Friday, February 06, 2009

Arguing with Christian Apologists

I’ve been off, debating Early Church writings on
Vinny’s blog. Nothing exciting; the same arguments we see time and again.

One of the frustrating aspects is when Christian apologists take only the positive from a document, or couch the statement is such a carefully worded way so as to appear if this was a great point, but in fact there are numerous problems.

One of the common items we see is a statement along the lines of Papias mentioned the Gospels of Mark and Matthew.”

This is technically true. Papias did mention two gospels—one by Mark and one by Matthew. But the impression given is that these are the same Gospels we have today. Are they?

A few points to ponder which are also in the few writings we have on Papias:

1. That Mark’s gospel is “not in order” when, in fact, it IS in order.
2. That Matthew’s gospel was in Hebrew, whereas our Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Greek.
3. There is a question whether Papias was a disciple of John the Disciple or another John (the Presbyter), yet Papias does not list any Gospel by John.
4. Papias does not list any gospel by Luke, nor indicate any familiarity with Luke.
5. Papias lists a saying of Christ which he claims to have heard from John that is not in a canonical Gospel. It is from 2 Baruch.
6. Papias gives an account of Judas’ death that is different than Matthew’s and different from Luke’s.
7. Eusebius did not find Papias reliable, primarily because of Papias’ doctrinal belief in a Millennium.

I think it important to emphasize that last point. People’s writings were rejected NOT because of the historical accuracy, NOT because of the reliability of the writing, NOT because of the deterioration of the copies—they were rejected because the person held the “wrong” doctrine!

Imagine that! If a stenographer followed Jesus and recorded his every word, yet ended up Gnostic, his/her writings would be eliminated from consideration for their Gnosticism. Not their accuracy.

The Christian apologist is attempting to use documents, claiming they are historically accurate, when the people of the time were not trying to be historically accurate, had no goal of being historically accurate, and were not preserving documents based on historical accuracy. Theological “correctness” is what determined a documents viability—not its historical accuracy.

Anyway…what does the Christian apologist do when these points are brought up? Usually two responses:

1) Hand-waving: “Oh, those points aren’t important. What IS important is that Papias mentioned any gospels at all.”

2) Ad hoc explanations: “Oh, the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and then translated to Greek. Papias had the Hebrew Copy.” (We would call it “Matthew 1.0” in the computer age.)

The problem with hand-waving is what the Christian embraces; they would NEVER allow a skeptic or a person from another religion. Imagine if we said, “Papias doesn’t mention Luke, so it wasn’t written then.” There would be cries of “Argument from Silence” and “He mentions other Gospels” and “there is no demonstration he would have known Luke to mention it.”

If all we want to do is pick-and-choose the helpful bits, the Christian apologist would cry “foul.” Yet this is exactly what they do.

The problem with ad hoc explanations is that there is no proof (where is a copy of this “Hebrew Matthew”?) and only create further problems. How is it Hebrew Matthew was translated to Greek Matthew in many places the exact same wording as Mark?

Of course, when a Christian apologist has a Christian congregation, these problems are easily resolved. They are never confronted with them from a friendly audience.

When I prepare for a case, I have to look at each fact in the case from three standpoints:

1) Does this help my client?
2) Does this help the other side?
3) What will a neutral party likely determine?

If I had the Christian apologist sitting across my desk, and they brought out Papias, I would be questioning them on these very points. What do I say when the other side brings them out? I cannot ignore them, because if I do, my opponent will surely demonstrate these problems. The jury will not only hear them, but wonder why I ignored them.

What would a neutral party think? Would they be convinced of a (non-existent) Hebrews Matthew we cannot prove, but conveniently “helps” our case? Would they think Mark is not in order? Would they think the death of Judas contradicts Matthew and Luke?

Would they be impressed that these were the same Gospels as what we have today? Or would they be more hesitant to make such a conclusion.

I tire of the failure to recognize the other side has legitimate points. Of Christian apologists who dogmatically state conclusions and then are shocked when we skeptics don’t roll over and simply agree. Their congregation of 1000 did last Sunday—who are we to dare question them? Dare to actually claim knowledge of their church father’s writings.

In my practice I would be lambasted, paupered and then disbarred for continually being unprepared if I treated cases in such a fashion. We HAVE to acknowledge counter-points, because they will be presented to our neutral party who is making the determination. To ignore them, or act as if they don’t exist would be malpractice.

I don’t care if the Christian apologist agrees or disagrees with me. I don’t care if, after reviewing arguments from both positions, they are convinced of their own. This is humanity. What I find stunning is the inability to even recognize the counter-points as having any legitimacy, and the constant brush-off of such points as those of heretics, heathens and hyper-skeptics.

I would dearly, dearly love to take such a Christian apologist, with their approach, into a court of law. They would find such tactics a catastrophic failure.

10 comments:

  1. "7. Eusebius did not find Papias reliable, primarily because of Papias’ doctrinal belief in a Millennium.
    I think it important to emphasize that last point. People’s writings were rejected NOT because of the historical accuracy, NOT because of the reliability of the writing, NOT because of the deterioration of the copies—they were rejected because the person held the “wrong” doctrine!"


    This is an excellent point, I had never thought of it that way before. I think that is another way of describing apologetic logic as well, the quality of the logic isn't what is important as much as the doctrine the logic espouses.

    And that to me is fundamentalism in a nutshell: hold to the truths held dear, and know in your mind that they cannot be altered. All logic, reason, and evidence must support that.

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  2. Dagoods,

    I think what you identify here is perhaps one of the most deleterious aspects of the fundamentalist approach to life, that of assuming an unsubstantiated stance of superiority. That naturally results in an inability to properly utilize logic and places discussion in the realm of emotion instead of reason.

    To me, Christian apologetics is a glaring example of unbelief, an exercise in denial. Faced with the ultimate reality of no substance (i.e., no demonstrable God), instead admitting unsubstantiated faith, the apologist looks to assuage what I guess is a natural need/desire to see by attempting to create substance where there is none. I have much more respect for the Theist who shrugs her shoulders and says she cannot substantiate her belief because it is based on faith, not reason.

    Christian apologetics seems similar approach to me and is used as art was used in earlier centuries. Artists would create images of people they had never seen, and call them "God." The Christian apologist uses word pictures.

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  3. It's interesting.

    You misquote me on a another blog as saying I thought Papias mentions ALL FOUR GOSPELS.

    I almost took your word for it until I went back to see if I had actually made this mistake.

    And then you seem to direct this entire diatribe at me. Or am I just being paranoid?

    Care to take the following debate to a message board where MANY people will see it?

    Are the Gospels authentic or are they pseudynomous/anonymous writings?

    I'll present my opening remarks first first and you can respond. You might want to wait a few days so I can get some of my data up.

    http://www.forerunner.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=94

    I suppose you will bow out and say you have wasted enough time already. But I really resented that last post where you berated me at length for writing something I never wrote!

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  4. Jay Rogers: If you go back and read the thread I said Papias named the Gospel writers in a list of other citations. Soon you had direct quotes next to my name.

    Jay Rogers: Papias names all four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

    I never wrote such a thing!
    (emphasis in original)

    Then let’s make sure of what you said, OK?

    Jay Rogers: Papias is the earliest one who names all four Gospel writers and explains when, where and why the books were written. Here

    Jay Rogers: Papias mentions the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,… Here

    Jay Rogers: Papias names the Gospel writers. Here

    Hmmm…..Now let’s see what I claimed you said when I quoted you Here:

    Jay Rogers: Papias is the earliest one who names all four Gospel writers and explains when, where and why the books were written.

    Jay Rogers: Papias mentions the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, …

    Jay Rogers: Papias names the Gospel writers.

    So how is it…exactly…I misquoted you again?

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  5. No, I am not interested in debating you on your forum. I just went through that with someone else and it was…interesting.

    Further, as you do not agree on literary dependence between Matthew, Mark and Luke (despite using the dating of Robinson)—I am not terribly interested in going through a debate where I would have to re-argue what is recognized by the vast majority of Biblical scholars.

    Finally, arguing with Christian apologists is…frankly…boring. I enjoy discussing with Biblical scholars, but people hamstrung with doctrinal necessity becomes, as our discussion at Vinny’s blog admirably demonstrates, tired and old.

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  6. What will a neutral party likely determine?

    This stricture does not apply to theology: There is no such thing as a "neutral" party. There are only two possible positions: you either have faith or you do not. The conflict is not between the dogmatic theists and the dogmatic atheists, but between the dogmatic theists and us, the skeptics.

    The conflict is metaphysical, between the skeptical and theistic ways of evaluating evidence.

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  7. I think it important to emphasize that last point. People’s writings were rejected NOT because of the historical accuracy, NOT because of the reliability of the writing, NOT because of the deterioration of the copies—they were rejected because the person held the “wrong” doctrine!

    I am always amused that the great hero of the Reformation Martin Luther probably would have dumped the Epistle of James if he thought he could get away with it because it undermined Sole Fide.

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  8. Jay Rogers is over on Vinny’s blog, still debating. The link is in the blog entry. I keep lifting my fingers to keyboard in reply over there and then think, “Why bother?”

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  9. Dagoods,

    I have the exact same feeling. I was away for the weekend at a niece's wedding and I still have not waded through everything Jay posted to figure out whether any of it is actually relevant to the question of the authorship of the gospels.

    ReplyDelete