Thursday, May 12, 2011

Journey Beginning

Last month, I was reading Dr. Dale Allison’s Constructing Jesus--another learned treatise explaining a scholar’s conclusions what we can or cannot know regarding Jesus.

And in the middle of a re-read paragraph, it struck me…

I don’t care.

(Don’t blame Dr. Allison—this work is as fine as any other. Makes some good points, and qualifies what we cannot know.)

I found myself having to forcibly re-engage (with reluctance) each time I picked up the book. Not because of the writing style, or the method of argumentation; I realized I am no longer interested in the topic itself.

It seems each author desires to paint Jesus in some light—and not just any old light, but something slightly “new” and “different” and captivating to the recipients. He was eschatological! He was philosophical! He was Jewish! He didn’t exist!

And with each approach, the scholars triumphantly extol a “new” revelation to the readers—the Gospel of Thomas holds the “true Jesus.” The Gospels give hints as to their eyewitness underpinning. Paul didn’t know Jesus. The Gospel of John was first—look to it for the “real Jesus.” The Gospel of Mark was first—look to it for the “real Jesus.” The Gospel of Matthew was first—look to it for the “real Jesus.”

Anywhere from inspecting each Greek word as if it dripped from Heaven itself, utterly packed with wholesome “trueness,” to looking at the general gist to looking at none of it at all! I think if we gathered every word some scholar held to be “true” when it comes to Jesus, it would include every word written in the first two centuries. And if we excluded every word some other scholar held to be false, we would have nothing left.

Take your pick—the piles are plentiful for the taking.

Then, even amongst those who agree on the excluded/included words, we are left with interpretation. Was he the Son of God? The Messiah? A traveling Rabbi? Did he preach love, hate, justice, mercy, all and none? Should we follow the Law? Or have we triumphed over it?

Would Jesus vote for Gay Marriage?

If Jesus called out certain Religious leaders, as he did the Pharisees, who would it be? (Having heard the polemic raised time and time again, I can answer confidently what every “True Christian” would reply: “Not me!”)

In the end, most people create the Jesus they want. Utilizing (and dismissing) whatever texts and/or interpretations are necessary to get there.

And my life is so full right now. I am running more than I ever have before (deciding for some inexplicable reason I will do a half-marathon this fall.) My son is in two (2) soccer teams and track, guaranteeing a practice and/or game every day. (Not to mention my own soccer.) My daughter continues to need assistance with schoolwork. My house enjoys creating work with drippy faucets, leaky roofs or peeling paint.

Adding on spring time projects outside, a family that would like to spend a little time together, an interest in a charitable project and friends who are inviting….

…just no time to care about what sandals the “true Jesus” would have worn. Or whether Nazareth existed enough to allow him to be from there at the time.

Equally my reasons to study the topic are waning. Arguing with apologists has become tedious. Sure, at one time it was fun, to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of argumentation. Never to convince the apologist, of course. They will staunchly hold to their belief even when their claims have blown up so completely the ashes will have nothing to do with them.

Always for the lurker. Always to let the non-talkative watcher know the tricks being pulled, the strawmen being created, the errors ignored.

Now the apologists come here no more. I can manage a comment or two on their sites and blogs, but then I am ignored. A new topic quickly brought up to bury the lingering questions that need not be addressed if not seen.

I ache for people struggling with their beliefs—verging on deconversion. Yet I find, even with my empathy, so little to say. I realize (having been there) they desperately desire to maintain some theism; some faith in a higher being. I have no words to encourage that hope. (I AM an atheist after all.) I hope they find truth. And hey, if they find a great argument for God, I hope they share it.

But how can I, a non-believer, in good conscience say, “Gee, I really hope Christianity in some form, or theism in another form work out for you”? So under the adage, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” I either maintain silence or attempt to convey my empathy without compromising what I am convinced is true.

I understand I should up-in-arms over the Christian invasion into the politics of America. Somehow I doubt my blog has changed enough minds to see Gay Marriage legalized more than it was before.

And finally, the people I am chumming with don’t talk about Christianity; they don’t swim in it. Frankly, I don’t know (and don’t care) what their particular religious beliefs are. Without feeding the idea—the idea dies.

Where do I go from here? Anywhere I want! The world is wide open. I still find the topic interesting enough to lurk on my own, so I review my blogroll as need be.

I originally titled this blog entry “Journey’s End.” Now written, I see that as completely incorrect and have changed the title to the more appropriate.

88 comments:

  1. What's that old saying, "one door closes another door opens"? Your interests seem varied and satisfying. For you the dead mule has been sufficiently kicked. Nothing to gain from continuing to do so. Honestly I'm getting to that point more quickly than I thought I ever would. I ate, slept and breathed God. Without God there was a mighty big slot of my time to fill. And I'm filling it with actually living for a change. I'm not atheist, but it's been sufficiently proven to me that the Bible isn't what it's cracked up to be and we can't possibly know who the "real" Jesus was. Having ditched the fear of hell it's really not so bothersome to me not to know. Maybe that's premature, I don't know. But I see no reason to spend years upon years to try to find the answer to a question that other people have been trying to answer for centuries and haven't been able to.

    I've been trying to read Thom Stark's book, The Human Faces of God. I'm having the same problem you seem to be having. I simply lack the motivation. I thought if I reviewed it on my blog chapter by chapter it would motivate me. We'll see, I guess.

    Happy journey to you, DagoodS. But don't stop blogging, please. I'd like to hear about the new journey. :)

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  2. I agree with eveything D'Ma said.

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  3. I vary from day to day in my theistic views, but I resonate with a lot of what you said here. I am finding myself less and less interested in wrestling with issues I can never have answered anyway... and it does, as you indicate, distract from life.

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  4. Arguing with apologists has become tedious. Sure, at one time it was fun, to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of argumentation. Never to convince the apologist, of course. They will staunchly hold to their belief even when their claims have blown up so completely the ashes will have nothing to do with them.

    Hi DagoodS. Sorry for commenting on your blog just as you’re done with apologists, but I found some of your points interesting.

    You said that apologists “will staunchly hold to their beliefs even when their claims have blown up so completely the ashes will have nothing to do with them.” By that, do you mean that you think the central arguments for Christian theism have been refuted? Or do you mean that individual apologists make weak arguments, fail to substantiate their claims when challenged, and remain Christians afterwards?

    If it’s the former, how many of William Lane Craig’s debates have you watched or read? He routinely defeats the non-theists he debates, something atheistic bloggers usually recognize but attribute to Craig’s superior debating skills. However, I am always looking for the best atheistic arguments, and I have yet to come across anyone who has in writing refuted the Kalam cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the argument from moral law, and the resurrection of Jesus. (This includes the scholars in the appropriate fields.) These are central arguments that together make a case for Christian theism, so if you think you have refuted them, I would love to have you direct me to discussions you’ve had on these subjects.

    But if you mean that you’ve had discussions with apologists who make weak arguments, get destroyed, and then retreat, how do you know that these are the best Christian thinkers? If I make a really weak argument—for example, claiming that the existence of Precious Moments figurines is evidence for God—and you blow up my claims, you may have established that I’m a little loopy, but the aforementioned arguments for Christian theism still stand. My Precious Moments argument would not have weakened them one bit.

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  5. Always for the lurker.

    DaGoodS, I was once a Christian lurker who read your articles on Debunking Christianity. 'nuff said. Thanks for everything.

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  6. Anette: search this blog for "Craig". Doofus.

    A debate is a form of entertainment. It has very little to do with the search for truth.

    And yes, the central arguments for Christian theism have been defeated, killed, buried, and left to rot; they continue to plague humanity as a host of intellectual zombies. Craig is a perfect example, hiding a complete lack of intellectual rigor under a facile presentation. Only those of low education, intelligence, or character are convinced.

    I have a slightly more... aggressive... stance than does Dagood.

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  7. I have yet to come across anyone who has in writing refuted the Kalam cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the argument from moral law, and the resurrection of Jesus.

    Have you ever heard of Google? Good grief.

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  8. Larry,

    Please note that I said that I'm always looking for the best atheistic arguments, NOT village atheist rants. ;)

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  9. Please note that I said that I'm always looking for the best atheistic arguments, NOT village atheist rants. ;)

    No, you're not. I mean, you haven't even looked if you haven't found anyone refuting in writing the resurrection of Jesus. You haven't even looked at this very blog. I suspect you're interested only in saying you've looked for the best atheist arguments, so you can feel more comfortable with your own belief.

    That's not an attitude I personally approve of, but it's a free country.

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  10. I suspect you're interested only in saying you've looked for the best atheist arguments, so you can feel more comfortable with your own belief.

    Let me once again repeat what I said: I am looking for the best atheistic arguments. Present tense, not past tense. Yes, I have looked, but I am continuing to look.

    I happen to know that DagoodS is a good thinker, which is why I'm here asking him to substantiate his assertion that the claims of apologists have "blown up so completely the ashes will have nothing to do with them." If he regularly spouted nonsense, I wouldn't bother.

    But if he doesn't have time to reply to me, maybe you can provide links to debates where DagoodS has refuted these four arguments. You seem to be familiar with his writings.

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  11. I think Anette proves your point.

    I enjoy reading your blog I still hope to connect in person someday.

    Whatever you do I am happy for you.

    Bruce

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  12. DagoodS,

    You have my compliments and thanks for years of insightful and engaging writing on matters also once dear to me but increasingly superseded. Whatever becomes of this outlet, your blog among precious few others remains in my memory as an early and enduring catalyst for intellectual reflection in my gradual departure from Christianity. How I stumbled across this place is forgotten but not the reasons why I returned again and again. From one stranger to another anonymous blogger: it's been real.

    Reuben

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  13. I think Anette proves your point.

    How did I prove DagoodS's point, Bruce? I was completely sincere when I said that I'm always looking for the best atheist arguments. I was also sincere when I said that DagoodS is good thinker.

    But even after a year-and-a-half of almost daily conversations with atheists and listening to them, I don't understand why they deconvert. I am still looking for insight, and since DagoodS seems intellectually honest and rational I figured I would ask him.

    I wish you well, DagoodS. I'll bow out here and leave you to those who have shared your journey.

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  14. Anette,

    I can only speak for myself here....I deconverted because I no longer believed the Bible to be truth. I no longer had the requisite faith necessary to believe the gospel message.

    Perhaps the reason you don't get it is because you think a person through argument or debate can "prove" Christianity. You diminish your religion when you do so. Christianity has always been a religion of faith and therein lies its strength.

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  15. I echo Reuben's well-written sentiment. You have educated, influenced and encouraged more readers than you'll ever actually know.

    I thought it would be interesting to go back and reread your first couple of blog posts. In the second one you wrote:

    "I must admit, I am not real sure what to do with a blog. I don’t see my writing insightful comments that the world can hardly contain its excitement until the next witty installment...

    I feel as if, in writing a blog, it must be clever, or cute, or compelling. That seems like too much pressure."

    Obviously, you figured out what to do with a blog and for years have handled the pressure of creating clever, cute, and compelling posts!

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  16. To All,

    Thank you very much for the kind words. This was not intended to be a full and complete goodbye. More an indication why I haven’t posted for a bit, and a change of direction.

    You may like the change; you may not. You may not care. But when it comes to answering the question, “Who was Jesus?” I am no longer interested in the topic.

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  17. DoOrDoNot,

    To be honest, your blog entry was partly in mind when writing my own. I wanted to write an encouraging word to your husband and realized I had none. I cannot, in all honesty, say, “I hope Christianity works out for you”—I do not think Christianity is true. Why would I hope a person believes an untruth?

    I have reviewed the placebo arguments for religious or theistic belief. While I somewhat empathize with the sentiment, the arguments do not personally resonate with me. I am a person who wants the truth—not a placebo that “works.” So I won’t utilize a statement I don’t personally believe in. Others can use the argument—they may subscribe it. I can’t.

    What else do I say? Some bland platitude, “Hope it all works out.” About as helpful as “Drive Safe”—a meaningless inanity forgotten as soon as the words hit the air.

    My experience has been that Christians are oh-so-nice and oh-so-helpful as long as one is “doubting.” Become a full-blown deconvert, and the sharpened teeth appear.

    Again, you and your husband’s experience may be different. Why should I believe my experience will be your own? You don’t need to hear my negativity.

    If I don’t have anything helpful to say; don’t say anything at all.

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  18. Anette Acker,

    In answer to your questions: Yes, the arguments for Christianity have been refuted [isn’t that a bit obvious? If I didn’t think they were refuted, I would have remained a Christian] and yes I find people who self-identify as “apologists” make weak arguments, intending only to retain the choir rather than convince the unpersuaded.

    Who is William Lane Craig?

    O.K., I know who he is, and have read his articles, and have listened to so many of his debates, I know what he will say next. I wanted to give you a moment of exaltation that perhaps I haven’t done my research. Alas, I can only afford a moment.

    The claims you raised are easily refuted:

    1) Kalam Cosmological:

    a) Commits the equivocation fallacy;
    b) Begs the Question;
    c) Fails to consistently apply methodology when arguing for attributes of the “cause.”

    2) Fine Tuning fails to make comparative odds.

    3) Moral argument argues by definition without first doing the heavy lifting of demonstrating why morals are defined they way it requires.

    4) Even the best Resurrection apologists retreat to gasping that the evidence will only convince those who already believe the Resurrection.

    I didn’t make those responses to enter into a discussion; I pointed them out to test how much you have really looked at these arguments. If you didn’t immediately understand what was being claimed, or why these significantly reduce the Christian arguments, I will respectfully state you have either failed to adequately search for replies OR have failed to adequately understand the depth of the arguments. Or both.

    While Larry the Barefoot Bum may have a slightly more aggressive stance than I—I echo his comments. I found myself thinking the exact same thing reading your comments—he beat me to it.

    Perhaps 6 months ago, I would have taken up the sword and decimated (yet again) these claims. Today, I am far more interested in how many players will show up for our Co-ed Soccer game at 3 p.m. ‘cause it is cold, wet and miserable here in Michigan.

    Finally—you really don’t understand why people deconvert? After a year-and-a-half of almost daily conversations? Might I suggest you start to actually listening to what people say (rather than assign what you think they are saying.) Perhaps you are incapable of empathy and may never understand. The vast majority of Christians cannot.

    It is simple as pie—we found a question that wouldn’t go away. It pounded in our heads with every heartbeat, it moved with us as we walked, it woke us up, it refused to be suppressed.

    For each of us, that question was different. For some, it may have to do with aligning Evolution with Genesis. For others, it may be, “Why did a Christian do that?” For others, it may have been some biblical difficulty.

    And the standard Christian polemics were no longer satisfactory to make that question go away…

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  19. "Slow golf clap" for DagoodS.

    I'm glad to see that wasn't a farewell to blogging. :)

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  20. Thank you for your response, DagoodS. I understand that the reasons for deconversion are different for each person—and I know people who have struggled with those exact issues you mentioned in your last paragraph. I also understand Bruce’s point about simply not believing anymore.

    The reasons why I wanted your perspective is because I do believe that you did your research and deconverted for intellectual reasons. I remember that when Vinny and I had the discussion about Sherwin-White’s book (which you had not read) you asked intelligent questions about what it said rather than jumping to partisan conclusions about who was right. I also know that your question about Theopneustos was a good one.

    So I would like to know how you have refuted those arguments. I’m not asking you to enter into another discussion about it—I’m asking for links to discussions you have already had. Your one-sentence responses don’t tell me much. I can give one-sentence responses to what you’ve said:

    1) Kalam Cosmological:

    a) Commits the equivocation fallacy;
    b) Begs the Question;
    c) Fails to consistently apply methodology when arguing for attributes of the “cause.”


    The Kalam cosmological argument does not beg the question and a “cause” is a deterministic or a probabilistic (on the quantum level) cause.

    2) Fine Tuning fails to make comparative odds.

    Do you subscribe to Victor Stenger’s point of view?

    3) Moral argument argues by definition without first doing the heavy lifting of demonstrating why morals are defined they way it requires.

    The argument from moral law relies on demonstrating why all the various non-theistic definitions of morality fail, not on insisting on a particular definition.

    4) Even the best Resurrection apologists retreat to gasping that the evidence will only convince those who already believe the Resurrection.

    The best resurrection apologists do not say this. They say that the evidence will not convince those who insist on setting the prior probability (that God exists and would raise Jesus from the dead) at zero, because then the posterior probability (after the specific evidence) always remains zero. But even Lawrence Krauss, in a debate against Craig on whether there was evidence for God, conceded that deism was plausible. So the prior probability is not zero. (Okay, that was more than one sentence.)

    As I said, I am also not looking to get into debates on these subjects, but I am genuinely interested in what you have already said. However, if you are no longer interested enough in those subjects to direct me to your prior discussions, then I wish you luck at your soccer game today.

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  21. Thank you for your response, DagoodS. I understand that the reasons for deconversion are different for each person—and I know people who have struggled with those exact issues you mentioned in your last paragraph. I also understand Bruce’s point about simply not believing anymore.

    The reasons why I wanted your perspective is because I do believe that you did your research and deconverted for intellectual reasons. I remember that when Vinny and I had the discussion about Sherwin-White’s book (which you had not read) you asked intelligent questions about what it said rather than jumping to partisan conclusions about who was right. I also know that your question about Theopneustos was a good one.

    So I would like to know how you have refuted those arguments. I’m not asking you to enter into another discussion about it—I’m asking for links to discussions you have already had. Your one-sentence responses don’t tell me much. I can give one-sentence responses to what you’ve said:

    1) Kalam Cosmological:

    a) Commits the equivocation fallacy;
    b) Begs the Question;
    c) Fails to consistently apply methodology when arguing for attributes of the “cause.”


    The Kalam cosmological argument does not beg the question and a “cause” is a deterministic or a probabilistic (on the quantum level) cause.

    2) Fine Tuning fails to make comparative odds.

    Do you subscribe to Victor Stenger’s point of view?

    3) Moral argument argues by definition without first doing the heavy lifting of demonstrating why morals are defined they way it requires.

    The argument from moral law relies on demonstrating why all the various non-theistic definitions of morality fail, not on insisting on a particular definition.

    4) Even the best Resurrection apologists retreat to gasping that the evidence will only convince those who already believe the Resurrection.

    The best resurrection apologists do not say this. They say that the evidence will not convince those who insist on setting the prior probability (that God exists and would raise Jesus from the dead) at zero, because then the posterior probability (after the specific evidence) always remains zero. But even Lawrence Krauss, in a debate against Craig on whether there was evidence for God, conceded that deism was plausible. So the prior probability is not zero. (Okay, that was more than one sentence.)

    As I said, I am also not looking to get into debates on these subjects, but I am genuinely interested in what you have already said. But if you are no longer interested enough in those subjects to direct me to your prior discussions, then I wish you luck at your soccer game today.

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  22. Dagoods,

    I was just rereading the comments to a post of mine entitled “I Am Accused of ‘Unyielding Curmudgeonly Skepticism’.” In the post, I had challenged an apologist’s claims about the extent to which 1 Clement corroborated the authorship of the books of the New Testament. In the comments, you also focused attention on his claim that Papias identified the authors of all four canonical gospels.

    It is amazing to me how long it took for you to get him to admit the simple and indisputable fact that we have no record of Papias mentioning Luke at all and no record of Papias identifying John as the author of a gospel. In response to your insistent questioning, he wrote many long comments in which he made completely unverifiable claims about what Papias, Clement, and other early fathers knew about the authorship of the gospels while equivocating on the fact that their writings didn’t evidence that knowledge. In desperation, he even denied making the claim that Papias had identified all for authors, but when you confronted him with direct quotations of his words, he acknowledged that he had been mistaken on that point. I am not certain that he actually admitted to being wrong about any other point.

    I can certainly appreciate why you have grown tired of such absurd exchanges. When it takes so much effort to get someone to acknowledge an obvious error when the evidence is clear and indisputable on the point, you can be sure that he is never going to concede any point upon which the evidence is merely extremely weak or indeterminate, e.g., the apostles willingness to die for their beliefs. However, I want to thank you for how much I learned about the writings of the Apostolic Fathers from that exchange as well as how much I have learned from you on other topics.

    Like you, I find myself writing fewer posts of my own these days. I suspect that I will continue to run into you from time to time on apologists’ blogs. It is hard to resist commenting on some of the more outrageous claims.

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  23. Anette,

    You are one of the most pleasant Christian apologists that I have run across in the blogosphere, but your stubbornness is no less than that of many others. For example, you continue to insist that it is an incontrovertible fact that James converted as a result of witnessing an appearance of the risen Christ despite the fact that nothing in the New Testament or early Christian writings makes such a claim; while some early writings actually indicate the opposite, i.e., that he was already a follower of Jesus at the time of the appearance. In fact, the more we discuss the issue, the more convinced you seem to become.

    Unlike the exchange with the apologist that I referenced in my last comment, the evidence does not directly contradict the assertion that James converted as the result of an appearance. The New Testament simply does not indicate the circumstances under which James became a follower of Jesus. Nevertheless, there should not be any problem in recognizing that we lack evidence on the point.

    I have thought about getting a copy of Sherwin-White’s book in order to reconsider some of the issues that you raised. It wouldn’t surprise me to find my mind changed on some points, although I still think that Strobel, Craig, and a variety of other apologists have shamelessly misrepresented his work. One of the things that discourages me, however, is that I don’t relish the thought of going through the same kind of long tedious exchanges about those points that shouldn’t be controversial.

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  24. Anette Acker,

    I’m impressed. I have difficulty grasping quantum mechanics on our natural plane, yet you apparently understand quantum probabilities on the supernatural plane, as you are making declarations about what the “cause” would be like on the supernatural plane. That IS where the cause occurs according the Kalam, right?

    So why did I say Kalam begs the question?


    Vinny,

    Thanks for the memory. A great example why this arguing with apologists becomes so meaningless.

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  25. Vinny:

    You are one of the most pleasant Christian apologists that I have run across in the blogosphere, but your stubbornness is no less than that of many others. For example, you continue to insist that it is an incontrovertible fact that James converted as a result of witnessing an appearance of the risen Christ despite the fact that nothing in the New Testament or early Christian writings makes such a claim; while some early writings actually indicate the opposite, i.e., that he was already a follower of Jesus at the time of the appearance. In fact, the more we discuss the issue, the more convinced you seem to become.

    Thank you for your kind words, Vinny.

    I think you’re misremembering our discussion about James. I never said that it was an incontrovertible fact that James converted because he witnessed the risen Christ. I started out by saying that the NT evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that he converted as a result of the appearance, and by that I meant that without exception, those who questioned it did so because of bias, so doubt was not reasonable. However, you did persuade me that the evidence did not meet that standard of proof, and I admitted that by saying, “The evidence is weaker than the evidence for Paul's conversion, and I probably shouldn't have said ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’" I proceeded to say that by inference to the best explanation for the NT evidence, James converted after the appearance mentioned in 1 Cor. 15:7. I think I substantiated that statement, and I still stand by it. (I also gave reasons why the Gospel of the Hebrews and other early Christian writings should be given less weight.)

    It is actually very important to me that I not overreach or overstate my case in apologetics. I try to make sure that everything I say is true and that I understand the quotes I use correctly in context, because I know how important it is that my readers (a number of whom are atheists) can trust me. But since I am certainly capable of making mistakes and choosing my words carelessly, I’m glad that you were there to hold me accountable when I discussed the resurrection evidence, since you are obviously very knowledgeable on the subject. I wanted my readers to see both sides.

    If you can think of other examples of me being unreasonably “stubborn,” I would like to hear them, because that’s something I try to avoid. My policy is to admit right away when I’m wrong because I consider the subject matter important enough that it's not worth letting my ego get in the way.

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  26. DagoodS:

    I’m impressed. I have difficulty grasping quantum mechanics on our natural plane, yet you apparently understand quantum probabilities on the supernatural plane, as you are making declarations about what the “cause” would be like on the supernatural plane. That IS where the cause occurs according the Kalam, right?

    That's not what I meant. I was responding to the argument about causality that I thought you were making based on your few cryptic words.

    So why did I say Kalam begs the question?

    Since I failed at my first attempt to read your mind and you failed at your attempt to read my mind, maybe we should just agree at this point that this is an ineffective way to carry on a discussion.

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  27. Anette,

    I recall now that you did back off from "beyond a reasonable doubt." However, I also recall how much discussion it took to get you to that point. I also recall how many times I had to point out that the Catholic Church had traditionally identified James the Just with James the son of Alpheus before you modified your claim that about the consensus of scholars on the point.

    The plain simple truth is that none of the New Testament documents tell us when James converted. You are certainly free to question the reliability of the early Christian writings that point in the other direction. You may also dismiss as biased the Catholic scholars and early writers who seem to have reached the opposite conclusion. Nevertheless, that still leaves us without any early affirmative witness to James converting as a result of the appearance. We just don't know when James converted. His conversion coming some time before the crucifixion fits the available evidence at least as well as his conversion as a result of an appearance.

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  28. Vinny,

    Again, I think you're misremembering. You initially thought I had changed my mind and become more certain:

    Vinny: In an earlier comment, you seemed willing to allow that there might be some uncertainty on the question, but now you are claiming that the New Testament proves it beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Anette: In an earlier comment, I said that we don't have 100% proof, or mathematical proof, and now I'm saying that the NT proves it beyond a reasonable doubt. Mathematical proof and the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof are two different standards of proof. So I have not become more certain--I have remained exactly as certain as I was the last time we discussed this.

    So at that point, I didn't change my mind, because you were mistaken in saying that I had become more certain.

    You then asked me for a scholar who thought we could be sure that James converted as a result of the appearance, and I quoted atheistic Bible scholar Gerd Ludemann:

    "Only vague conjectures are possible about the historical background to this individual vision, which represents a kind of conversion of James . . ."

    He also says later on the page: "It should be noted that James had no religious link with his brother during Jesus' lifetime."

    But in spite of the fact that I could immediately produce, not just any old scholar, but a scholar who has a bias against my position, I still decided to back down from my "beyond a reasonable doubt" stance, and did so shortly afterwards.

    With respect to the Catholic scholars, this is what we said:

    Vinny: In any case, it is wrong to say that “very few scholars” doubt that James converted as a result of the appearance. As we have discussed before, the Catholic Church has traditionally identified James the Just with James, the son of Alpheus, who was one of the Twelve. You may disagree with this position all you like and you may attribute it to theological bias, but you can’t simply ignore it in order to invoke a consensus among scholars that doesn’t exist.

    Anette: I forgot to take into consideration the position of the Catholic Church when I said that, so when I said "very few scholars," that was incorrect.

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  29. Anette,

    The fact that your level of certainty did not change is precisely the problem. When it is pointed out to me that affirmative evidence for an assertion is less than I thought it was, I become less certain and I qualify future assertions accordingly (even if I am reluctant to openly confess that I am doing so).

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  30. Vinny,

    You did not point out to me that the affirmative evidence was less than I thought. In fact, throughout our discussion I continued to give reasons why, by inference to the best explanation, James converted when Jesus appeared to him.

    I defended my position and even cited a skeptical scholar in support of it. Keep in mind that Ludemann advances the hallucination theory in his book, and the idea that James was a skeptic prior to the appearance undermines his theory. Still he states as fact that James converted when Jesus appeared to him.

    The only thing that changed was that I realized that I should not have said "beyond a reasonable doubt." And I admitted that, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.

    Also, the point of the first conversation I quoted was that you had said that I had expressed more certainty during the course of our discussion, and I challenged that allegation.

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  31. Anette,

    I recall that one of your arguments was that “there is no good reason why James would have converted before seeing Jesus postmortem.”

    I responded with several questions, the following of which I don't think you ever answered: "Many people became followers of Jesus without witnessing a postmortem appearance. Are you saying that none of them had a good reason for converting? If they had a good reason, why couldn't James? Or are you saying that no one who was initially skeptical about Jesus during his life could ever have a good reason for changing their mind about him other than witnessing a postmortem appearance?"

    Unless you are going to seriously maintain that there is no good reason for a skeptic to change his mind about Jesus short of a personal appearance of the risen Christ, then you have to concede that James becoming a follower of Jesus prior to the crucifixion is also perfectly consistent with the New Testament writings. (Moreover, it is more consistent with early traditions outside the New Testament.)

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  32. Vinny:

    Or are you saying that no one who was initially skeptical about Jesus during his life could ever have a good reason for changing their mind about him other than witnessing a postmortem appearance?"

    No, I'm not saying that, but the point is that there has to be a good reason why they overcome their skepticism. John 7:3-5, which appears to be right before the Passover during which Jesus was crucified, says that the brothers of Jesus knew about His works and didn't believe Him. In Mark 3:20-21, Jesus appears to be at the height of His popularity (constantly followed by crowds) and His family come to take charge of Him because they think He's out of His mind. (And as we discussed before, there is no hint anywhere in the Gospels that they were followers of Jesus.)

    So the question then is why the brothers went from being skeptics at that time to all-out believers at the beginning of Acts, after Jesus had been executed as a criminal and His followers risked suffering the same fate. There has to be some good reason.

    We are told in 1 Cor. 15:7 that Jesus appeared to James postmortem. That would be a very good reason for him to change his mind because it would be greater proof than that which was not sufficient before. So by inference to the best explanation, we can conclude that he converted because of the appearance.

    If Catholic scholars start with the presupposition that Mary remained a virgin and interpret the evidence in light of that, then that is no different than YECs starting with the presupposition that the earth is 6000 years old and interpreting the scientific evidence accordingly. If people do not consider the evidence honestly, then we can safely disregard their conclusions.

    And as I said before, Ludemann, to his credit, simply looked at the NT and the early Christian writings honestly and arrived at the conclusion that fits all the facts. He did this in spite of the fact that the appearances to James as a skeptic and Paul are problematic for the hallucination theory.

    Ludemann also mentions the early Christian writings, and says about the Gospel of the Hebrews: "Furthermore, the attestation to the report is late. Its basis is a New Testament tradition of the eucharist which 'has been transformed into a personal legend to glorify James'. Apart from the fact that Jesus appeared to James, the text gives us no reliable information of any kind. Rather, the tradition in the Gospel of Hebrews serves to enable admirers of James in the second and third generations to claim the first appearance for James rather than Cephas."

    It's important to keep in mind that in a culture where eyewitness testimony was so important, as long as the eyewitnesses were still alive, they played an important role in protecting the truth. But by the second and third centuries, they were all dead, so the writings during that time were far less reliable.

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  33. "In Mark 3:20-21, Jesus appears to be at the height of His popularity (constantly followed by crowds) and His family come to take charge of Him because they think He's out of His mind. (And as we discussed before, there is no hint anywhere in the Gospels that they were followers of Jesus.)"

    I have a question about this, Anette. What is your take on the angel's appearance to Mary and Joseph? Do you believe that to be an interpolation or truth?

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  34. No, I'm not saying that, but the point is that there has to be a good reason why they overcome their skepticism. John 7:3-5, which appears to be right before the Passover during which Jesus was crucified, says that the brothers of Jesus knew about His works and didn't believe Him. In Mark 3:20-21, Jesus appears to be at the height of His popularity (constantly followed by crowds) and His family come to take charge of Him because they think He's out of His mind. (And as we discussed before, there is no hint anywhere in the Gospels that they were followers of Jesus.)

    So the question then is why the brothers went from being skeptics at that time to all-out believers at the beginning of Acts, after Jesus had been executed as a criminal and His followers risked suffering the same fate. There has to be some good reason.

    We are told in 1 Cor. 15:7 that Jesus appeared to James postmortem. That would be a very good reason for him to change his mind because it would be greater proof than that which was not sufficient before. So by inference to the best explanation, we can conclude that he converted because of the appearance.


    If there are many good reasons why a skeptic might become a follower of Jesus other than a postmortem appearance, then there is no reason why that explanation for James becoming a follower is any better any other. Moreover, that explanation does not account for why Jesus’ mother thought he was crazy in Mark 3 but asks him to work a miracle in John 2. Nor does it explain why the other brothers of Jesus went from skeptics to followers.

    If Catholic scholars start with the presupposition that Mary remained a virgin and interpret the evidence in light of that, then that is no different than YECs starting with the presupposition that the earth is 6000 years old and interpreting the scientific evidence accordingly. If people do not consider the evidence honestly, then we can safely disregard their conclusions.

    If you actually believed this, you would be compelled to reject a great many traditions that are vital to your apologetic arguments.

    Belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary goes all the way back to the second century. If you think that the early church fathers cannot be trusted to honestly evaluate the evidence on this point, why should I think that they can be trusted to honestly evaluate the evidence on any point? Why should I trust Irenaeous’ claims about the authorship of the canonical gospels? Why should I trust their accounts of the martyrdom of the apostles?

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  35. And as I said before, Ludemann, to his credit, simply looked at the NT and the early Christian writings honestly and arrived at the conclusion that fits all the facts. He did this in spite of the fact that the appearances to James as a skeptic and Paul are problematic for the hallucination theory.

    How convenient that you can read the hearts of men to know when they are interpreting the evidence honestly and when they are interpreting it dishonestly. Even more convenient is how they are being honest when they agree with you and dishonest when they don’t.




    Ludemann also mentions the early Christian writings, and says about the Gospel of the Hebrews: "Furthermore, the attestation to the report is late. Its basis is a New Testament tradition of the eucharist which 'has been transformed into a personal legend to glorify James'. Apart from the fact that Jesus appeared to James, the text gives us no reliable information of any kind. Rather, the tradition in the Gospel of Hebrews serves to enable admirers of James in the second and third generations to claim the first appearance for James rather than Cephas."

    It's important to keep in mind that in a culture where eyewitness testimony was so important, as long as the eyewitnesses were still alive, they played an important role in protecting the truth. But by the second and third centuries, they were all dead, so the writings during that time were far less reliable.


    Once again, if you actually believed this, you would be compelled to reject a great many traditions that are vital to your apologetic arguments, but which were not recorded until eyewitnesses were gone.

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  36. D'Ma:

    I have a question about this, Anette. What is your take on the angel's appearance to Mary and Joseph? Do you believe that to be an interpolation or truth?

    I don't think there's any reason to assume that it's an interpolation or that it's just not true. Vinny and I had a discussion about Mary and whether she believed, and I think she did but that she might also well have been influenced by her adult sons, who did not believe, according to the Gospel accounts. (There is no mention of Joseph after the incident when Jesus was twelve.)

    The idea of a Christian being conflicted in his or her faith is very realistic, and the Gospels show the disciples seeing miracles and immediately forgetting because of the "hardness" of their hearts. I think this is an accurate insight. This is why Christians often have cognitive dissonance--it's a sign of believing on one level but not on a deeper level. So yes, I think Mary could have experienced everything as recorded and still doubted at times.

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  37. Vinny:

    If you actually believed this, you would be compelled to reject a great many traditions that are vital to your apologetic arguments.

    Early Christian traditions are not vital to my apologetic arguments because I have not relied on them. I take early Christian traditions with a grain of salt just like I do the stories and arguments of modern Christians (and non-Christians).

    But it doesn't follow that I would be compelled to reject the early Christian traditions out of hand. As Sherwin-White pointed out, many historical sources are biased but historians are still able to determine the historical core and identify bias. I think that any time a person is glorified to point where he or she doesn't seem human, like Mary and James have been, then that is a hint that there might some bias involved.

    But I still stand by my statement that if I have access to a body of evidence (like the NT or the scientific evidence), I can dismiss out of hand positions that contradict this evidence, if I know that those who hold those positions have to hold them because of their presuppositions. The early Christian literature, on the other hand, is useful even if it is biased because it provides additional information. But if there is a conflict between it and the NT, I would certainly go with the latter just in terms of the historical reliability--quite apart from the question of divine inspiration.

    Why should I trust Irenaeous’ claims about the authorship of the canonical gospels? Why should I trust their accounts of the martyrdom of the apostles?

    Have I told you that you should trust them? I don't think I have. Conservative Bible scholar Ben Witherington questions the traditional authorship of John. I don't know if he's right or not, but I think it is of mere academic interest.

    If there are many good reasons why a skeptic might become a follower of Jesus other than a postmortem appearance, then there is no reason why that explanation for James becoming a follower is any better any other.

    It's the best explanation because it fits all the NT evidence, and you haven't even proposed an alternative hypothesis. It is reasonable to conclude that James converted because Jesus appeared to him, and it is unreasonable to reject that explanation just because it's inconvenient. As I said before (and you agreed), if we were trying to determine some historical fact based on the available evidence, and neither of us had an interest in a particular interpretation, we would probably agree. Since this explanation fits perfectly, there is no good reason to reject it, although I admit that it has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt.

    The appearance to Paul and his conversion is a much more compelling fact anyway because Paul gives first hand testimony, and he was clearly hostile to Christianity.

    Moreover, that explanation does not account for why Jesus’ mother thought he was crazy in Mark 3 but asks him to work a miracle in John 2.

    I addressed this in my comment to D'Ma.

    Nor does it explain why the other brothers of Jesus went from skeptics to followers.

    If their skeptical older brother told them that Jesus appeared to him, then they probably would believe. And even though James is the only brother Paul mentions by name, that doesn't mean Jesus didn't appear to the rest of His family.

    Again, you have not offered any alternative, plausible explanation for their conversion that fits all the evidence.

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  38. How convenient that you can read the hearts of men to know when they are interpreting the evidence honestly and when they are interpreting it dishonestly. Even more convenient is how they are being honest when they agree with you and dishonest when they don’t.

    I can't read minds but certain things hint to me that people care about the truth. One is that they make an admission against their interests, whether or not they agree with me. Another hint is when people reflect on both sides of an issue. I already said earlier in this thread that when DagoodS evaluated what each of us were saying about the Sherwin-White book without jumping to conclusions, I got the impression that he cared about the truth. And he did not express agreement with me at all.

    Conversely, some things give me the impression that people have very little concern for the truth. However, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt because I don't know their hearts, and that one reason why the Bible tells us not to judge.

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  39. Anette,

    You have cited the martyrdom of Peter and Paul on your blog as part of a couple different arguments. You included it in an argument about the Easter faith of the early church. You also cited it as part of your argument about the dating of Acts. If you believe later traditions to be unreliable, you need to retract those arguments.

    If there is no evidence on a question I do not pretend to know the answer. Since there is no evidence concerning the point at which James converted, I don't pretend to know.

    The earliest evidence we have on the question points to James becoming a follower before the crucifixion. I agree that it is not particularly strong evidence, but it is still the only evidence we have. Shouldn't the best explanation explain all the evidence rather than just the evidence you like best?

    Your claim to having the best explanation is also undermined by the fact that you need to invent new elements to the story such as Mary being influenced by James' skepticism and the other brothers being with James when Jesus appeared. Those are ad hoc explanations.


    Of course I could offer alternative explanations, but that would require me to engage in the same kind of ad hoc inventions. There are any number things that could have changed James' mind about Jesus. Maybe Mary told him some of the details of Jesus' conception that she had not previously told him. When there is so little evidence, almost any explanation can be made to fit it perfectly.

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  40. Vinny:

    You have cited the martyrdom of Peter and Paul on your blog as part of a couple different arguments. You included it in an argument about the Easter faith of the early church. You also cited it as part of your argument about the dating of Acts. If you believe later traditions to be unreliable, you need to retract those arguments.

    Again your memory is failing you, my friend. Yes, I mentioned their deaths in my Easter faith post, but only as part of a sentence that stood on its own, with or without the mention of Paul and Peter: “The movement continued to grow after the stoning of James by the Sandedrin in 62 AD, and after the deaths of Paul and Peter during the severe persecution by Nero, who lit up his 64 AD garden party with torches of burning Christians and put them to death in other horrific ways for the amusement of the Romans.”

    I considered leaving that out at the time when I wrote the post, but I decided that it is probable that they were martyred at that time because they were significant enough figures that the early Christians would have known about it when they died. And therefore, the historical core (when they died and that they were martyred) would probably have been accurately preserved in the tradition. That is not inconsistent with anything I said above about my approach to the early Christian writings and tradition.

    However, in our discussion about the dating of Acts, I said: “But there are good reasons to think that Acts and the Gospels were written earlier. James died in 62, and yet there is no mention of this in the Book of Acts. The great fire of Rome that led to extreme persecution of Christians by Nero happened in 64 and again, no mention of this. (Paul is believed to have died during this time.) And the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem happened in 70 and that is not mentioned or alluded to at all in the Book of Acts.” I correctly said that Paul was “believed” to have died during this time.

    A little later in the same conversation, you said: “The deaths of the apostles are not well documented events and there is little to no evidence that the stories were known at any time that would be relevant to dating Acts. As such, they do not give us any reason, much less a good one.”

    And I replied: “The death of James, a major apostle, is recorded in The Antiquities of the Jews, which was written in the first century. I am not basing my argument on the deaths of any of the other apostles.”

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  41. If there is no evidence on a question I do not pretend to know the answer. Since there is no evidence concerning the point at which James converted, I don't pretend to know.

    There’s no direct evidence, but there is circumstantial evidence, and a reasonable inference can be drawn. That does not mean that there is no evidence, nor does it mean that it is most rational to simply say you don’t know. It is probable that James converted when Jesus appeared to him, and it is not an ad hoc explanation. I am adding no facts—I’m simply drawing a reasonable inference from the facts we are given. However, your hypothesis about Mary telling James more details about the conception is completely ad hoc, there is no evidence for it, and it would be insufficient to overcome his skepticism if his brother’s healing miracles didn’t convince him.

    Your claim to having the best explanation is also undermined by the fact that you need to invent new elements to the story such as Mary being influenced by James' skepticism and the other brothers being with James when Jesus appeared. Those are ad hoc explanations.

    I did not have to invent those. All the facts necessary for my explanation are in the NT. The bit about Mary being influenced was a response to a question by D’Ma. You can just ignore that. Also, we don’t need to worry about the brothers because the question is when James converted. And the facts are sufficient that we can make an inference to the best explanation without having to assume additional facts.

    The earliest evidence we have on the question points to James becoming a follower before the crucifixion. I agree that it is not particularly strong evidence, but it is still the only evidence we have. Shouldn't the best explanation explain all the evidence rather than just the evidence you like best?

    Since the Gospel of the Hebrews directly contradicts Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 (the order of the appearances), was written late, seems highly biased, and includes significant information that is missing from all the canonical Gospels (that unanimously record everybody doubting the resurrection), there is no good reason why it should be taken very seriously.

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  42. Anette,

    Thank you for clarifying that you consider the martyrdom of Peter and Paul to be part of those later traditions which are not reliable. I am curious as to how you reached that conclusion since the “die for a lie” argument is a favorite of some of the apologists you seem to follow like Craig. I know that you have not specifically cited Irenaeous, but I am curious what you think about his pronouncements on the authorship and exclusivity of the four canonical gospels? Do you consider it to be part of later unreliable tradition as well?

    There is no reason for me to ignore your response to D’Ma. In order to establish that James was a skeptic during Jesus’ life, you cited a passage from Mark which describes Jesus family members as thinking he was crazy. Since this passage indicates that Jesus’ mother was one of those family members, you needed to come up with an ad hoc explanation which allows you to use this passage as evidence for James’ skepticism without it being evidence of Mary’s skepticism because the gospels tell us that she was a follower of Jesus prior to the crucifixion and if she changed her mind about Jesus then James could have done so, too. Of course, your explanation of Jesus’ followers having doubts about him upon occasion could also apply to James. Your theory also requires you to explain what caused James’ skeptical brothers to convert which causes you to invent appearances that are not found in the New Testament. Your argument that James only could have converted as a result of an appearance raises questions about Mary and the other brothers that require you to come up with those ad hoc explanations.

    You are of course welcome to ignore any evidence that is inconvenient for your theory, but it seems pretty clear that the story of James being a follower of Jesus prior to the crucifixion was known to a number of sources in the second century. Isn't at least possible that some of the people who told the story that way honestly evaluated the evidence available to them and concluded that to be the most probable sequence of events? On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to have been anyone who told a story about James being a skeptic up until the moment of the appearance. How is it that no one back then ever figured out the real circumstances of James conversion?

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  43. Vinny:

    Thank you for clarifying that you consider the martyrdom of Peter and Paul to be part of those later traditions which are not reliable.

    I think they are reliable because they were recorded by Clement of Rome around 96 AD. (However, I don't think the exact method of execution is that well documented.)

    Your original point was that "a great many traditions" are "vital" to my apologetics arguments, and that is not true. If it is well-attested, I have mentioned it, but if not, I leave it out.

    I am curious as to how you reached that conclusion since the “die for a lie” argument is a favorite of some of the apologists you seem to follow like Craig.

    As I said before, I haven't reached that conclusion (and I've also mentioned the martyrdom of James), but with respect to being willing to "die for a lie," I have also focused on the willingness of the apostles to die for their faith in the resurrection. Paul wrote a number of his letters from prison, and the apostles stayed in Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Jesus, boldly proclaiming the resurrection. (On the day of Pentecost, 3000 people converted, so obviously the apostles drew a sizable crowd.) They were willing to sacrifice everything, including their lives, for what they had seen and experienced.

    I know that you have not specifically cited Irenaeous, but I am curious what you think about his pronouncements on the authorship and exclusivity of the four canonical gospels? Do you consider it to be part of later unreliable tradition as well?

    No, because it is corroborated by other early sources.

    There is no reason for me to ignore your response to D’Ma. In order to establish that James was a skeptic during Jesus’ life, you cited a passage from Mark which describes Jesus family members as thinking he was crazy.

    I told you to ignore it because her question was a different kind--essentially, how do you square this incident in Mark with an angel appearing to Mary and Joseph? If someone claims a contradiction, all I have to do is find a plausible explanation for why it's not a contradiction. That's what I did, and you accused me of "inventing" details. I did not invent details; I simply explained that this is not necessarily a contradiction.

    But there is another possible explanation: Maybe Mary did not think Jesus was crazy, but she came along with her sons anyway. All we know is that Mary was present, not that she was one of the relatives who thought Jesus was crazy.

    The point here is that if we look at everything said about Mary in the Gospels, we can conclude that she believed, but the incident in Mark 3 is questionable. If we look at everything said about the brothers in the Gospels, there is no hint that they believed, Mark 3 indicates that they believed Jesus was crazy, and John 7:5 explicitly says that the brothers did not believe Him.

    If I take that, combine it with 1 Cor. 15:7, and add everything that is said about James and the other brothers of Jesus in Acts and the letters of Paul, I can make a reasonable inference (although it's not certain) that James converted when Jesus appeared to him. I don't have to assume any other facts.

    Again, however, this is not a major fact in support of the resurrection. The conversion of Paul is far more compelling.

    Isn't at least possible that some of the people who told the story that way honestly evaluated the evidence available to them and concluded that to be the most probable sequence of events?

    It's possible, but since I have the same body of evidence (written while the eyewitnesses were still alive) that they did, I don't have to worry about it. I see no evidence in the NT that James was a follower of Jesus before the appearance, and I do see evidence that he was not. (I also see evidence in the early Christian literature that James had many admirers, so why would they want to think that he was ever skeptical of Jesus?)

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  44. But there is another possible explanation: Maybe Mary did not think Jesus was crazy, but she came along with her sons anyway. All we know is that Mary was present, not that she was one of the relatives who thought Jesus was crazy.

    But of course we don’t know that James was one of the family members who thought that Jesus was crazy either. Maybe he just went along because his mother asked him to come. Maybe that is why no one in either the New Testament or any early Christian writing ever identifies James by name as having ever been a skeptic.


    It's possible, but since I have the same body of evidence (written while the eyewitnesses were still alive) that they did, I don't have to worry about it.

    This is absolutely and utterly false. According to Luke, many people had written accounts before he wrote his. How many of those do you have? Do you have the writings of Hegesippus or Papias who wrote in the second century? Do you have the slightest idea of what body of evidence was available to them and how much of that body of evidence was written while the eyewitnesses were still alive? You cannot begin to guess what evidence was was available at the time those traditions about James were recorded.

    The only evidence you have is the evidence that the early church decided to preserve. Of course, as you noted earlier, these were men who we who were prone to dishonesty in their consideration of the evidence due to their theological biases. How can we possibly trust them to have preserved those writings that would tell us what really happened?

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  45. Anette Acker and Vinny,

    Thank you for demonstrating (albeit unintentionally, I presume) why I am done with this type of interaction. Since it is on-point with the blog entry, I will explain.

    Anette Acker, I quite agree at first blush it is a reasonable inference some authors believed James, the brother of Jesus, was converted upon seeing post-Resurrection Jesus.

    The problem is that history does not always follow reasonable inference. For example, Saddam Hussein had the desire, resources and ability to pull off 9/11. 9/11 occurred. Just given those two facts, a “reasonable inference” would be that Saddam Hussein was a cause of 9/11. Of course, subsequent facts have greatly reduced this reasonable inference.

    In reviewing the evidence, we have multiple avenues to consider:

    1) Whether James in 1 Cor. 15 even IS the brother of Jesus, considering Luke never refers to the James leader as being Jesus’ brother (despite knowing Jesus had brothers) and one would have to argue Paul using “brother” in a non-literal sense everywhere BUT Gal. 1:19. Not to mention, as Vinny pointed, some question regarding James the Lesser being James the Just.

    2) Mark’s repeated motif of Jesus being rejected, including rejection by his family, as a non-historical element. In other words, Mark makes sure to emphasize Jesus’ rejection by the leaders, by the people, by his disciples, by his No. 1 disciple—Peter, and his own family. (And, of course, eventual rejection by the ladies at the tomb not following his desire.)

    3) Of course, the interpolation argument with the Josephus account on James the Just.

    4) The Gospel of Hebrews, while a later account, is the earliest account of James’ conversion (that I know) for any reason. If we are to accept other later accounts (but still the first) regarding Christian historical facts—such as 1 Clement regarding Paul and Peter—why reject this one?

    5) No account of James being seen by Jesus in the Gospels.

    6) How does a Galilean worker, son of a nobody, brother of a convicted criminal and (according to Acts), leader in a out-law group become so revered by the Jewish Pharisees that his death is defended to the point a High Priest is deposed? Where does James get the money to move to Jerusalem?

    7) Conflicting elements regarding James at the Apostolic Conference of 50 CE, between Acts and Galatians.

    8) As John is a conglomeration of works, its chronology is suspect. Not to mention, as questioned by D’Ma, John portrays a very different portrait of Jesus’ mother. (John doesn’t even know her name!)

    9) Post-Resurrection appearance in 1 Cor. 15 is utilized by Paul as credentials and argument—not for conversion. The only time (I recall) Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance was used to “convince” someone is Doubting Thomas—and that was more likely to be written to defend Jesus’ physical resurrection than as an apologetic for Resurrection.

    Once these evidences are laid out, it no longer becomes a simple “reasonable inference” of:

    a) James, the brother of Jesus was a skeptic;
    b) James, the brother of Jesus saw Jesus post-Resurrection.
    c) James the brother of Jesus became a Christian,

    There are a number of other, equally plausible scenarios. The straightforward, most plausible explanation is this: We don’t know. Fun to speculate, but we do not have enough facts to cause one explanation to “rise above” any others.

    Thus, continuing to study in endless loops is no longer intriguing. Arguing about it is useless.

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  46. Everything that you just said is what I feel, especially the last two sentences. I don't have nearly the knowledge nor education about this subject that Vinny, Anette, or you have, but that about sums it up. I stand in the bookstore or browse Amazon or peruse the Religion section in my local library and I'm overwhelmed at the choices. This segment of the Christian population espousing that belief, that Christian apologist arguing this scenario, any number of online options for just about any view point you want to hold. All of this, of course, backed up by Scripture and other resources. As I stand there pondering which book to read next, I say to myself, "Does it really matter which book you pick? Are you really going to know anymore after you read this book than you did before, or are you going to just be even more confused?" Which brings me to the conclusion that maybe there isn't one single truth. All of these resources can't be right, but they can certainly all be wrong.

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  47. Dagoods,

    Somewhat intentionally.

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  48. DagoodS:

    Thank you for demonstrating (albeit unintentionally, I presume) why I am done with this type of interaction. Since it is on-point with the blog entry, I will explain.

    You also said the following in your blog entry:

    "Now the apologists come here no more. I can manage a comment or two on their sites and blogs, but then I am ignored. A new topic quickly brought up to bury the lingering questions that need not be addressed if not seen."

    So whether I bore you by addressing the points raised or disappoint you by burying lingering questions, I was bound to prove at least one of your points.

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  49. Vinny:

    Of course, as you noted earlier, these were men who we who were prone to dishonesty in their consideration of the evidence due to their theological biases.

    I did not say they were prone to dishonesty. The early “Christians” (a number of them were heretics) were individuals—some of whom more trustworthy than others. I said that I never told you to trust them, and I said that because I never think it's a good idea to trust anyone uncritically. I try to read everything critically, including the writings of those who agree with me.

    Go thou and do likewise, the next time you pick up a Bart Ehrman book. I don’t know if you read critical chapter-by-chapter reviews of his books to get the other side, but I’ve talked to a number of atheists who consider Ehrman’s books gospel truth (or whatever the atheistic version of that idiom is).

    Dagoods,

    Somewhat intentionally.


    Are you saying that you intentionally (or somewhat intentionally) try to obscure the truth, Vinny? I’m not sure how else to interpret that admission.

    I still got a lot out of our discussions and didn’t at all mind being challenged. And the discussions weren’t futile to the atheist who said that I had done a great job presenting key facts supporting the resurrection. Not that he’s close to becoming a Christian, but he reads what I say critically and carefully, and he’s now reading up on Bayes’ Theorem, a challenging but very useful tool in evaluating these facts. Since he is proof that there are people out there who take ownership of their own search for truth, I still think this is worth doing. (And no, my assessment of his intellectual honesty will not change if he remains an atheist.)

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  50. Anette

    I have read a number of reviews of Ehrman’s work by evangelical scholars and I have listened to several of his debates. When reading his books, I try to think about what the best counter-arguments are going to be and whether Ehrman has anticipated them and dealt with them. I think the reason I like him so well is that I have never been surprised by arguments or evidence offered by an apologist in opposition to Ehrman. I think this is because he does an excellent job of presenting all the relevant evidence fairly and showing why he reached the conclusions he did. I have not found this true of all liberal scholars.

    The problem I have when approaching the New Testament writings and other early Christian writings is that I cannot see the other side of the argument in order to evaluate whether the writers are being straight with me. I don’t know anything about those many accounts that were written before Luke (other perhaps than Mark). I don’t know how they differed from what Luke wrote and I don’t know how or why Luke decided which parts of the earlier accounts needed correction. I don’t have any letters written by the Christians in Corinth or Galatia whose beliefs Paul criticized. I know why Paul thought they were wrong, but I don’t know why they thought that they were right.

    I think it would be very nice to have chapter-by-chapter reviews of the books of the New Testament written by non-Christians in the first century. Then I might be able to see what evidence there was that pointed in another direction and I might be able to determine whether they are worthy of trust. Until then, I have to deal with the fact that people with theological biases don’t always consider the evidence honestly. Sometimes they slant the evidence and sometimes they even distort it.

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  51. Hi DagoodS, When it's time to move on, it's time to move on. I would suggest a final blog post featuring links and brief descriptions of your favorite posts or lines, or stitching together a farewell discourse with hyperlinks and submitting it to The Secular Web's Kiosk. Perhaps composing your own version of "Why I Am Not a Christian," and sending it to the Secular Web for possible publication. Also, it's not necessary to indulge every question or questioner. Everyone eventually has to lay forth their case based on what they know or claim to know, and allow others to react to it. No more can be done. Neither are skeptics the only debunkers. Bible lovers of countless sects and denominations (as well as members of rival religions, Jews and Christians) have been debunking each other's interpretations of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, for two centuries. And many scholars who were raised with conservative beliefs when young, including entire conservative seminaries, have eventually left the conservative fold over time for more moderate to liberal pastures, sometimes atheistic ones as well.

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  52. Anette, Please to make your acquaintance. I am pleased to see more women involved in both Christian apologetics and in freethought ventures on the web, though the ratio of men to women is still uneven to say the least. The freethought campus group at the univ. where I work was founded three years ago by a female, the daughter of churchgoers, the entire family left the fold, the kids left it last of all. There's also the Skepchicks online. I even composed two posts that list women who debunk Christianity. One was a student of Gary Habermas and a mod at Christianity.com, taking on all atheists and their arguments, till she left the fold. A few others have advanced degrees in theology. You can find the list of such women here (the first post has a link to the second) in case you wish to read about or contact any of them: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/09/debunking-christianity-women-speak-out.html
    Their journeys to and from consevative Christian beliefs lay along a spectrum of course.

    On the questions you raise concerning the existence of an intelligent designer, the evidence could be interpreted such that the Designer was more like a tinkerer, employing jury-rigging, evolutionary arms races, mass extinction events (shaking his etch-i-sketch?), employing viral/bacterial illnesses, nutritional deficiencies, mutations, to attack the young of humans as well as all other species, etc. Also, humanity has only recently learned via the invention of more powerful telescopes that there are far, Far, FAR more stars than grains of sand on this teensy planet. And VERY recently, thanks to the Kepler satellite, we've found evidence that hundreds of planets circle nearby stars, including about 50 earth-sized planets. What level of intelligence does the Designer/Tinkerer (whatever he, she or it may be), demonstrate in allowing so may stars to blaze away to such little purpose, i.e., lighting countless worlds without intelligent life on them, and releasing so much energy to so little purpose? Creating many moons for planets in our own solar system that have no living beings on them, and hence do not even need moons to rule their nights nor for signs and seasons (literally, Genesis means to set up the time between holy festivals) on those worlds? We've also recently been able to plot the paths of asteroids that intersect with our planet's journey round the sun, and know how close some of them come to hitting our teensy life raft in space. About a decade ago one asteroid passed within a third of the distance from the earth to the moon. Is this all symptomatic of great intelligence, tinkering, or what? I don't know. I'm agnostic.

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  53. Also, Anette, if you want to learn more or interact with others on the burning questions that animate you most might I suggest reading these books:

    http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2010/09/seven-books-every-christian-should-read.html

    And visiting these sites:

    http://religionatthemargins.com/2011/04/is-god-a-moral-compromiser-a-critical-review-of-paul-copans-is-god-a-moral-monster/

    A WLC related post:

    http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2011/04/one-more-reason-religion-is-so-messed-up.html

    Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? A Table of Contents to the review of Maurice Casey’s Jesus of Nazareth [very new work, asks a lot of questions, some lengthy blog discussion as well]
    http://rogueleaf.com/biblioblog-library/2011/05/11/did-jesus-rise-from-the-dead-a-table-of-contents-to-the-review-of-maurice-casey’s-jesus-of-nazareth/

    Two posts containing some of my own questions concerning the resurrection:

    http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2010/03/word-about-growing-words-of-resurrected.html

    http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/asym/babinski-jordan/2.html

    There's also a growning community of biblical scholars and grad students and others who blog on biblical topics, called BIBLIOBLOGGERS. They also produce a BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL. Worth checking out to find out about the full spectrum out there:

    http://biblioblogtop50.wordpress.com/biblioblogs/


    P.S. Just wanted to add, concerning morality makes it makes sense to teach your kids to play nice and seek to aid others rather than harm them, just as they would like to be treated, but teaching kids to have particular metaphysical ideas seems beside the point. Also see:
    http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2011/05/joy-of-secularism.html

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  54. Anette, Also in case you hadn't heard about this woman, Rachel Held Evans, she undertook an interesting journey away from her conservative religious roots toward greater moderation. It is a journey that Christian youth seem to be taking more of these days, making the book, Blue Like Jazz quite popular, as well as Rob Bell's recent book and the discussions it is engendering. Rachel is also a fine communicator with a sense of self deprecation and humor as well. Perhaps you've heard of her book, Evolving in Monkey Town:

    http://rachelheldevans.com/book

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  55. Also, Anette, if you want to learn more or interact with others on the burning questions that animate you most might I suggest reading these books:

    http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2010/09/seven-books-every-christian-should-read.html

    And visiting these sites:

    http://religionatthemargins.com/2011/04/is-god-a-moral-compromiser-a-critical-review-of-paul-copans-is-god-a-moral-monster/

    A WLC related post:
    http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2011/04/one-more-reason-religion-is-so-messed-up.html

    Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? A Table of Contents to the review of Maurice Casey’s Jesus of Nazareth [very new work, asks a lot of questions, some lengthy blog discussion as well]
    http://rogueleaf.com/biblioblog-library/2011/05/11/did-jesus-rise-from-the-dead-a-table-of-contents-to-the-review-of-maurice-casey’s-jesus-of-nazareth/

    Two posts containing some of my own questions concerning the resurrection:

    http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2010/03/word-about-growing-words-of-resurrected.html

    http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/asym/babinski-jordan/2.html

    There's also a growning community of biblical scholars and grad students and others who blog on biblical topics, called BIBLIOBLOGGERS. They also produce a BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL. Worth checking out to find out about the full spectrum out there:

    http://biblioblogtop50.wordpress.com/biblioblogs/


    P.S. Just wanted to add, concerning morality makes it makes sense to teach your kids to play nice and seek to aid others rather than harm them, just as they would like to be treated, but teaching kids to have particular metaphysical ideas seems beside the point. Also see:
    http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2011/05/joy-of-secularism.html

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  56. Any comment with a number of links gets swooped up by Blogger’s spam filter. I have become cognizant of this—just because I see the comments e-mailed to me, doesn’t mean everyone else will. So I attempt to stay on top of the situation—releasing them upon the world.

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  57. I've enjoyed your blog so much. Thanks for all your efforts to enlighten people.

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  58. Vinny:

    I have read a number of reviews of Ehrman’s work by evangelical scholars and I have listened to several of his debates. When reading his books, I try to think about what the best counter-arguments are going to be and whether Ehrman has anticipated them and dealt with them. I think the reason I like him so well is that I have never been surprised by arguments or evidence offered by an apologist in opposition to Ehrman. I think this is because he does an excellent job of presenting all the relevant evidence fairly and showing why he reached the conclusions he did. I have not found this true of all liberal scholars.

    Although I find many non-theists (especially scientifically oriented ones) rational and logical, liberal Bible scholars are, in my mind, a very different breed. Ehrman is certainly better than the Jesus Seminar (who have made lack of intellectual rigor combined with extreme and unwarranted skepticism into an art form), but he frequently makes bold statements that he fails to substantiate.

    I did a post on Ehrman being interviewed by Stephen Colbert. For Ehrman to be justified in making the strong statements he did about Jesus being a human Messiah in the synoptic Gospels or the "early parts of Christianity," the questions I raised should have clear answers. So what are they?

    Ben Witherington (not an "apologist" but a "scholar") did a charitable and honest chapter-by-chapter review of Forged, where he gives Ehrman credit where due, but he raises his habit of being silent about inconvenient contrary evidence. You might find it interesting. It couldn't hurt to make sure you have the whole story.

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  59. Hi Edward. Great to make your acquaintance, too!

    I appreciate all the book recommendations. Although I did get a chance to check out your blog, I have a long backlog of books I want to get through right now, and unfortunately a limited amount of time to read. (I do plan to get to Blue Like Jazz soon, though, because I know that Don Miller is an awesome writer.)

    Also, humanity has only recently learned via the invention of more powerful telescopes that there are far, Far, FAR more stars than grains of sand on this teensy planet. And VERY recently, thanks to the Kepler satellite, we've found evidence that hundreds of planets circle nearby stars, including about 50 earth-sized planets. What level of intelligence does the Designer/Tinkerer (whatever he, she or it may be), demonstrate in allowing so may stars to blaze away to such little purpose, i.e., lighting countless worlds without intelligent life on them, and releasing so much energy to so little purpose?

    Why would you consider the vast and beautiful symphony that is our universe to be a waste? And since we appreciate it, why shouldn't God? Obviously intelligent life is important, but we don't need to be so full of ourselves that we think we are the only things worth creating.

    Also, what we now know about the universe gives considerable more weight to Psalm 8:3-4: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?" Romans 1:20 says that God reveals Himself through nature, and the vastness of space certainly says something about what we are compared to God.

    So, far from being an argument against God's existence, the fact that, in the words of Stephen Hawking, we inhabit "an average star in the outer suburbs of an ordinary spiral galaxy, which is itself only one of about a million million galaxies in the observable universe," is completely consistent with Christian theology.

    Psalm 8:3-4 rings even more true when we take into account the evidence in cosmology for the "anthropic coincidences" that cannot be explained if there is only one universe. (And the dissenters on the fine-tuning, most notable Victor Stenger, are a small minority.)

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  60. Anette,

    I had in fact seen your post about Ehrman’s appearance on The Colbert Report. All I would say is that there are even evangelical scholars who view the blasphemy charge as indicating that Jesus was a human Messiah who had been anointed with divine authority rather than a pre-existent divine being. If you are interested in the topic, I can recommend Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge against Jesus in Mark 14:53-65 by Darrell L. Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary. Bock has written some apologetic books which have not impressed me, but this is a scholarly work rather than a popular one (German scholars are quoted in German) and I think Bock lays out the issues and evidence very well.

    I haven’t read Forged yet, so I don’t think there is much point in reading Witherington’s review. What I invariably found in reading reviews of Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted was that the things the conservative Christians accused Ehrman of omitting had in fact been covered. While he may make some bold statements, he equips his readers to make their own judgments by laying out the evidence and showing how he reached his conclusions. I don’t think he really had the opportunity to do this in six minutes with Steven Colbert.

    I think that Ehrman is head and shoulders above most of the members of the Jesus Seminar that I have read, but I don't think the problem is one of unwarranted skepticism. The sources we have are so sparse and problematic that a very healthy degree of skepticism is entirely justified. I think the problem is that many liberal scholars do the same thing as conservative scholars: they assert an unwarranted degree of certainty about questions upon which the evidence is far from conclusive (e.g., Ludemann on James' conversion). I think Ehrman is much more circumspect.

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  61. Vinny:

    If you are interested in the topic, I can recommend Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge against Jesus in Mark 14:53-65 by Darrell L. Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary.

    As I said to Edward, I have a backlog of books to read, so I don't know when I would find the time to read that one. But if you've read it, how does he deal with Matthew 22:41-46, where Jesus asked a group of Pharisees, "'What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?' They said to Him, 'The son of David.' He said to them, 'Then how does David in the Spirit call Him "Lord," saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet'"? If David then calls Him "Lord," how is He his son?' No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question."

    My point is that if someone is going to make the positive claim that Jesus was a human Messiah in the synoptics, they have to deal with the evidence that contradicts that theory, because all it takes is one passage like that to disprove it. If they can't, then the most they can say is that the synoptics are less explicit about the divinity of Jesus than John.

    While he may make some bold statements, he equips his readers to make their own judgments by laying out the evidence and showing how he reached his conclusions. I don’t think he really had the opportunity to do this in six minutes with Steven Colbert.

    He didn't have the opportunity to say "some scholars" instead of "scholars"? That would have added one second. And Colbert gave him the opportunity to qualify his statement by saying that the scholars he read didn't say what Ehrman claimed. Ehrman's response was "uh-huh," and then he continued with his bold claims, without qualifying them in light of Matthew 22:41-46 and Paul's characterization of Jesus as the Son of God (the way we understand it) in 1 Corinthians and Romans, written around 55 AD.

    Several months ago, I brought your attention to the following review of Misquoting Jesus in Common Sense Atheism. In it, Luke Muehlhauser says, "What is Ehrman’s fault is how astonishingly misleading his book is."

    You replied by saying that Ehrman was not being misleading, and that he clearly set forth the evidence and let the reader decide. I did not reply to that at the time, but I have since talked to several atheists who were completely mislead by the book. That is, what they understood Ehrman to say was that there were so many copyist errors in the Bible that we have no idea what the original documents said. Muehlhauser understood it the same way: "Ehrman gives the impression that there are so many variants in our manuscripts that we could never know what the New Testament authors originally wrote."

    Even if Ehrman put a disclaimer somewhere in the fine print that this is not really a problem, the fact remains that he is misleading people, many of whom will never know the truth--whether or not he technically lied.

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  62. It has been awhile since I read the book, but I don’t recall Bock addressing that passage in Matthew. The focus of the book was on first century Judaism’s understanding that God had upon occasionally exalted certain human beings by conferring authority upon them to exercise what would normally be considered divine prerogatives. These men (and I think they were always men) acted as divine agents, but nonetheless they were still human beings. The blasphemy in Mark 14 was Jesus claiming such an exalted status for himself. The passage in Matthew looks like it could fall within that category as well, but I don’t know what Bock would say about it.

    I think it makes sense to interpret the synoptics in light of how the Jews of that day understood God to work. If the concept of an exalted agent was well-known in first century Judaism whereas the concept of a preexistent divine Messiah was completely unknown, then Matthew’s readers would have no reason to interpret his Jesus as being the latter. In order to introduce the concept of a Messiah who also a member of the Godhead, the writer would have to make it really explicit that Jesus was in a category that no other person had ever occupied before. John clearly seems to be doing this, but I don’t see it in the synoptics.

    I know you like to search Ehrman’s debates, lectures and interviews for any misstatement that you can pounce on, but I don’t really think it’s fair at all. Much more seasoned performers have gotten flustered by Colbert and I think it is far to much to expect him to know exactly which statements needed rephrasing or more support during the course of the interview. (I’m sure Colbert could make me look like a babbling idiot.) I think you need to read his books and articles where he has the time and opportunity before publication to make sure that he has covered all the points he wants to cover and has phrased his answers precisely.

    I have read Muehlhauser’s review of Misquoting Jesus and all I can say is that I disagree with him completely. I thought Ehrman made it perfectly clear that the overwhelming majority of variants in the New Testament are trivial. I never took him to mean that we cannot know anything at all about the texts of the New Testament. I always understood the problem to be that the overwhelming majority of the extant manuscripts were created by well trained scribes hundreds of years after the autographs at a time when orthodox Christianity was the state religion of the Roman Empire. We have little evidence from the earlier period in which copying practices were haphazard and Christianity was a minority religion composed of competing sects that were occasionally subject to persecution. I always understood Erhman to be arguing that we are uncertain about the originals, not that we are utterly ignorant.

    I would note what Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary wrote about Misquoting Jesus: “Most of the book (chs. 1–4) is basically a popular introduction to the field, and a very good one at that. It introduces readers to the fascinating world of scribal activity, the process of canonization, and printed texts of the Greek NT. It discusses the basic method of reasoned eclecticism.” I suspect that people who thought that Ehrman was making a more radical argument than he was actually making hadn’t read the first four chapters all that carefully.

    As far a being misleading goes, I have seen a lot of Christian apologists cite the sheer number of manuscripts, but I don’t recall a single one ever mentioning the percentage of those manuscripts that were created 500-1000 years after the originals. On the other hand, when Ehrman describes the number of variants, I have never seen him fail to note that the majority are trivial--that is, except for one single occasion. The exception was his first appearance on The Colbert Report, but I would cut him some slack there.

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  63. Well, D'Ma, I think it's always good to be open, and continue to evaluate things for ourselves, from various angles, difficult and challenging as this can be at times.

    We all display a certain cognitive bias reflected in the material we focus in to study the most, where we're about looking for answers.

    But, I would suggest that if you study some of the more progressive scholars such as Dr. Price, and Ehrman, that you also read the responses to their observation by the orthodox scholars, and apologists.

    As an aside, I really like stuff written by the Anglican scholar, N.T Wright.

    Also, you have to know that a lot of this stuff is not at all new. It seems to come around in cycles. The early church fathers were dealing with discrepancies in the gospels, and took real pains to come to a determination relating to authenticity in their time.

    During the age of the enlightenment there were scholars who believed that Jesus was myth. And, this was a popular position in the early part of the twentieth century, only to fall out of general favor. It is now being revisited again.

    What does the book of Ecc. say.."Nothing new under the sun."

    In the end, I think Christian faith is an intentional choice as well as something that comes from a deep conviction of truth.

    We all have to determine for ourselves, "Who do you say that I am," and the impact of that question in our lives..

    For me, my experience of Christian faith has generally been very positive, and atheism feels like an empty room to me. I've had many friends, and acquaintances over the years who have been secular/atheist/agnostic. Actually some members of my own family...

    I have to be honest, and say that I am not at all drawn to their position, or feel that it offers any greater degree of personal freedom, or a strong philosophical basis for affirming human dignity, and inherent worth as does the Christian gospel.

    Of course, this is my personal experience and considered opinion.

    Pax.

    Becky.

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  64. Thanks for the advice, Becky. Though I really did already know that. At the moment I'm trying to slog my way through The Human Faces of God by Thom Stark. I have yet to read any of the books written by Ehrman or Price. I'm sure I'll get around to that, but regardless of the opinion of others, I'm not trying to debunk Christianity. That's not my aim anyway. I wanted the truth. I fear it's not that simple, though to be perfectly honest, a God that wants to be loved probably should make it so.

    The quick and dirty answer to that is: the journey must be difficult so that free will is not impinged upon. Love me or burn in hell is much more an impingement on free will than God making himself obvious could ever be.

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  65. Vinny:

    The passage in Matthew looks like it could fall within that category as well, but I don’t know what Bock would say about it.

    There’s no way you can get that to fit because David is making the Messiah equal to God. In the passage in Matthew, Jesus says that David in the Spirit calls Him “Lord,” and asks the Jewish leaders (who clearly expected a human Messiah), why David would call the Christ “Lord” if He is David’s son. In fact, I looked at the beginning of the book on Amazon, and Bock lists David as one of these exalted persons.

    I’m also curious about what Bock thinks of John 10:33, which clearly states that the Jews considered Jesus a blasphemer for claiming to be God: “The Jews answered Him, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.’”

    Incidentally, I noticed that Bock relies on Hans Lietzmann, someone whose conclusions Sherwin-White challenges in his book and gives reasons for rejecting.

    I would note what Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary wrote about Misquoting Jesus: “Most of the book (chs. 1–4) is basically a popular introduction to the field, and a very good one at that. It introduces readers to the fascinating world of scribal activity, the process of canonization, and printed texts of the Greek NT. It discusses the basic method of reasoned eclecticism.” I suspect that people who thought that Ehrman was making a more radical argument than he was actually making hadn’t read the first four chapters all that carefully.

    If you’re interested in what else Wallace said about the book, here it is in Wikipedia:

    Daniel B. Wallace, in review of Misquoting Jesus says the book "comes up short on genuine substance about his primary contention. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of. Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave this book with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain."[8] Wallace also says Ehrman is selective in his use of evidence and ignores the views of scholars that disagree with him and he avoids giving his readers enough information so they can fully understand the issues and make up their own minds.[9] Wallace concludes, however:

    "I grieve for what has happened to an acquaintance of mine, a man I have known and admired—and continue to admire—for over a quarter of a century. It gives me no joy to put forth this review. But from where I sit, it seems that Bart’s black and white mentality as a fundamentalist has hardly been affected as he slogged through the years and trials of life and learning, even when he came out on the other side of the theological spectrum. He still sees things without sufficient nuancing, he overstates his case, and he is entrenched in the security that his own views are right. Bart Ehrman is one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I’ve ever known, and yet his biases are so strong that, at times, he cannot even acknowledge them."[10]

    As far a being misleading goes, I have seen a lot of Christian apologists

    Yes, Christian apologists can be misleading, which is why we all have to think critically and ask hard questions of those on “our side” as well as those on the “other side.” We also have to honestly face the things we don’t want to believe. Remember what began this whole discussion about Bart Ehrman? I said that I don’t trust or agree with other Christians uncritically. (I don’t trust myself uncritically either, which is why I specifically invite people to challenge what I say on my blog.)

    In fact, what brought me to this blog was that I read Bill Pratt’s post “Is the Act of Knowing a Physical Process” and DagoodS’s response, and I fully agreed with DagoodS. I think Bill Pratt seems like a very smart, well-read person, but I did not see much likelihood that he would be able to successfully defend that particular argument.

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  66. The passage in Matthew looks like it could fall within that category as well, but I don’t know what Bock would say about it.

    There’s no way you can get that to fit because David is making the Messiah equal to God. In the passage in Matthew, Jesus says that David in the Spirit calls Him “Lord,” and asks the Jewish leaders (who clearly expected a human Messiah), why David would call the Christ “Lord” if He is David’s son. In fact, I looked at the beginning of the book on Amazon, and Bock lists David as one of these exalted persons.

    I’m also curious about what Bock thinks of John 10:33, which clearly states that the Jews considered Jesus a blasphemer for claiming to be God: “The Jews answered Him, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.’”

    Incidentally, I noticed that Bock relies on Hans Lietzmann, someone whose conclusions Sherwin-White challenges in his book and gives reasons for rejecting.

    I would note what Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary wrote about Misquoting Jesus: “Most of the book (chs. 1–4) is basically a popular introduction to the field, and a very good one at that. It introduces readers to the fascinating world of scribal activity, the process of canonization, and printed texts of the Greek NT. It discusses the basic method of reasoned eclecticism.” I suspect that people who thought that Ehrman was making a more radical argument than he was actually making hadn’t read the first four chapters all that carefully.

    If you’re interested in what else Wallace said about the book, here it is in Wikipedia:

    Daniel B. Wallace, in review of Misquoting Jesus says the book "comes up short on genuine substance about his primary contention. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of. Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave this book with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain."[8] Wallace also says Ehrman is selective in his use of evidence and ignores the views of scholars that disagree with him and he avoids giving his readers enough information so they can fully understand the issues and make up their own minds.[9] Wallace concludes, however:

    "I grieve for what has happened to an acquaintance of mine, a man I have known and admired—and continue to admire—for over a quarter of a century. It gives me no joy to put forth this review. But from where I sit, it seems that Bart’s black and white mentality as a fundamentalist has hardly been affected as he slogged through the years and trials of life and learning, even when he came out on the other side of the theological spectrum. He still sees things without sufficient nuancing, he overstates his case, and he is entrenched in the security that his own views are right. Bart Ehrman is one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I’ve ever known, and yet his biases are so strong that, at times, he cannot even acknowledge them."[10]


    As far a being misleading goes, I have seen a lot of Christian apologists

    I see no reason to get into textual criticism, but yes, Christian apologists can be misleading, which is why we all have to think critically and ask hard questions of those on “our side” as well as those on the “other side.” We also have to honestly face the things we don’t want to believe. Remember what began this whole discussion about Bart Ehrman? I said that I don’t trust or agree with other Christians uncritically. (I don’t trust myself uncritically either, which is why I specifically invite people to challenge what I say on my blog.)

    In fact, what brought me to this blog was that I read Bill Pratt’s post “Is the Act of Knowing a Physical Process” and DagoodS’s response, and I fully agreed with DagoodS. I think Bill Pratt seems like a very smart, well-read person, but I did not see much likelihood that he would be able to successfully defend that particular argument.

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  67. There’s no way you can get that to fit because David is making the Messiah equal to God.

    How so? Is their anything illogical about a man being subject to another human being who is in turn subject to God. It looks like David is saying that he is subject to a Messiah who is subject to God. I'm not very well versed on this issue but I don't see why that Messiah can't be man who is more exalted than David but still a human being rather than God?

    Incidentally, I noticed that Bock relies on Hans Lietzmann, someone whose conclusions Sherwin-White challenges in his book and gives reasons for rejecting.

    So what? Have you read Lietzmann's work for yourself? I suspect that he gives reasons to support his conclusions, too. Maybe they are very good reasons that you would find persuasive.

    If you’re interested in what else Wallace said about the book, here it is in Wikipedia:

    I don't need to read Wikipedia because I read Wallace's review for myself. I have also listened to a debate between Wallace and Ehrman. Wallace is honest enough to admit that Ehrman is one of the foremost scholars of textual criticism in the world (for which I give Wallace credit). However, as a defender of conservative Christianity, Wallace has to find some basis to criticize to criticize Ehrman and it seems to me that he falls back on the accusation of bias because he cannot fault Erhman's scholarship.

    I said that I don’t trust or agree with other Christians uncritically. (I don’t trust myself uncritically either, which is why I specifically invite people to challenge what I say on my blog.)

    I am glad to hear it. On the other hand, once you have decided that you agree with someone's conclusion on a particular point--such as Ludemann, Muehlhauser, Earman or McGrew--you cite them again and again as if their opinions absolutely settle the matter. I don't view any of them as having the last word on any topic.

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  68. D'Ma, are you feeling that people can love God out of fear simply to avoid Hell?

    I don't think I could.

    I resonate more with the picture presented by C.S. Lewis in his book "The Great Divorce."

    It does seem to me that there is something inside all of us that could become Hell outside of the transforming power of God's love, and grace..



    Becky.

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  69. No, Becky. That's not what I'm saying at all. In fact, I'm saying quite the opposite. I don't need to read "The Great Divorce" to figure that out. Certainly people can love God for reasons other than fear of hell. That's not a very good reason at all to love anyone. That is precisely the point. Though, quite honestly, there are some scriptures - in context, out of context- however you want to read them that threaten just that:

    I sent my son. Believe that and love me or burn.(John 3:16)

    Love,
    God

    You can twist it and turn it any way you like and that's still what it amounts to. I never, ever loved God because of a fear of hell. Not ever. As many of these interactions as we've had, as many times as we've been through these exact motions, you haven't figured that out yet? Really? Are you really reading what we're all writing? Or are you reading your own interpretation into it. We've lost our faith somehow, so it must be that we didn't have it to begin with. We've turned our backs on God so we obviously didn't look just the right way. And you have the magic answer in your magic answer book. You come to all of us, every last one of us, with pious answers of "how to correctly apprehend the gospel". If we'd only been to the right kind of church, or part of the right denomination, or been smart enough to go to seminary we'd somehow see a different gospel. I'm glad that works for you. I really, really am. I'm glad you feel God speaking to you and interacting with you. Believe me, I am. I'm very, very happy that you believe in the transforming power of God's love and grace and apparently he's saving you from the hell that would be Becky if she didn't have him.

    Now, you can take all of these other books, Price, Ehrman, Starks, Wright, Polkinghorn, Lewis, Merton, St. Augustine, or whoever else you like and throw them all in the trash bin. My problem isn't with any of those books, it's with the Bible itself. That book I've read. And when you stop candy coating what's in there it's awfully ugly. I wouldn't read it to my five year old.

    Lest this be thought an angry response to you, please know that it is not. I'm not angry one whit. You have asked multiple times, on multiple blogs as though you really wish to understand loss of faith. I don't really know how else to say it.

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  70. D'Ma, we are talking past each other.

    I don't think that you were never a Christian, or have intentionally turned your back on God.

    Frankly, no one is qualified to make this judgement about anyone. Only God knows.

    I don't think I have all the answers, either. No one does.

    I do believe that there are some folks sharing on the blogs who seemingly were caught up in works righteousness, and motivated to faith by fear. Everyone is different.

    What I mean is this by Hell inside is just the reality of fallen human nature if left unchecked through eternity, individually and collectively. Believe me, I understand the paradox is that we are also wonderfully, and fearfully made, created in God's image, a blessing.

    But, everyone is also capable given the right environment, circumstances, and upbringing capable of some pretty rough things. We can all hurt the people we love the most almost without even knowing sometimes. I have.

    Everyone falls very short of the perfect love of Christ. So, when I look at the work of Christ, I'm seeing radical healing, and change in Him for humanity as a whole. We eventually will be made like Him.

    It's true that Jesus said some pretty hard things. I mean look how he addressed the scribes and pharisees..or what He said about those who prevent children from freely coming to Him..

    But, I'm looking at the context of all that, and His overall teachings of God's love, and mercy..I think this verse in John is referring to a willful, and deliberate rejection of the cross by those with wicked motives.

    Does it refer to people who have never heard the gospel, or who are struggling with an honest crisis of faith? I don't think so, D'Ma.

    Hey, I'm not trying to offend. Maybe it's better for me to keep quiet for awhile. My comments have not been helpful, it seems.

    Pax.

    Becky.

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  71. Anette Acker,

    Blogger grabbed both your comments. I think they were the same, so I only released one. However, if there was a point in the other that you wanted published, I will release it as well.

    Bugger Blogger. Grrrr….

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  72. Have you ever wondered why you have the Exact. Same. Conversation. with almost every deconvert? You start off with all this “I think…” and “I feel…” and assign motives (perhaps unwittingly, but absolutely definitely) and when we respond with “No, no—you have it incorrect” you feign innocence, and wander off.

    There comes a point you need to fess up and realize you have listening or comprehending or empathetic issues.

    I found it highly amusing I write a blog entry about having too busy of a life to bother with this study any longer, and you think atheism is “an empty room.” What you obviously cannot fathom is that it is NOT an empty room for us. It is part of a life—full!


    D’ma, I tend to let people make their own decisions about other comments, but I found your response to Anonymous/Becky/Grace to be dead on.

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  73. I'm sorry for coming across as hostile, Becky. It is clear that you have settled these matters in your own mind to your satisfaction. The ideas you present are ones I have and am considering. I still have many questions, and haven't settled the matter in my own mind to my satisfaction. It is something I must do for myself.

    DagoodS,

    I'm sorry for hijacking your thread. It was completely unintentional and got way of subject.

    By the way, I really like your new tag-line. :)

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  74. Vinny,

    First of all, if D’Ma is apologizing for hijacking the thread, after making a handful of comments entirely on the topic of the main post, we are in serious trouble! ;)

    How so? Is their anything illogical about a man being subject to another human being who is in turn subject to God. It looks like David is saying that he is subject to a Messiah who is subject to God. I'm not very well versed on this issue but I don't see why that Messiah can't be man who is more exalted than David but still a human being rather than God?

    The problem is that Jesus claimed that the Messiah existed at the time of David and called Him “Lord.” Also, the issue is how Matthew represents the self-awareness of Jesus, so it’s not enough to focus on David. Jesus is saying that it is not accurate (or not entirely accurate) to say that the Messiah is the son of David. You don’t need to be “well versed on this issue” to understand the implications of what Jesus is saying, and the reaction of the Jewish leaders sheds light on why they later sentenced Jesus to death for blasphemy for admitting to being the Son of God. The plain meaning of the text, by itself and in context, is the orthodox position.

    So what? Have you read Lietzmann's work for yourself? I suspect that he gives reasons to support his conclusions, too. Maybe they are very good reasons that you would find persuasive.

    Sherwin-White gives Lietzmann’s reasons and refutes them rather decisively, I think. (But you can decide that for yourself when you reread the book.) However, I didn’t bring this up as an argument, but simply because I thought it was interesting.

    I don't need to read Wikipedia because I read Wallace's review for myself. I have also listened to a debate between Wallace and Ehrman. Wallace is honest enough to admit that Ehrman is one of the foremost scholars of textual criticism in the world (for which I give Wallace credit). However, as a defender of conservative Christianity, Wallace has to find some basis to criticize to criticize Ehrman and it seems to me that he falls back on the accusation of bias because he cannot fault Erhman's scholarship.

    If you knew that Wallace agrees with my point that Ehrman is selective in his use of evidence and ignores the views of scholars who disagree with him, you had a responsibility to divulge that information if you were going to quote Wallace.

    I have not heard anyone dispute Ehrman’s expertise as a text critic. In fact, Luke Muehlhauser specifically draws attention to the discrepancies between Ehrman’s scholarly work and his popular work. Others have made the same observation. He has been criticized because he overstates his case, misleads, and uses evidence selectively in his bestsellers, not in his scholarly work. Obviously, this is a greater concern to Christians than it is to Muehlhauser, since we believe that there are serious consequences to what he is doing.

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  75. I am glad to hear it. On the other hand, once you have decided that you agree with someone's conclusion on a particular point--such as Ludemann, Muehlhauser, Earman or McGrew--you cite them again and again as if their opinions absolutely settle the matter. I don't view any of them as having the last word on any topic.

    When I cite scholars, I also give reasons for why they are right and I’m prepared to respond to questions and objections. You brought up Boch and said that he was an evangelical scholar who disagrees with me, but you were not prepared to explain how he defends his position or how he answers my questions. So the “last word” is that my questions and objections remain unanswered and Boch’s opinion has not settled anything.

    In prior discussions, I referenced John Earman, author of Hume’s Abject Failure in support of my argument that it is mathematically fallacious to say that the supernatural is always the least likely explanation. The fact that he is a philosopher of physics and an atheist who desires to set the record straight does not give him the last word. What gives him the last word on the particular issue for which I have cited him is that, to my knowledge, nobody has refuted his argument. And the matter is settled until someone does.

    Speaking of “last words,” I am now done with this discussion, so the last word is yours.

    Have a great weekend!

    DagoodS,

    No, you published the correct comment. The first one didn’t post, so that gave me a chance to correct some mistakes. Thanks!

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  76. If you knew that Wallace agrees with my point that Ehrman is selective in his use of evidence and ignores the views of scholars who disagree with him, you had a responsibility to divulge that information if you were going to quote Wallace.

    Are you aware that some of what you quoted was some Wikipdia contributor’s paraphrase of Wallace rather than what Wallace himself wrote? Wallace never uses the word “ignore” in the review. I didn’t really think I needed to point out that Wallace doesn’t agree with Erhman’s overall thesis since I was only citing Wallace’s assessment of Misquoting Jesus as an introduction to textual criticism.

    I know that you said I could have the last word but I am curious as to which of Ehrman’s books you have read for yourself?

    What gives him the last word on the particular issue for which I have cited him is that, to my knowledge, nobody has refuted his argument. And the matter is settled until someone does.

    Really? That strikes me as pretty silly. I read a response to Earman’s book by William Vanderburgh that I thought was quite persuasive and to my knowledge nobody has refuted his arguments. Does that entitle me to declare the matter settled until somebody does so?

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  77. D'Ma, that's ok. I read over my posting, and see that I need to be more sensitive. Dagood is right.

    Dagood, I didn't mean that I found it to be an "empty room," in terms of not being busy.

    I was thinking more of this in terms of a philosophical base for life. But, I'm speaking for myself personally.

    Becky.

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  78. Vinny:

    I know that you said I could have the last word but I am curious as to which of Ehrman’s books you have read for yourself?

    I have read parts of Misquoting Jesus and Jesus, Interrupted, and I’ve seen and read enough of Ehrman to be familiar with the way he expresses himself. He is a clear and engaging writer, but he tends to express certainty where he doesn’t have certainty (or even where there is contrary evidence), and he has numerous times said “scholars say” when he means “scholars I agree with say.”

    He is just as clear in Jesus, Interrupted about the synoptic Gospels not mentioning the divinity of Jesus as he was in the interview with Stephen Colbert, but he doesn’t develop his reasons any better. He doesn’t address any of the points I brought up earlier. Another point worth noting is that Matthew begins with "'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which translated means,'God with us,'" (Matthew 1:23, italics added) and ends with, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit . . . and lo, I am with you always" (Matthew 28:19-20, italics added).

    Really? That strikes me as pretty silly. I read a response to Earman’s book by William Vanderburgh that I thought was quite persuasive and to my knowledge nobody has refuted his arguments. Does that entitle me to declare the matter settled until somebody does so?

    Vanderburgh focuses on whether Earman got Hume right, something I never addressed (actually, when you asked me what critics of Earman said, I mentioned that and said that they may have a point). Vanderburgh does not say that it is not possible to use Bayesian inference to establish the resurrection with moral certainty. Therefore, he has not even attempted a refutation of the argument in question. All he says about that is that the person making the claim of a miracle has the burden of proof and has to do a detailed assessment of the evidence in question. And Tim and Lydia McGrew have done just that. You and I would probably disagree as to whether they have succeeded, but they have done it.

    Okay, now I'm done.


    DagoodS,

    I posted a comment on Friday that appears to be trapped in your spam filter. I’m not sure if anyone is still reading this, but I figured I would let you know anyway. Thanks!

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  79. Anette,

    Does Earman claim that it is possible to use Baysian inference to establish the resurrection with moral certainty? If you have some uncertainty as to whether Earman got Hume's argument right, does it make any sense to claim that his book settled anything?

    Have you read any responses to the McGrew's arguments? What do their critics say?

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  80. First, I want to apologize for spamming those who have email notification set up. I can't get this to post.

    Vinny:

    Have you read any responses to the McGrew's arguments? What do their critics say?

    Richard Carrier responded, but it didn’t go too well for him. You can read about it in Common Sense Atheism, where Carrier publicly apologized. (I can’t get the link to work, but the article is called “The McGrews on Carrier on the McGrews.”) On Victor Reppert’s blog you’ll find a link to Carrier’s article, as well as a discussion on Carrier’s understanding of Bayes’ Theorem between Tim McGrew and other theists, before Carrier apologized.

    And no, I will not concede that Carrier may have had a point, like I did about the critics of Earman. Although Carrier would have been a good candidate because he is familiar with the resurrection evidence, he turned out to not be up to the task, to say the least.

    If you have some uncertainty as to whether Earman got Hume's argument right, does it make any sense to claim that his book settled anything?

    Yes, because I don’t really care if Hume’s argument was an “abject failure” or just flawed, so I’ll leave Earman and the followers of Hume to duke it out.

    What he said about the resurrection evidence and Bayes’ Theorem has not been challenged anywhere, and that is what I’m relying on. Until someone refutes that, it’s certainly settled in my mind.

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  81. Does Earman claim that it is possible to use Baysian inference to establish the resurrection with moral certainty?

    Yes, he says:

    “Mere incremental confirmation may not be what theists want for their doctrines, but it is a start. And once the start is made, there does not seem to be any principled road block to achieving a substantial degree of confirmation. For example, testimonies to a number of New Testament miracles can each give bits of incremental confirmation to C that together add up to substantial confirmation. Or the evidence of miracles can combine with the evidence of prophecy and design to provide grounds for the credibility or even moral certainty of religious doctrines.”

    I don’t know why he says that theists may not want “incremental confirmation” of their doctrines—that is how the growth of my faith has always been. I don’t view it like fundamentalists do, where I need 100% certainty at all times or the whole structure collapses. If less than 100% certainty presented a threat to my faith, then there would be no room for the honest questioning that is necessary for faith to grow.

    Christian theism cannot be conclusively proven for the same reason that a scientific theory cannot be conclusively proven even if every experiment is consistent with the theory. However, I agree with G. K. Chesterton: "If snowflakes fell in the shape, say, of the heart of Midlothian, it might be an accident. But if snowflakes fell in the exact shape of the maze at Hampton Court, I think one might call it a miracle. It is exactly as of such a miracle that I have since come to feel of the philosophy of Christianity.” I have found it to be consistent with reality in every way, and more so the more honestly I face the evidence. That amounts to moral certainty, but still less than 100% certainty.

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  82. Anette,

    I am not sure what the point of those links was supposed to be. I see that Carrier apologized for some intemperate remarks that he made in an interview. As far as I could tell, the apology didn't have anything to do with the article linked to from Reppert's blog which doesn't seem to be a response to the McGrews and doesn't mention the resurrection. It is not at all clear to me what it is that you expect me to get out of those links.

    If it is not clear whether Earman got Hume's argument right, then I cannot see how he can be relied upon to establish even that it is flawed, much less that it is an abject failure. Understanding the argument being critiqued is necessary to offer any opinion good or bad.

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  83. Vinny:

    I am not sure what the point of those links was supposed to be. I see that Carrier apologized for some intemperate remarks that he made in an interview.

    The point of the links was to answer your question about whether anyone had replied to the McGrew article. Although you are right this was not the focus of Carrier’s article (which was on Bayes’ Theorem), he would have been a good candidate to reply because of his knowledge of the resurrection evidence. His “intemperate remarks” in the interview were about the McGrews’ use of Bayes’ Theorem in the article, and the comments on Reppert’s site were about Carrier’s understanding of Bayes’ Theorem based on his article.

    Ultimately, Carrier apologized, not for making an intemperate remark like, “I see you’ve gained some weight,” but for unfairly criticizing their use of probability theory in the article. Interestingly, he says: “Your conclusion is useful if it were based on correct facts. Part of my point in the interview was that it was not, hence my conclusion was actually based on that statement (that your declarations regarding the facts were incorrect), not the actual mathematical result you produced which, if it were correctly derived from the facts,would be a strong result that would warrant more serious attention to the prior probability of divine intervention in the universe in general.”

    So he says that there is nothing wrong with “the actual mathematical result” but with their facts. The interesting thing about that statement is that the McGrews are actually very careful about the facts. Their article is well researched and tightly argued and they are careful not to overstate their case. Theirs is the best and most scholarly treatment of the facts I have seen.

    (But I know that you and I disagree about the facts, so if you don’t mind, I would like to leave it at that.)

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  84. If it is not clear whether Earman got Hume's argument right, then I cannot see how he can be relied upon to establish even that it is flawed, much less that it is an abject failure. Understanding the argument being critiqued is necessary to offer any opinion good or bad.

    I went back and read relevant parts of Earman’s book, and I retract my statement that he may have misunderstood Hume, but first let me explain why it’s not relevant. From my perspective, it doesn’t matter what Hume said and didn’t say, because nobody has challenged Earman’s use of Bayes’ Theorem with respect to miracles. This is math—either you understand it or you don’t. We don’t debate math like, “I feel like 2 + 2 = 4.” “No, I disagree!” Bayes’ Theorem is used for all kinds of things, especially in science, and Earman is a philosopher of science, so if there’s anything he understands, it should be Bayes’ Theorem.

    He says that, in principle, Bayes’ Theorem can be used to achieve a substantial degree of confirmation—even moral certainty—of Christianity, and nobody has challenged that statement. (He doesn’t, of course, say that this has been done or that he would find the work of Swinburne or the McGrews persuasive. After all, he is an atheist.)

    Now, getting to his alleged misunderstanding of Hume, the “Hume apologists,” as Earman calls them, claim that Hume never said that the probability of a miracle is “flatly zero.” This depends on the particular definition of Hume’s you rely on, and Earman addresses this issue, saying, “There is a disturbing slipperiness to Hume’s aims and conclusions,” and, “He was able to create the illusion of a powerful argument by maintaining ambiguities in his claims against miracles . . .” In other words, Hume is difficult to pin down, and when his argument is attacked, his defenders can always claim that the person didn’t understand Hume.

    But again, this is irrelevant to our discussion because even William Vanderburgh, whom you cited, says: “The upshot is that although Hume’s argument against miracles may well be flawed, it is certainly not an abject failure.” And, “Hume’s approach to evidential probability has an entirely different structure and basis than does the mathematical theory of probability Earman employs in his attack.” So he says nothing about the validity of Earman’s use of probability theory and he concedes that Hume’s argument may be flawed.

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  85. The point of the links was to answer your question about whether anyone had replied to the McGrew article. Although you are right this was not the focus of Carrier’s article (which was on Bayes’ Theorem), he would have been a good candidate to reply because of his knowledge of the resurrection evidence.

    Saying who might be an appropriate candidate to answer the McGrews doesn't really answer the question of whether anyone has answered the McGrews. It just wasted my time reading the links and trying to figure out their relevance.

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  86. Vinny,

    I apologize if you feel that I sent you on a wild goose chase. I probably should have pointed out what I thought was the significance.

    The short answer is that I am not aware of any scholarly response to the McGrew article. However, Carrier read the article and expressed his opinion, and he has written on probability theory, so since he is also familiar with the historical evidence I figured that was the most relevant.

    Michael Martin has written a chapter called, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," in The Empty Tomb, on the prior probability of the resurrection. Stephen Davis, who is cited in the chapter, has responded to it.

    But that is about the prior probability, which the McGrews have specifically not addressed in their article. I don't know of anyone who has replied to it, except the comments by Carrier and random Internet skeptics.

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  87. Anette Acker and Vinny,

    Thanks for the interesting conversation.

    1) I apologize (even though I have no control) over Blogger’s insistence in putting some comments in Spam. I hope I released them all—but this was a frustrating way to have a conversation!

    2) I empathize with the disappointment in displayed certainty when questions abound. Alas—certainty sells. To write a book attempting to respond to every counter-point (and then a reply to the counter to the response to the counter-point!) would become tedious. I find writers within this field typically approach the topic with certainty.

    It is why I eventually became exhausted—knowing counter-points unaddressed, and having to do the work itself made each book a stepping stone into a maze of research resulting in more open questions than answered.

    3) I actually prefer this type of back-and-forth; to see each side respond. Perhaps if more books were written like blog comments, I would become interested again. (Although they would probably not sell as well.)

    And never fear going off-topic on my blog—there is no such thing. I enjoy reading human interaction, even without having the time to engage.

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  88. Thanks, DagoodS. You did a great job releasing the comments from Blogger’s clutches. I’ve had the same problem on my blog and have been considering switching to WordPress.

    What you said about the back-and-forth dialogue reminds of something I was going to tell Vinny but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I was reading Hume’s Abject Failure at the dentist yesterday, and my dentist diplomatically asked me why I was reading that book. I explained that I write apologetics on my blog and that I have discussions with atheists and agnostics on my blog and others. She asked about that, and I mentioned that I was having a discussion with someone who coaches chess (Vinny), and that it's very clear that he's a chess player because there is a sense of progress when I talk with him. (Not that I have much personal experience with chess.)

    And I think that’s something Vinny does better than just about anyone else I have talked with. Discussions like this can be futile and exhausting, either because they go in circles, there’s lack of focus, or one or both parties fail to pay attention to the points already made. But since the discussions with Vinny are always focused even when they span several topics, they are never exhausting and there’s always something new to be learned.

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