field, I can’t just trust you nor Alter about the state of NT studies.
“Would an impartial historian, reading the Passion and Resurrection narratives in the Gospels, be inclined to dispute their factual reliability?”
Most of us have NO IDEA of what an impartial historian would think. Are you claiming that NT Wright is not an impartial historian? Craig? Keener? Licona? McGrew? Blomberg? Why are Casey, Barrett, and Ehrman impartial historians, but not these people?
Going back to the big picture
I’m going to reiterate my major criticisms:
- Lack of clear historical methodology and criteria to accept/reject historicity of events in ancient historical documents. You have not even mentioned once what would happen if you applied your criteria consistently to other ancient documents. Furthermore, it is unclear whether any professional historian (even Bart Ehrman) would accept your criteria.
- The Gish gallop: focusing on minor issues. It is quite interesting and telling to me that you claim your incident-by-incident approach to the historical reliability of the Gospels was motivated by John Loftus, who is not a professional historian, but a strong critic of Christianity.