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Sunday, April 24, 2011

Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

Yesterday was Easter, traditionally the day on which media outlets try to disabue Christians of the silly notion that there's anything to sing about besides chocolate bunnies and daffodils. Nowadays atheist blogs add their chirps to the chorus, in some cases with straightforward skepticm, in others with adolescent sneers.
This being a Christian blog, you might expect me to answer the question, "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" with a "big 10-4." I will try not to disappoint.

It occurs to me that, despite my interest in history, and all my books defending the Christian faith, I've seldom written much about why I believe the teacher we follow rose from the dead some 2000 years ago. Sometimes I refer people to N. T. Wright's erudite volume, the Resurrection of the Son of God, but John Loftus tells me that's too long for most readers. (And indeed, I have to admit, there are alleys in that maze down which I have yet to poke my nose.) I have also recommended William Lane Craig's debates on the subject, with John Crossan and Bart Ehrman, and will suggest another article, available on-line, at the end.

The evidence for any historical report naturally divides into two parts: (I) background evidence rendering the report plausible or implausible on its face, and (II) historical evidence that it actually did or did not occur.

The likelihood that Jesus rose is the product of these two figures. For instance, if the background likelihood that Jesus might resurrect is one in 100 billion, as an Irish skeptic of my acquaintance suggested (I think he was counting the number of people who have died in the past 2000 years, and assuming that none of the others came back to life!) then the historical evidence for the resurrection might have to be close to 100 billion to one in favor of the claim that it actually happened, to overcome such long odds. That might, admittedly, be tough odds for any historical claim to beat -- though not (I think) impossible.

If we were talking about a natural even, which did not ruffle any feathers about the sort of world we live in, the bare historical evidence for the resurrection would I think persuade every historian on earth that it took place. The reason people deny Jesus rose from the dead, is not that historical evidence is lacking -- it is I think amazingly good -- but that, heh, this is not what usually happens after someone dies!

This is David Hume's old argument about miracles. He claimed that "firm and unalterable experience" has established that the laws of nature are never altered. Therefore, even the most far-fetched natural explanation for a miracle is more plausible than a supernatural explanation for one. This is, of course, begging the question, as C. S. Lewis pointed out. How does he know miracles have never happened, in other words that all reports of them are false? But this does not stop Bart Ehrman and other skeptics from echoing his argument: extraordinary claims, we are told, require extraordinary evidence.

In a sense, that's exactly what I'm saying: one must consider both the background evidence of plausibility AND the historical evidence, to decide whether something has happened or not. The claim that the resurrection of Jesus is "extraordinary" is, in one sense, obviously true: it is unusual, beyond the ordinary course of nature, sensational. But let's not beg the question, as Hume and Erhman do, about whether it is "extraordinary" in the more relevant sense of "initially improbable on known background information."

To try to reduce the supposely unmanagable odds for the "extraordinary" claim of Easter, I will give the most attention to (I); also because it is relatively neglected. I will then offer some points on (II), that I find interesting.

(I) Is it plausible that Jesus could have risen from the dead?

"Of course not!" Many reply today. "Unlike those gullible 1st Century believers, we know science today! That kind of thing just doesn't happen!"

(1) The first fact we must understand is that ancient peoples were, in that respect, not that different from ourselves.
Paul's great sermon in Athens (Acts 17) is a masterpiece of cross-cultural proclamation. Paul begins by complimenting his audience on their religious interests. He cites Greek poets and philosophy brilliantly, then makes an argument for the existence of God that echoes popular Stoic arguments, especially Cicero's On The Nature of the Gods (which I have a strong notion he had read).

Having won the crowd over by reminding them of and affirming their own search for God, Paul made what may appear to be a fatal mistake: he brought up the resurrection:

"(God) has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

The reaction of MOST of Paul's audience shows that for them, as for us, background assumptions told strongly against such a claim:

"Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to snear, but others said, 'We shall hear you again concerning this. So Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him . . . "

Obviously, PZ Myers was not the first to find the central historical claim of the Gospels far-fetched on first-principals! In fact, the Mars Hill forum itself, where Paul was preaching, was founded (Bruce Winter notes) on the saying, "‘When a man dies, the earth drinks up his blood. There is no resurrection (anastasis).” Furthermore, everyone in the dinner party conversation Cicero describes in On the Nature of the Gods, scoffs at resurrection tales (“fabulous old women’s stories”). Doubting such nonsense seems to serve as a social boundary marker as well as an expression of personal incredulity. Scoff at these "old wives' tales," the message seemd to be, or risk your membership in the social elite.

You may have heard that line yourself.

So let's be clear. Only fools, which were probably no more common in the 1st Century than today, ever accepted the resurrection because they didn't know it contradicted the normal course of Nature. Jesus' own disciples were, at first, also incredulous. They were perfectly aware of the "facts of nature," so evident in a society without refrigerators. Much attention is given in the Iliad to the need to burn your slain before wild dogs, flies and maggots devour them. Public death was a common event in ancient Palestine, and decay more evident in any premodern village, than in a squeaky-clean modern megapolis.

I see the prior probability of Jesus' being raised as a function of three issues: (a) Does God exist? (b) How likely is he to keep the basic laws of Nature in effect -- including entropy in general and human death in particular -- while raising some one person dramatically from the dead? (c) How likely is that person to be Jesus? Points 2-9 will deal with these issues.

(2) Of course we cannot settle the question of whether God exists in this short (I still hope) post. Let me simply point out that there are many reports of miracles in modern times given by honest and reliable people, that in some cases seem convincing. Nor is this limited, as Hume supposed, to the "ignorance and barbarous." Augustine converted because he saw the hand of God at work. The history of Christianity, including the conversion of people I have met, often seems to involve miracles. I have seen God answer prayers in remarkable ways myself. This is why Christianity spread in the ancient world: not that no one was skeptical, but that skeptics found immediate reason, in the miracles witnessed in the Gospels and Acts, that overcame their skepticism.

But my argument does not depend on certainly that God exists. One need only find reason to keep an open mind: and there is certainly plenty of that. Even if you concede that there is only a one in five chance that God exists, even (and most people find it a lot better than that), this helps lower the "prior odds" against the resurrection to managable levels.

(3) We cannot, of course, read the mind of God. It does not seem so unlikely, though, that if God created Nature, He would have some reason for affirming her laws in general. Second, much of the offense skeptics take at miracles seems to be aesthetic; it seems inartistic, crude, etc, for the laws to be set aside too easily. (Which is why Myers and others focus on the "zombies" mentioned in passing at the end of Matthew.) Third, it's not hard to see some sense in God offering some sort of dramatic promise to humanity that Entropy will not have the last word, that there is hope for the human race. Raising a good person from the dead might well be His plan, if redemption of the human race in history (in some sense) is His goal.

There are a lot of "could bes, might bes" in this paragraph, obviously. But all that is needed to lower a very high initial probability against the resurrection is a plausible explanation for why it might occur -- not an airtight argument that it must occur.

To offer a parallel, suppose a trustworthy friend tells you, "I saw an elephant swimming in Green Lake in North Seattle yesterday." This may sound absurd: elephants are not native to North America, certainly not to the Pacific Northwest, nor are they common pets. If you subsequently hear on the radio that an elephant has escaped from Woodland Park Zoo half a mile from the lake, that does not add to your store of historical evidence for his visit to the lake -- which still consists of just one instance of human testimony -- but may decrease how much more evidence you demand before you believe it.

(4) To evaluate how likely a given person is to be the One whom God resurrects, let's begin with Martin Luther King. Suppose God wanted to dramatically show that Entropy would not have the last word, that there was hope for the human race, by raising a prominent person from the dead. Suppose He also pick someone whose triumphal return to life would serve as a reprimand to oppressors and murderers everywhere, and would underline the importance of that person's message?

Martin Luther King might be a good person to pick. His resurrection would not only give people hope for life after death, but also demonstrate God was on the side of non-violence and human rights. On the other hand, his resurrection might also send mixed messages about how to treat women, or force God to "pick sides" in American politics. ("Vote Democratic, and be on God's side!") And there are others who might do just as well -- Gandhi, say, or Socrates. So if there is a God, and he wanted to make some dramatic points by raising one great person from the dead, one might suppose (for instance) that there is a one in a thousand chance that the person he would raise would be Martin Luther King, Jr.

In that case, would there be anyone more likely to be raised than Jesus? Consider the following facts, none of which depend on the historical accounts of Jesus' final days in the NT:

(5) Isaiah spoke of a Suffering Servant dying, yet then "seeing the Light of Life." Christians have interpretted this and other passages in the OT as a signal pointing to God's intention to raise Jesus. Early Christians who wrote the NT certain felt Jesus fit much of what is said in the OT about the Messiah or Suffering Servant, and fulfilled many types and prophecies in Hebrew tradition. One might suppose they made all this up, to make Jesus look like the Messiah -- though this seems far-fetched to the max. (See part II.)

Anyway, some of the prophesies were not fulfilled in the Gospels, but have been fulfilled since. In particular, over and over again, the OT predicts the Messiah will be a blessing to people around the world. This had not happened by the time the Gospels were written, but it certainly has today.

If there is a God, such prophecies, which come to a focus on one insignificant nation in the 1st Century, and which one man seems so remarkably to fulfill, make the resurrection of that man from the dead immensely more probable than that, say, Martin Luther King, or even Mohandas Gandhi.

(6) The ancient Hindus wrote of God (Prajapati) sacrificing himself for the world. There are parallels in other cultures, and mythological "dying and rising gods." The Chinese Book of Rites, one of the 5 Classics of ancient China, for instance, talks about the hope that a man will rise from the dead within three days. Might these also give some indirect signal of God's intentions? To put it another way, is it not plausible that God understands what it is about human nature that causes us to dream of such things, and fulfill the psychological truth found in all cultures through his model human being, his "second Adam?"

(7) Lin Yutang, the great Chinese philosopher and man of letters, who compiled an anthology of Chinese and Indian literature, said that "no man has taught as Jesus taught." Many others on a similar intellectual plane concur. Is it not more likely that God would choose a great moral teacher to make His point?

(8) Jesus was, as I show in Truth Behind the New Atheism and other books, at the center of many of the greatest reforms in human history -- inspiring them, setting an example, more so than anyone. Is it not likely God would choose to raise such a person, to set an example for the human raise, and underline his example?

(9) Jesus was (most scholars agree) murdered by tyrants, backed by the Roman Empire, in a particularly savage way. If God is (as Lao Zi said of the Tao) on the side of the weak against powerful oppressors, would not raising him from the dead be a particularly good way of showing that?

I pointed out many such deep and important elements in non-Christian cultures that also seem to increase the significance of Jesus, in Jesus and the Religions of Man. Notice that I haven't introduced any specificially Christian theology into these last several points. Even so, these seem to me to be enough to show that, if there is a God, and if He might do as I suggest, then the resurrection of Jesus in particular is more probable than of anyone else who has ever lived.

In fact, one might even say that if God did not raise Jesus, it would be a shock and a surprise.

And so, even before looking at the historical evidence for or against the resurrection, it seems reasonable to assign a high prior probability to the idea that he rose from the dead -- perhaps even a positive probability, even BEFORE examining the evidence, and finding it (as I agree with the other Christians here that it is) strong.








II. So How is the Evidence for the Resurrection?

I think amazingly good.

I've argued at book length for the general truthfulness of the Gospels. The evidence for the Resurrection is even stronger than that argument implies, because it does not depend on the Gospels being so accurate as historical reports. If all we had for an ordinary historical event (prior probability having already been found strong) were the report in I Corinthians 15 about all the witnesses for the resurrection, that alone would be sufficient to establish any ordinary historical claim. If, say, knowing what we know about Paul, he had mentioned all these eyewitnesses to the fact that Peter had blond hair, no one would doubt it.

This may sound flippant. Of course the Gospels are claiming something much more important. And of course I think the evidence for what they claim is far stronger: no one died for their faith in Peter's blond hair, nor has it changed the world.



Furthermore, we have several early sources that tell of the resurrection of Jesus and its aftermath: Mark (a very early source), Luke (found to generally be a consummate early historian in the Greek style, and who probably knew some eyewitnesses well), John (probably based on an eyewitness testimony). One might admit that some of these sources are stronger than others: Matthew's "zombies" are a hard pill to swallow. Still, the NT alone contains several remarkable accounts of Jesus after he died.




In Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could, I describe 50 characteristics that uniquely identify the Gospels, and in most cases Jesus, like DNA or fingerprints on the windowpane of ancient history. Many or most of those characteristics also support the general historical truthfulness of the Gospels, sometimes in remarkable ways. Just as DNA or fingerprints can provide powerful evidence for someone's presence at the scene of a crime, so the Gospels are for this reason provide not just serioius historical evidence, but evidence of a forensic strength.

I'll give one brief example. If, as the Jesus Seminar admits, many of the SAYINGS of Jesus reported in the Gospels are unique, putting Jesus in a league of his own, and almost certainly from the mouth of the historical Jesus, how could it be that all the earliest writers, who got mere words right, have muddled this little detail that the disciples all met Jesus again, alive, and it absolutely transformed their lives?

Every great religious tradition knows what happened to its founder, especially when the founder died dramatically, like Joseph Smith, in a shootout, or Mohandas Gandhi, victim of assassination. This is not normally something you just forget.

Equally powerful is the evidence that is the Christian church itself.

We know that an earthquake occurred in Japan recently, not only because people and instruments that were there report it, but even more because of the enormous effect it had on the countryside. The resurrection of Jesus was the tsunami that changed human history.

There's much more to be said on each of these points, but I'll stop here for now. This is a big enough bite to swallow, and to prompt discussion, for now. I may post on this second part of the question later.

In the meanwhile, for a good summary of some of the argument for II (mostly), see Tim and Lydia McGrew's The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. (It's a pdf file, so I can't link, but you can find it easily with a search.) Tim is a philosophy professor at Western Michigan University: he knows what he's about with probability. He points out that the Gospels and Acts have been found to be highly reliable. Citing Habermas, he points out that most scholars admit the tomb was empty and the disciples believed Jesus was raised from the dead. He also points to the "realism and vividness of personality" the resurrected Jesus displayed, which matched his pre-resurrection personality. (I might add, this is a sharp contrast to the "Jesus appearances" recorded in Gnostic stories -- see my The Truth About Jesus and the 'Lost Gospels.' That is what real "fake Jesus appearances sound like!)

That'll be quicker than reading Wright. But anyway, I think most the force of the Argument Against Easter lies with I, and that turns out to be not so strong.

44 comments:

Dr H said...

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DM: Yesterday was Easter, traditionally the day on which media outlets try to disabue Christians of the silly notion that there's anything to sing about besides chocolate bunnies and daffodils.
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Uh, yeah. In between re-running every Passion Play every put on celluoid from the silent film era up through last summer.

Dr H said...

David, I agree that taken /prima facia/ Hume's argument against miracles would appear to be circular (or 'question begging' as you and Lewis put it). That is the flaw inherent in asserting any -absolute- argument.

Viewed in the context of a scientific epistemology, however, the claim needn't be absolute to be valid and carry a weight of veracity that would be -- is -- very difficult to challenge.

For the past 150, almost 200 years there has been intensive scientific scrutiny of paranormal and supernatural claims. In all that time, through tens of thousands of investigations and examination of millions upon millions of pieces of alleged evidence, not a -single- paranormal or supernatural claim has been unambiguously shown to even likely, much less true.

Yes, there remain a handful of claims that could be considered "unresolved," mostly by virtue of the lack of sufficient evidence to adequately judge them at all. But the lack of sufficient evidence from which to provide a natural explanation does NOT mean that a supernatural explanation is therefore necessary by default.

Anonymous said...

For the past 150, almost 200 years there has been intensive scientific scrutiny of paranormal and supernatural claims. In all that time, through tens of thousands of investigations and examination of millions upon millions of pieces of alleged evidence, not a -single- paranormal or supernatural claim has been unambiguously shown to even likely, much less true.

Putting aside the tremendous exaggeration in the quoted statement: Were these exclusively the not-very-bright scientists who didn't realize that "science", by its very nature and founding, can only explore nature - not the supernatural?

Not to mention the sort of redefinitions that go on in science. Action without contact was decried as an occult power, but eventually it was decided that gravity was natural after all. The idea that there is fundamental uncertainty in the microphysical world was regarded as spooky and weird and occult, until it became the consensus view: Then that became "natural" as well. The idea that time began to exist, or that our universe was brought into being by something external to it, both were ideas similarly offensive to natural science, until they became popular.

Science hasn't done what people so often claim it has.

Dr H said...

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DM: Second, much of the offense skeptics take at miracles seems to be aesthetic; it seems inartistic, crude, etc, for the laws to be set aside too easily. (Which is why Myers and others focus on the "zombies" mentioned in passing at the end of Matthew.)
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I don't know what "skeptics" you've been hanging out with, but I think you've seriously missed Meyer's (and others') point about the zombies in Matthew. It has nothing to do directly with miracles, and nothing at all to do with aesthetics.

What it has to do with is a point of -historical- evidence, namely, -if- such a phenomenal and extraordinary event occured as described in Matthew, then how is it that there is NO MENTION of this amazing event in any other extant historical record?

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There are parallels in other cultures, and mythological "dying and rising gods." [...] Might these also give some indirect signal of God's intentions?
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Or might they be indicative that human beings are are quite similar, regardless of cluture, in that most of them fear death, and seek magical ways to deny it?


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DM: ...it seems reasonable to assign a high prior probability to the idea that he rose from the dead
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No, that isn't reasonable at all. Your Irish skeptic made a far more reasonable statement in saying that the odds were probably something like one in a billion (or in 115 billion, according to more recent estimates), since we have no definitive physical evidence that any of that multitude have ever risen from the dead.

And no, I don't believe in the Easter Bunny," either.

Anonymous said...

It’s impossible to work out exactly what happened after the death of Jesus with any degree of certainty. If we suppose that Jesus existed and was crucified but did NOT rise from the dead, then it seems most likely that Jesus himself never said anything about rising from the dead when he was alive. But the Messiah was supposed to be a great king. Most of the Jews in Palestine at the time had NOT believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and his crucifixion merely confirmed this. But once Jesus was crucified, his small band of intensely devoted followers (the fairly small number of people who HAD believed that he was the Messiah) had to deal with this fact – a fact which appeared to contradict their belief that he was the Messiah. After the crucfixion, some of his followers might have changed their minds, but other people who believed he was the Messiah, came to believe that he had risen from the dead, citing post-mortem appearances.

This fits with how devoted believers react when their prophecies do not come true. For example, when a group of people believe that the world is going to end on a specific date, and then it doesn’t happen, a few of them might stop believing – but many of the rest of them are so committed to the prophecy and to the group, and have devoted so much to it, that it is psychologically impossible to give it up – so they start to re-interpret it, and find ways to readjust that will allow them to go on believing. “Group-think” leads to validation (“You saw it too, didn’t you? If we both say we saw it then it means it was true”). Also, before the prophecy is supposed to happen the group is completely sure that it will happen, so they have little need to evangelise (they don’t need the “external validation” – they have certainty). But after the prophecy fails to materialise they start to evangelise frantically outside the small group, because they need the external validation that comes from persuading other people that they were correct.

Anyway, by the time Paul was evangelising, and the gospels were written, the resurrection was becoming the “official” story, but in many respects there was no generally agreed on account, as far as details were concerned. This would explain why the original version of Mark, the oldest gospel, does not have any accounts of post-mortem appearances, and why the other accounts conflict with each other in details, and contain accounts of disciples not recognising Jesus, as well as doubting that the alleged appearances were genuine.

I would say one of the main reasons the story of Jesus took off, is because it responds to psychologically powerful features in the human mind – after all, if the story did NOT do so, then it is difficult to see why Christianity would have spread as it did, and remained such a widespread phenomenon even up to this day. Along with Islam it is the most successful religion in the world – given all the numerous other religions that have not been so successful, we would expect to find a coincidental concatenation of events or circumstances surrounding the more successful religions that enable them to spread and endure – in the same way that SOMEONE has to win a national lottery – but that does not mean that the person who won the national lottery has a direct line to God : - )

Elite European Liberal

David B Marshall said...

Dr. H: Your take on Hume is more plausible in theory, but not, I think, viable in practice.

First of all, your claim tangles epistemologies. It is itself historical -- there has been this scrutiny, it has turned up nothing. But it privileges science -- you assume that science is "the way" in which to test "paranormal and supernatural" claims. And that fits with your previous arguments -- serious evidence, you have argued, has to be physical, scientifically-testable.

So which is it? Is your historical claim serious? Yet you cannot have physical evidence for it. It must be based on reports by the scientists (if that it what they are) who have tested the claims. Those reports are human testimony, not "science." I'm not even sure you can have good historical evidence for the claim -- how can you possibly know what has or has not been discovered over two centuries, and millions of pieces of evidence? My gosh! If you have really evaluated all that, even historically (never mind scientifically), how do you find time to post on the Internet? (Or breath?)

Of course, I tend to privilege history, so can make no such objection. But if I accept historical evidence, then miracles are back in.

So you're stuck, one way or the other. If you want to throw out miracles, you have to throw out your certainty that they don't happen with them.

I am not just playing a logical game, here. In fact, the very nature of miracles makes it impossible to test them scientifically. They can only be evaluated historidally.

Why is that? Does God like historians better than science?

Simple. One tests events that are predictable. The paranormal might fall into that category. One does magic by some innate power one can tap into at will.

But miracles involve God acting in Nature. God is always smarter than the scientist. You cannot pray for Group A and not pray for Group B, and expect God to play along, as if he's so stupid he doesn't know you're trying to manipulate him.

No scientist has ever tested my experiences with God answering prayer in a tube. Nor, so far as I know, have they done so with other people I have met, who have seen God do unusual things. My former Muslim friend, who as a prominent Imam in Africa heard God speak to him verbally, and abandoned his culture to become a Christian, did not have a tape recorder running at the time. These sorts of things don't even cross your mind, when you're in the middle of the battle.

So I find your certainty rather startling.

David B Marshall said...

Dr. H: These comments, I think, just miss the point:

"Your Irish skeptic made a far more reasonable statement in saying that the odds were probably something like one in a billion (or in 115 billion, according to more recent estimates), since we have no definitive physical evidence that any of that multitude have ever risen from the dead."

First of all, I said 100 billion, not 1 billion.

Secondly, this has nothing to do with "definitive physical evidence," which we also don't have that most of them ever lived, yet here you are, using the number.

Third, you're just ignoring my actual arguments, which explain why that number is way too high.

David B Marshall said...

Brian: Yes, that's the old "cognitive dissonance" explanation. And it does help illustrate how people manage to believe strange things -- especially the skeptics who rely on it!

Let's talk facts. What other instances can you cite of a failed prophet who died, coming back from death? Cognitive dissonance presumably operates in all cultures at all times, and lots of people have claimed to be messiahs or sages or prophets. Hong Xiuquan in China might be a great candidate: indeed, both in Roman times, and in China, such prophets were routinely executed.

The details you mention are precisely what make the Gospels so convincing. Vincent Burliosi, who tried Charles Manson, has pointed out that when testimony agrees too closely, prosecutors suspect collusion. Indeed, I believe that ancient historical sources, when reliable, ALWAYS give different details. Agreement on the main points, with some differing details, as in the Gospels, is very persuasive.

So is the fact that some disciples didn't recognize Jesus at first. Who would make that up? I don't recall that ever happening in the Gnostic appearances. Indeed, all you have to do is read the Gnostic accounts, and the Gospel accounts, to be struck by the total phoniness of the former, and the stark realism of the latter.

Of course, if God does not exist, and miracles do not happen, you'll have to do the best you can with what parallels you can find or imagine. But even as an intellectual exercise, I think most atheists are missing out on something remarkable, here.

Brian Barrington said...

The lives of the disciples had been transformed before Jesus was killed, and before the alleged post-mortem appearances. They believed he was the Messiah before all these things supposedly happened, no? And of course the story of the resurrection only emerged AFTER Jesus was dead, so it probably had nothing to do with him at all, although it seems likely that at least some of his immediate disciples played a role in its emergence, but that they did not regard coming back from the dead as proof that he was God, but rather as evidence that he was the Messiah. Even at that, it’s sometimes difficult to see why this is regarded as proof that he was the Messiah – many of these people also presumably believed that Lazarus rose from the dead, as well as Matthew’s “Holy Men”, as well as several other people in the New Testament who apparently rose from the dead - and nobody argues that any of these people were the Messiah. Indeed, given how people were rising from the dead all over the place back then, it’s hard to see why Jesus rising from the dead is regarded as so monumentally significant, rather than just another everyday humdrum event.

My own view is that Jesus never claimed to be God, and his original followers probably did not believe that either. They just believed Jesus was the Messiah, and that is what Jesus himself also likely believed. As far as I can work out, the belief that Jesus is God, and the belief in the Trinity, only became Christian orthodoxy after a long theological struggle between the followers of Jesus in the second, third and fourth centuries after Jesus lived – the basis for any of this in the New Testament (written mostly in the first century AD) is fairly shaky.

Btw, it’s possible that it was generally known that some disciples did not buy into the post-mortem appearances. This fits with how devoted believers react when their prophecies do not come true - a few of them stop believing, but the rest become even more fanatical and sure of their beliefs, once they have adjusted to incorporate the new situation. If this was generally known amongst early followers of Jesus, then it would not be possible to leave it out of the gospel accounts, at least if the accounts were meant to be plausible. So the “criterion of embarrassment” would explain these passages in the accounts of the post-mortem appearances. By the time the later Gnostic gospels arrived, the disciples who had known Jesus were long dead, so there was no need for these kinds of considerations. Of course, I don’t know if this is exactly what happened, but it seems reasonably plausible.

Brian Barrington said...

If a religion is just a cult that lots of people believe in then it is not that difficult to explain the spread and endurance of Christianity. There have probably been tens of thousands of cults, and only a couple of them, like Christianity and Islam, have become global religions. Obviously, the ones that spread and endure are the ones that will appeal most to human psychology – like a process of evolution. So there was something about these cults that allowed them to succeed in these terms (like a viral email that takes off).

One of the main things that Christianity and Islam have in common is the promise of eternal heaven or paradise for those who believe. My guess is that this is the main appeal of these religions for many people – humans have evolved to know that they are mortal, and that is very difficult to deal with. And if you combine the promise of eternal life and happiness for those who believe, with the threat of eternal hell for those who do not believe, then that can amount to a powerful form of “psychological blackmail” – or to put it more generously: these beliefs appeal to something deep within the human psyche and even perhaps human nature.

But that on its own is not enough for a cult to become a religion– I’m sure there have been many other cults that have promised the same thing, but that did not go on to then become religions. Throw the following into the mix: a charismatic figure and a good story well told, also combined with convincing original followers to initially spread the message, and perhaps a couple of favourable historical coincidences (somebody taking Jesus’ body from the tomb, maybe?). If you put all that together then you have to basic elements required for a successful religion. In the case of Christianity, you also have the story of the resurrected God-man, which (if accepted) lends credence to the claim that there is an after-life – this makes the story extra-powerful.

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous: Putting aside the tremendous exaggeration in the quoted statement:
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What exaggeration would that be?

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Anon: Were these exclusively the not-very-bright scientists who didn't realize that "science", by its very nature and founding, can only explore nature - not the supernatural?
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Ah, the convenient dodge of the dedicated supernaturalist: "No I can't show you any evidence, because the evidence can't be studied by any know means!"

How convenient for you. You are free to make any wild claim imaginable without fear of contradiction, because your claim is "beyond study".

See the comment in David's original post /re/ "begging the question."

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Anon: Not to mention the sort of redefinitions that go on in science.
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Oh, by all means, mention them. That is one of the great strengths of science: when new evidence comes along which clearly demonstrates that an hypothesis has been in error **science corrects the error** and moves on.

As opposed to religion which, dogmatic by definition, can never correct its errors, and so never does.

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Anon: Science hasn't done what people so often claim it has.
==========

What "people" would those be, and what is it that they've claimed that science does?

Dr H said...

==========
DM: But it privileges science -- you assume that science is "the way" in which to test "paranormal and supernatural" claims.
==========
Show me another serious epistemology with anywhere near the successful track record of science since the codification of the scientific method ~200 years ago.

==========
DM: And that fits with your previous arguments -- serious evidence, you have argued, has to be physical, scientifically-testable.
==========
Only for claims made about the real world, since the real world is demonstrably physical.

Science is, as our frined Anonymous #1 points out, about the study of the physical world.

You are free to speculate about metaphysical resurrections in some imaginary non-physical world without having to produce supporting evidence. But as soon as you make a claim about the real world -- e.g., that the dead, putrifying flesh physically got up, regenerated itself, and walked around -- then you have made a real, physical claim which falls under scientific scrutiny.

==========
DM: Those reports are human testimony, not "science."
==========
Reports -- specifically peer-reviewed reports -- are but a single aspect of the scientific method. You are well aware of this, and attempting to paint this one aspect into the whole method is disingenuous.

Another aspect, and one of the reasons for requiring peer-review in the first place, is replicability. No scientist has to rely -only- on reports of research done by another scientist. He/she is free to use the information provided in their report to /replicate/ the original experiments, and see first-hand whether or not the results obtained are similar to those claimed in the original report. Many parapsychological experiments have been replicated hundreds, and even thousands of times. Although this is not my primary field, I have even replicated a few of them myself.

No, I am not relying solely on historical verification.

Dr H said...

==========
DM: If you want to throw out miracles, you have to throw out your certainty that they don't happen with them.
==========
Science doesn deal in certainties; religion does. That is why science can correct its errors whereas a religion cannot.

Nor did your OP argument(I) deal with certainty; you were arguing probabilities. I responded in kind. I pointed out that the tremendous volume of research which has failed to even demonstrate the -existence- of the supernatural, much less the veracity of any claims based upon it, sets the probability /against/ your specific claim of the moment as monumentally larger than you imagine it to be.


==========
DM: I am not just playing a logical game, here. In fact, the very nature of miracles makes it impossible to test them scientifically.
==========

If so, then these miracles can't possibly have any impact whatsoever in the real world; if they did, they would be testable by scientific means. By your own argument, you have relegated miracles to the realm of unicorns and dragons.

==========
DM: They can only be evaluated historidally.
==========

History, insofar as it has not been confirmed by physical evidence, is a series of anecdotal reports, often repeated and filtered thorugh generations of hearers. Ever play "telephone?" Anecdotal evidence is the weakest form of evidence. Indeed, calling it "evidence" at all is a courtesy; really it's hearsay.

And hearsay can advance all sorts of fabulous claims. Lacking any way to test those claims against reality, they can never be evaluated for truth-value beyond "so and so -says- this is what happened." If -another- so-and-so
says "actually, something else happened," how can you say which one is right and which one is wrong?

Dr H said...

==========
DM: Indeed, I believe that ancient historical sources, when reliable, ALWAYS give different details. Agreement on the main points, with some differing details, as in the Gospels, is very persuasive.
==========

The few gospels which you choose to acknowledge don't merely give "some differing details," they blatantly contradict each other.

Matthew and Luke give completely different geneologies for Joseph.

Matthew says Jesus was born during Herod's reign; Luke makes statements that would put the birth a decade after Herod's death.

John and Mark don't even bother to mention the "virgin birth" -- surely a noteworthy event, particularly in the life of a Messiah?

There are plenty of other examples, and I leave out contradiction between the canonical Gospels and historical information found in other sources.

David B Marshall said...

Anon vs. Anon: This is confusing! Don't be shy -- please take off the paper bags, or at least make up a name by which we can distinguish you. Thanks.

David B Marshall said...

Brian: There seems to have been a real change in the attitude of the disciples after the resurrection. You may recall, they all ran away in fear when Jesus was arrested. (After Peter attempted some brave sword work.) But later, almost all of them preached and died boldly for their faith. This is one of the facts that I think the resurrection does help explain.

Jesus' resurrection was clearly different from that of Lazarus. The latter was (it seems) restored to normal human life, to live out his days. Jesus was raised to a new life, of some sort -- you could touch him, he could eat, you could recognize him, but he could also do things we can't, naturally. This may be why Paul calls him the "first fruit" of the hoped-for general resurrection.

David B Marshall said...

Dr. H: "Science doesn't deal in certainties; religion does. That is why science can correct its errors whereas a religion cannot."

Thanks for your fine recital from the Skeptical Catechism. Give the good Dr. two stars.

But of course, religion DOES "correct its errors." That's what Greco-Roman pagans did when they embraced Christianity. And Christians, too, have corrected many of our errors, and those of our pagan and atheist forebares -- you ought to read some good theology, some time. There is hardly anything in human knowledge that is not embraced (if not discovered) by some theologian, somewhere.

Science by nature involves reproducible events. Miracles by nature are wilfull, and (like subatomic particles) the presence of an observer seems to effect what is observed. Miracles can therefore be evaluated historically, but not scientifically.

This is no real problem: it just means we have to come to God humbly. It does not at all follow that:

"If so, then these miracles can't possibly have any impact whatsoever in the real world; if they did, they would be testable by scientific means."

I've explained why that's not true. Science is not, as much as you may like to think, omniscience: it is impotent to access much of the real world, which does not mean none of what it fails to access, can be accessed.

"History, insofar as it has not been confirmed by physical evidence, is a series of anecdotal reports, often repeated and filtered thorugh generations of hearers."

I think you know better by now, even if you won't admit it. Human testimony can and often does provide a high degree of certainty. I proved this with that old experiment I did in Japan, when we argued epistemology before, and with many examples since. Talking with a flight controller recently, he agreed with the point I made then completely: air traffic control is just one of many examples of how human beings have reasonably risked their lives not on scientific grounds, but on what you call "anecdotal" grounds -- trusting what believable people have to say.

David B Marshall said...

Dr. H: All the examples you give of alleged "blatant contradictions" between the Gospels have to do with Jesus' birth, not his death. What's the difference? At least 30 years.

Of course John's report about the birth of Jesus is more sketchy than his report of his death and resurrection. He was a generation further removed from the event. In fact, he wasn't there at all, but he was there for Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection. Furthermore, Jesus was born in obscurity, but his death was a public event.

So I won't quibble about the birth narratives, though some might contest your points. (And it's an interesting SCIENTIFIC question, what happened in the skies, that could have attracted the wise men to Jerusalem -- there are some plausible explanations.) We're talking about the HISTORICAL evidence for the resurrection, right now.

Brian Barrington said...

David,

It’s not that surprising that the gospels report Jesus doing things that can’t be done in nature after he died. After all, the gospels report him doing lots of things that can’t be done in nature before he died as well. If someone can, you know, walk on water, then it would not be overly surprising if they could walk through walls as well. And if someone can bring back someone else from the dead, it would not be overly surprising if they came back from the dead themselves.

What might be considered a little odd would be if a group of disciples who had witnessed Jesus perform a stunning series of miracles then abandoned him - but then, upon witnessing one more miracle, changed their minds and were prepared to die for him. But the traumatic death of Jesus itself may well have changed some of his followers’ attitudes towards him – it would be plausible if some of them became less ardent as a result of it, and others became more ardent. However, we don’t know many details with any degree of certainty.

But lots of people who have never met Jesus have been prepared to die for their belief in him – so it would be not surprising if some of the people who knew him would be also prepared to do so – people are prepared to die for things they believe in all the time.

Dr H said...

==========
DM: Anon vs. Anon: This is confusing! Don't be shy -- please take off the paper bags, or at least make up a name by which we can distinguish you. Thanks.
==========

I think one of those "anon's" is me hitting "publish" when I meant to hit "preview," before I signed the post.

Heat of the moment, and all that -- you know how excitable we anarchists can become when we don't have something at hand to blow up. :-)

Dr H said...

==========
DM: Jesus' resurrection was clearly different from that of Lazarus. The latter was (it seems) restored to normal human life, to live out his days. Jesus was raised to a new life, of some sort -- you could touch him, he could eat, you could recognize him, but he could also do things we can't, naturally.
==========
Um... according to the Gospels he could do plenty of things we can't, well before he died and came back: walk on water; control the weather; restore sight to the blind; magically make loaves and fishes reproduce; raise the dead; forsee the future -- you know, little things like that.

Dr H said...

==========
DM: Thanks for your fine recital from the Skeptical Catechism. Give the good Dr. two stars.
==========
Only two?

==========
DM: But of course, religion DOES "correct its errors." That's what Greco-Roman pagans did when they embraced Christianity.
==========
No they didn't. They changed religions; not at all the same thing as correcting the mistakes in their own religion.

==========
DM: And Christians, too, have corrected many of our errors,
==========
It's true, the Pope did actually concede that the Earth goes around the sun -- a mere 359 years after the Church condemned Galileo for making that claim.
I guess the Church had to wait until a couple thousand satellites were successfully placed in orbit, a couple hundred people orbited the Earth, and a dozen more walked on the moon to be absolutely sure.
Talk about requiring extraordinary evidence!


==========
DM: and those of our pagan and atheist forebares
==========
Telling someone else that they've made mistakes is also not the same thing as correcting one's own mistakes.

==========
DM: -- you ought to read some good theology, some time.
==========
Huh. So N.T. Wright's not a good theologist? Paul Tillich? Karl Barth?

How about Thomas Aquinas? Martin Luther? Ignatius Loyola? Augustine?

No? Maybe Kierkegaard? Swedenborg? von Hildebrand? Schaeffer?

Damn. Sorry I wasted my time with all of these hacks.

But seriously, while I would never claim to be as widely read in this area as you, neither have I exactly neglected theology as a part of my philosophical studies.

==========
DM: There is hardly anything in human knowledge that is not embraced (if not discovered) by some theologian, somewhere.
==========
If so, it's likely just because there were so many of them. The same statement could probably be made with the same degree of accuracy about drunkards.

David B Marshall said...

Dr. H: You said a religion "cannot correct its errors." I asked you to read a little theology. You then gave a list of eleven "theologists" you have, apparently, read.

So which of these eleven did not correct what they perceived as errors in previous theology?

Dr H said...

==========
DM: Science by nature involves reproducible events.
==========
That is a common misconception of non-scientists which is neither necessarily nor universally true. In some branches of science, those done in the lab, it is admittedly the ideal situation we would like to have: set up 50 petri dishes as controls and another 50 in which only a single variable is altered; record results; lather; rinse; repeat.

But a great deal of science is done in the field, and outside the lab nature is rarely so accomodating. We can -- and do -- also study things scientifically by observing apparently similar sorts of phenomena, taking measurements, and then noting in what ways they actually are similar and in what ways they differ. Individual mechanisms may be singled out for lab treatment to confirm or refute a particular point, but it is not necessary for nature to repeat itself exactly in order for a natural phenomenon to be scientifically studies.

We do, after all, study supernovae, earthquakes, hurricanes, and the Big Bang, without having to (or being able to) recreate them in toto.

==========
DM: Miracles by nature are wilfull,
==========
What an extraordinary statement to make after claiming that miracles are not a part of nature. If they're not of nature, then they can't be studied, and you can't possible know whether their "nature" is wilfull or otherwise.

You have been caught in a circle of your own construction.

==========
DM: and (like subatomic particles) the presence of an observer seems to effect what is observed.
==========
Yet we study subatomic particles scientifically. And quite successfully.

==========
DM: Miracles can therefore be evaluated historically, but not scientifically.
==========
Then it can never be established that there are such things.

==========
DM: I've explained why that's not true.
==========
You've explained why you would wish for it not to be true.

==========
DM: Science is not, as much as you may like to think, omniscience:
==========
I have not ever claimed that it is. What I have stated, repeatedly and truly, is that science is an epistemology -- a means by which we acquire knowledge. And it is demonstrably the most successful and productive epistemology yet devised.

==========
DM: it is impotent to access much of the real world, which does not mean none of what it fails to access, can be accessed.
==========
Note emphasis added: if science cannot access "it", then "it", by definition, and by your own admission, is not of the real world.

Dr H said...

==========
DM: Human testimony can and often does provide a high degree of certainty. I proved this with that old experiment I did in Japan, when we argued epistemology before, and with many examples since.
==========
Hogwash, poppycock, and balderdash. You conducted one or two off-the-cuff, uncontrolled, unblinded experiments on a handful of students, ignored all the sources I cited of decades of research contradicting what you think you found, then dismissed my critiques, declared victory, and moved on.

It was like the "psychic" standing on a street corner and willing the green light to turn red, then when the light turns red, he crosses the street, goes home, kicks back and has a beer, confident in his supernatural power to alter events.

==========
DM: Talking with a flight controller recently, he agreed with the point I made then completely: air traffic control is just one of many examples of how human beings have reasonably risked their lives not on scientific grounds, but on what you call "anecdotal" grounds -- trusting what believable people have to say.
==========
And I've explained to you why that is baloney. Pilots don't sit blindfolded in their cockpits with only the celestial voice of the tower controller to guide them in to a miraculous landing. Were that the case we would have had several major disasters recently when said tower controllers dozed off on the job.

There are things called /instruments/: altimeters; air speed indicators; compasses; radar; GPS; runway markers and lights. They are not just there for decoration, and the information they provide is not anecdotal.

Anonymous said...

From what I can recall of your previous argument on Amazon, your recent blog seems rather similar. I didn't find anything here that jumped out at me that didn't before. If you want to point out your updates I'll comment on them.

But some general comments. First, Hume begged no questions in his argument for miracles. If he said "There are no miracles therefore there are no miracles" then indeed this would beg the question. But Hume's argument was evidentiary. Hume's argument is the evidence against the occurrence of miracles is far stronger than the evidence for it, and one clear reason to believe so is that events that are called miraculous are perceived as such. We can imagine a world where Hume's argument would not work at all well. A world where science had worked out a basic rubric of laws, but where on a daily basis these laws were defied. In such a world I might claim that my fork suddenly levitated and others would say "Yea, happens all the time--makes it tough at dinner time." We don't live in such a world, and thus the evidence is against the occurrence of miracles. Note this is not the bald statement that miracles never happen.

Second, and I think I've noted this before, you tend to be quite liberal in what you will allow to be a miracle. Of course we use this language all the time. "That was a miracle." Doug Flutie's pass in 1984 that secured a win in the last seconds of a ball game is called "miraculous" all across the internet. Just do the search. But no one would suggest that God aided Flutie by changing the laws of motion. People speak of "miraculous cures." But in the more sober context of medical science this is known as the phenomenon of "spontaneous remission," something that calls for serious study, not simply dropped at the door step of God. And indeed there is active research that has born fruit concerning some of the circumstances that are responsible. We also know that some medical conditions do not allow for spontaneous remission, such as death. You speak of stories of people whose prayers have been answered "miraculously." First, this is apocryphal evidence, not to be trusted. Second, can you cite any such example where the prayer was for a suspension of the laws of nature? Third, to evaluate this we would need to know about the instances in which the prayed for result was not experienced. How many people through the centuries have prayed that they or a loved one not die, only to have the feared death occur?

Another point. The success of Christianity doesn't provide any evidence for the plausibility of the resurrection. You seem to be trying to in some fashion pull in the hypothetico-deductive method of science. If A then B will be observed, B was observed, thus it is more likely that A is correct. But there's no way this could work with the resurrection. Even supposing the Resurrection did occur, it of itself offers nothing in terms of scientifically tracable consequences.

In the end I think the one think that raises the prior probability of the resurrection to a significantly higher value for you than for me is simply your belief in God. If a God, who by definition can do anything, is around, then risings from the dead would be possible. But then you are begging the question, not me.

Another point I might make that I haven't made in the past. Much is made of the supposed "witnesses" of the resurrection. Of course there were no witnesses to the resurrection itself, but simply stories of sightings of Jesus. It is clear that in the time of Paul some people, such as the one named, did believe such a thing occurred. But why didn't more people believe? Why didn't the Jews of the time, who were much closer to the "evidence" than we are, not accept this evidence?

Richard Field

Dr H said...

==========
DM: All the examples you give of alleged "blatant contradictions" between the Gospels have to do with Jesus' birth, not his death.
==========
{sigh} Is this a requisite technique of modern apologetics: taking a generic example of a general point, and pretending it was intended as a specific argument against a specific point?

If so you guys need to develop some new strategies, because this one really doesn't hide the strawman.

The point my handful of examples were intended to illustrate is that the information provided by your four favorite gospels must be considered suspect because (among other reasons) of internal contradiction and continuity lapses which indicate that either events were not as reported (they couldn't have been) or that one or more of the reports is inaccurate, embellished, or fabricated.

I didn't deem it necessary to list ALL of the contradictions in the Gospels, for many reasons, among which I'm pretty sure that as a scholar of said texts you are probably already familiar with them. So what purpose you could have in making me drag more of them out, other than simple distraction, eludes me.

But fine, I can play that game, too.

* Jesus curses a fig tree for not having figs (out of season) and the tree withers: Matthew.: instantly;
Mark: not until the next day.

* Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the Synoptics) state that the Last Supper takes place on the first day of Passover;
John says it was the day before and that Jesus was crucified on the first day of Passover.

* Matt. cites Judas' payment for the betrayal as being prophesized by Jeremiah, then procedes to quote Zechariah instead.

* John says Jesus was taken to Annas first, and then sent to Caiaphas;
the Synoptics say he was taken directly to Caiaphas.

* John says Jesus was questioned by Caiaphas; the Synoptics say that he was questioned by 'priests and scribes' as well -- except Mark says this happened after Jesus saw the high priest; Matthew says it happened before he was brought to the high priest; and Luke says it happened the day after.

* Luke says Jesus was sent by Pilate to Herod; none of the other three Gospels mentions this.

* John: Barabas was a thief;
Mark, Matt: Barabas was a murderer.

* Jesus's last words:
John: "It is finished."
Mark, Matt.: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Luke: "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."

* John: Mary Magdalene alone found Jesus' tomb open;
Matt: it was her and some other,unspecified Mary;
Mark: it was her,Mary,mother of James,and Salome;
Luke: it was a whole flock of women from Galilee, including both aforementioned Marys and Joanna.

* When [whoever] gets to the tomb they find:
Mark: a young man sitting inside the tomb;
Matt.: an angel outside the tomb;
Luke: two men/angels somewhere around the tomb;
John: just an empty tomb.

* On finding the empty (or angel-haunted) tomb the women (whoever they were) tell:
Luke: the disciples and a bunch of Jesus followers;
Matt.: just the disciples;
Mark: no one.

==========
DM: What's the difference? At least 30 years.
===========
Yes, we find the Gospels as rife with contradictions at the end of those 30 years as at the begining of those 30 years.

And your point was...?

David B Marshall said...

Dr. H: That's exactly what I said. The passion accounts agree on the big stuff, differ on small details, like those you detail.

The birth accounts ARE harder to reconcile, possibly for the reasons I gave. One cannot make a very strong historical case that Jesus was born in Bethleham (whether he was or not); one can make such a case for the resurrection.

Have you got my point, now?

Dr H said...

==========
DM: So which of these eleven did not correct what they perceived as errors in previous theology?
==========

I don't see the point of that question, unless you mean to assert that you think theology=religion.

I know a couple of theologists who might dispute such an assertion.

Dr H said...

==========
DM: The passion accounts agree on the big stuff, differ on small details, like those you detail.
==========
The last words of the Messiah, Son of God; whether not a supernatural being or beings (angels) appeared to mere mortals; whether anybody noticed the correct day on which a resurrection occured; who the actual witnesses were to this astonishing event were -- these are "small details"?

If nothing else, they are the details required in order to tell how much (if any) veracity the other details have.

==========
DM: Have you got my point, now?
==========

That we differ significantly on what we consider to be important details?

Am I getting warmer?

David B Marshall said...

"The last words of the Messiah, Son of God; whether not a supernatural being or beings (angels) appeared to mere mortals; whether anybody noticed the correct day on which a resurrection occured; who the actual witnesses were to this astonishing event were -- these are "small details"?

You seem to assume, here, that if X reports A + B, and Y reports A + C, the two are in conflict. But that's how history is pieced together from independent sources. That means you can be more confident of A than B or C, all else being equal, but does not mean the two sources "conflict" about B or C.

There were no "witnesses" to the resurrection itself; many to Jesus after he arose.

Moewicus said...

I find it amazing how your post, which takes for granted things which other apologists take pains to deny, nevertheless manages to twist things--consciously or unconsciously--towards your favored conclusion.

On point 1), you claim that ancient people were sophisticated enough to doubt a resurrection account, much as modern people are, and so must have been convinced by good evidence. But you only cite one example in which educated people were addressed: the majority of early converts, however, were lower class and less likely to be so educated, as reported by Christianity's early critics. But even in the Mars Hill scene, a few are intrigued by Paul and some of those go off with him. Why? Because a certain percentage of educated people are more likely to entertain supernatural ideas, despite their education. People were not so hardened against the idea of resurrection, even in the social elite: a resurrection story even appears in Plato's Republic. The premise you want to establish, that people must have been convinced by evidence, is contradicted by what we know about the times and people in general.

On point 2), no miracle story has even been borne out under critical investigation. I consider it significant that, when the event the miracle is associated with is verifiable, such as the Fatima miracle or "miraculous" cancer remissions, it can be explained by natural psychological and statistical means, but when e.g. a disciple allegedly survives being boiled in oil--patently impossible without a true miracle--the event is not verifiable.

On point 3) I more or less agree. For a miracle to be a sign uniquely from God then there should be some backdrop of otherwise immutable events. Why then have so many Christians attributed the miracle stories of other religions, and even doctrines strikingly similar to Christian beliefs, to the workings of Satan? To listen to Christians, I would think that I can't take miracle stories as any kind of unique proof.

Regarding point 4), one would think that if God wanted to make a point by resurrecting someone he would do it to someone who left some material trace on the world through their verified personal writings and material effects on the world. The best we have for Jesus is writings of uncertain origins and uncertain authorship from decades after his death. This lowers the utility of raising this particular person. Why not raise Caesar, who struck coins, lead armies, and had debates with his opponents--and have him repudiate the whole Roman system with his zombie vocal chords? According to the Gospels, God can make descendants of Abraham out of stones, so surely he isn't limited to resurrecting only people he completely agrees with from the outset.

On point 5), Isaiah is pretty clearly talking about Israel as the suffering servant, referring to the Babylonian captivity. The irony of your statements in regards to NT prophecy fulfillment is that the NT writers do in fact alter OT prophecies in order to make them fit Jesus better. Matthew alters "she will call him Emmanuel" to "they will call him Emmanuel". Looks like the NT writers weren't so sure!

On point 6) you admit of things which other apologists would hate to admit. Christianity is not original. Such things argue more strongly for Christianity being a legend based on prior pagan beliefs than for God's unique action in the world.

Continued in a second comment for character limit...

Moewicus said...

(cont'd due to character limit)

On point 7), Lin Yutang is wrong, if "taught" is taken to refer to general moral points. Socrates would seem to be a superior moral teacher to me: Socrates argued against retribution, like Jesus, but never called lust evil, so Socrates wins in that comparison. If you want to argue that Jesus utter pacifism was unique, the utter pacifism of Jainism predates Christianity by at least six centuries. Jesus isn't especially good or especially original.

On point 8) I refer to my response on point 4). One fact that subtracts from your point is that, as far as model people go, we don't have much on Jesus' actual life. It would make more sense to resurrect someone very well known, have them repudiate their former behavior, and then lay out the good model in some way that couldn't be easily tampered with--unlike the Bible.

On point 9) I refer again to my responses on point 4) and 8). Moreover, if God was on the side of the weak, why do the Gospels say multiple times to submit to the temporal authorities? This time in history saw no shortage of atrocities committed by governments. Did God just not know about these things? The NT looks more like what the weak would write from their perspective: don't rock the boat, because you can't win in this world, but have hope because you will win in the next. On the other hand, given a God on the side of the weak willing to do miracles, why not resurrect Caesar after his assassination, have him destroy a bunch of Roman idols, and denounce the might-makes-right philosophy of the Roman elite in the middle of Rome? Either God is not really on the side of the weak or God is weak.

Section II:
Throughout your post you refer to people dying for their belief in Jesus' resurrection as evidence for the fact. Only a few people had access to this information. I challenge you to find me one verifiable event in which one of these people had access to this information and had the opportunity to recant to save their life, but chose not to and was killed for that fact. (No, Paul doesn't count, he says that he saw a vision. I'm talking about the whole empty tomb thang.

The statement that "if all we had for an ordinary historical event were 1 Cointhians 15... that alone would be sufficient to establish any ordinary historical claim" is silly because it establishes itself as hearsay in verse 3. We don't believe Herodotus when he reported eyewitness accounts of swords and shields being animated and fighting of their own accord, so why believe the information in 1 Cor 15? Paul is writing that he has received doctrine, not telling us about evidence. Even the baloney that he used to be a Pharisee is suspect: what can we make of hearsay from someone whose story simply doesn't add up?

(cont'd again, sigh)

Moewicus said...

(cont'd from second part, last one, I swear)

What eyewitness testimony begins with a neo-platonic account of the creation of the universe? In my encounters with apologists they usually put John forward as an eyewitness testimony and diminish the other Gospels. Could this be because only John tells us that Jesus is God incarnate, the Gospel that best matches modern doctrine? Hm. However, the argument that John is an eyewitness has evidence against it, for instance the time Jesus says "you must be born from above". In this scene the confusion of Jesus' interlocutor over what this means is based on an ambiguity in the Greek language. Was Jesus speaking Greek in the middle of Judaea?

In paragraph 6, you conflate a saying being unique with it being accurate. With nothing to compare these sayings to, how do we know they're accurate? With no physical evidence except writings made years after the fact, how do we know the idea of resurrection started with an actual resurrection? You cherry pick a few conclusions from the Jesus Seminar to support your point, but ignore the fact that they conclude that almost nothing attributed to Jesus is what he actually said. If Christians were willing to make up so much to be part of their faith, why not a resurrection, too?

Finally, you write:
"We know that an earthquake occurred in Japan recently, not only because people and instruments that were there report it, but even more because of the enormous effect it had on the countryside. The resurrection of Jesus was the tsunami that changed human history."

The cause of the damage from the tsunami is the material fact of water moving over land and carrying large amounts of energy into buildings. The root cause was an earthquake. The analogy is appreciated, but it is lacking, because every successful social movement we know of is based on widespread discontentment, not a single event. Jesus being persecuted by the powerful would mean nothing in an egalitarian society: but Paul, who was "all things to all men" was taking advantage of a time in history in which the weak were oppressed and any challenge to the omnipotent, brutal Roman empire was always and inevitably squashed. The only ideas that could spread were those which reaffirmed Roman power, which is exactly what institutional Christianity did for hundreds of years and what Christian holy documents told them to do. The change in human history was the material fact of Christian proselytization and Roman toleration: Jesus didn't resurrect every time somebody needed to convert, and in fact he was irrelevant to this, just as irrelevant as the material existence of the golden plates are to the existence of Mormonism. The root cause is human psychology: a genuine event is irrelevant, because the tectonics are psychological, not physical.

David B Marshall said...

Moe: (1) First of all, it's not necessarily a class thing. Jesus' disciples were from the working class, but exhibited plenty of skepticism. This is hardly surprising: fishermen know what happens to a body after it dies.

Also, Stark suggests that Christianity was not at all concentrated in the lower classses -- in fact, peasants were probably the last to convert.

(2) I don't know how you know that "no miracle has been borne out under critical investigation." I was there, you were not. I don't recall you investigating what happened. It strikes me that you are making a sweeping historical claim that you will have trouble backing up.

(4) Jesus has changed the world far more radically than a hundred Caesars. Look at the date on today's newspaper.

(5) It is actually quite clear Isaiah is NOT talking about the nation of Israel, for several reasons: (a) He speaks of him as a single person; (b) He describes him as innocent, sinless, ect, which is the opposite of what Isaiah and the prophets always say; (c) He speaks of him as redeeming Israel, "crushed for our iniquity" "for the transgression of my people he was stricken" (53:9)-- how can innocent Israel be crushed for wicked Israel's iniquity? The text makes no sense whatsoever that way, which is why even many Jewish rabbis have applied it to an individual, past or future.

(6) The word "original" begs the question. Of course Christianity is highly original. But equally obviously, its originality does not consist of simply repudiating truth in other cultures. "Don't think I've come to do away with the Law and Prophets . . . I've come to fulfill."

On that issue, I'll debate anyone in the world: and having made these claims in hundreds of conservative churches around the world, I know my argument will go over well with most evangelicals. You may be reading the wrong people.

Moewicus said...

1) Everybody today knows what happens to a body--but a significant number of them think the mind can persist as a ghost, quite without sufficient evidence. As you probably know, the section of Mark after 16:8 is thought to be an apocryphal addition. So I ask: how do you distinguish between the later gospels' accounts of skepticism and legendary accretion? For all we know, these women visited the tomb, heard some strange noise, and ran to tell the others and the tale transformed into the later resurrection account. People interpret experiences in culturally mediated ways, ways which include the supernatural even when events are not especially weird at all. Bear in mind the early conflict over Docetism, which the accounts of bodily inspection seem designed to counter. The various apocryphal gospels illustrate this debate and the way in which it was waged--through making stuff up. They can't all be right.

And by Stark I assume you mean Rodney Stark's work on early Christianity. Can't comment on it.

2) Has your miracle been subjected to critical investigation? Has it been borne out? If yes, then I retract my statement, but the burden of proof is on you. I do not take anyone's word for anything not already well supported by evidence: miracles aren't. If "I know what I saw" were taken seriously and consistently, the bar for what we accept would be so low it would include completely contradictory ideas.

Were you there when Joseph Smith talked to Moroni?

4) Apparently you misunderstood my argument: we have much better evidence of Caesar's existence than we do for the existence of Jesus, let alone Jesus' resurrection. Caesar struck coins, wrote letters and books, was assailed by his contemporary opponents (like Cicero), and lead armies. Jesus maybe had some followers who later wrote about what he maybe did. Even the time he attacked the temple is not recorded. His interaction with Pontius Pilate is probably not real, since even the Romans thought he was too rough. One very well documented man and one poorly, even contradictorily documented man. If your point is "who would God choose" based on prior plausibility, it is clearly Caesar or Augustus or any of his contemporaries, at the very least on the grounds of not having an inconsistent record. Does God object to Caesar's character? Then make Caesar repudiate Rome and his life as he lived it and lay down alternative rules. Or why can't God make it happen?

5)Isaiah 41:8-9: But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend... Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.
Israel is the servant. Moreover his punishment is in the past tense, and is described as later having children and prolonged days. Rabbis have applied to to a individual, past or future-and to Israel. It is a poem about Babylonian captivity and because it's in a religious book the religious use it like new agers use Nostradamus's quatrains. If you want to call something a prophecy, it should be at least better than Nostradamus.

6) "Original" does not beg the question, something is either original or it is not. An original statement: "colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Of course the question quickly becomes original in what sense? The notion of a resurrecting God is not original. Putting a resurrecting God into the Jewish linear time concept is. What you don't get, which other less honest apologists do, is that--like how miracles would logically take place against a background of regularity--such strong precursors militate against the Christ story having literal significance. Hence church fathers claiming the devil was just paving the road for Christ with lies. These responses illustrate is that one can do with the God hypothesis whatever one wants and have it remain intact. It's not even wrong.

Dr H said...

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David says:
You seem to assume, here, that if X reports A + B, and Y reports A + C, the two are in conflict.
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Heh, doing the semantic two-step I see. Let's see if I can clean it up:

If X reports A + B, and Y reports A + (C instead of B), then yes, the two are indeed in conflict.

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But that's how history is pieced together from independent sources.
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And why anecdotal reports are inherently weak evidence.


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That means you can be more confident of A than B or C, all else being equal, but does not mean the two sources "conflict" about B or C.
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If you are garnering X and Y's report immediately after the event that might be true.

But you are hearing your information from Z32, who heard it from Z31, who heard from Z28 that Z30 read it in a letter from Z29 ... on back to Z1. And Z1 may or may not have his information direct from X and Y, and he may or may not have had an agenda which included "A" being more important than "B" or "C", therefore he chose to emphasize A, and brush off the conflict between B and C.

And you read Z32's comments in a 9th generation translation and take his words as -- literally -- gospel.

Dr H said...

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David says:
There were no "witnesses" to the resurrection itself; many to Jesus after he arose.
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Not to be too facetitious, but, the same can be said for Elvis.

Dr H said...

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David said:
(4) Jesus has changed the world far more radically than a hundred Caesars. Look at the date on today's newspaper.
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It says "Wednesday," which is derived from Wodenesdaeg, meaning "the day of Wodan", which is the Germanic form of the name "Odin," ruler of Asgard and chief deity of Norse mythology.

And this has what to do with Jesus's influence on the world?

Whereas Ceasar survives in the 37 "Czars" of arguably the most powerful man on Earth, President Obama -- not to mention the 49 Czars of his predecessor, or the 8 of his predecessor, or ...

David B Marshall said...

Moe: You tell me "Lin Yutang is wrong," because you like Socrates' teaching better. It's hard to make heads or tales of that argument. Lin wasn't talking about Socrates, he was talking about Chinese thought. My argument isn't based on your or my opinions: I'm appealing to people who have made a name as great thinkers. Lin was a literary genius, he could also provide an outside perspective as an authority on another great tradition. His opinion is to be valued.

I didn't say Jesus' teachings agree with the modern liberal consensus about ethics. Who cares? That would be, as the Chinese say, like a frog looking at the sky from a well.

Within the Socratic worldview, what sense would a resurrection make? The Resurrection makes a priori sense because of the whole package of who Jesus was and what he said and did, and the impact that would have.

"Moreover, if God was on the side of the weak, why do the Gospels say multiple times to submit to the temporal authorities?"

If the early Christians were so submissive, as you claim, why did they keep on getting thrown in prison and executed? But no serious student of the Gospels that I know of denies my premise in this case -- are you sure you're not just arguing to avoid the conclusion?

Your alternative ideas for how God should have arranged things strike, frankly, as less interesting that how he really arranged things. Making a Jewish peasant the hero was much more interesting, and revolutionary, than working through yet another puffed-up ruler. This is a common theme in the OT -- God choosing the insignificant over the big-shot. I think Lao Zi's teachings on the power of weakness might help you understand why this way of doing things was, after all, better than the Way of Power.

Actually, Paul says he saw Jesus. I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of Resurrection argument, though -- other people have done that better than I can, and there's no reason for me to repeat their work.

I Corinthians 15 is NOT just hearsay. Paul says HE saw Jesus, along with many people he knows. He also says this is the reason he has fought wild animals and endured all kinds of dangers. What is especially persuasive about the 500 is the off-hand way in which he gives this information, but with the add-on: "most are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." It sounds like he knows these people well, too, is able to keep track fo them, and has heard their stories. And some of the eyewitnesses are risking their necks for the Gospel, too.

But again, this is more conventional apologetics.

Moewicus said...

"Lin wasn't talking about Socrates, he was talking about Chinese thought."

You're the one who brought him up without any qualification, i.e. relative to chinese thought. "As no man has taught" is simply mistaken.

"I didn't say Jesus' teachings agree with the modern liberal consensus about ethics. Who cares? That would be, as the Chinese say, like a frog looking at the sky from a well."

Yes, it's so small minded to think that human beings aren't perfect and it is irrational to try to get them to be, that people have every right to feel their inborn desires, etc.. Jesus is the frog in this analogy. Remember, he says he came to complete the law that said picking up sticks on the Sabbath merits a death sentence. Don't bring up the "cast the first stone" anecdote: that is a late addition to John.

"The Resurrection makes a priori sense because of the whole package of who Jesus was and what he said and did, and the impact that would have."

This is absurd. You argue that the resurrection explains Christianity's success, then you argue that it makes sense to resurrect Jesus because his message would be a success. This is circular reasoning, David. Remember, your post was about assessing the prior plausibility of Jesus' resurrection. Choosing Jesus based on the success of a religion which includes his resurrection is completely breaking the rules of reasoning. To me this is tantamount to admitting your argument is wrong.


"If the early Christians were so submissive, as you claim, why did they keep on getting thrown in prison and executed? "

Funny, I don't recall arguing that Christians were submissive, but that the "holy" scriptures tell them to be. "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" would seem to indicate that passive resistance to Roman orthopraxy, i.e. making sacrifices to and praising the genius of the emperor, was unjustified for a Christian, but yet many martyred themselves in this way anyway--and none of these people were in any position to know whether Jesus actually resurrected or not! Who would martyr themselves for something they couldn't know, but believed anyway? The answer: a lot of people. And in any case, yes, passively accepting Roman persecution is in fact submission. It threatens Roman power not one whit.

"Your alternative ideas for how God should have arranged things strike, frankly, as less interesting that how he really arranged things."

Less interesting than Caesar rising from the dead, repudiating the entire Roman system, casting down its idols, repudiating his former way of life, then writing down God's laws in some hard to tamper with way? That's pretty darn interesting to me. Way more interesting than some poorly documented guy maybe or maybe not resurrecting.

"This is a common theme in the OT -- God choosing the insignificant over the big-shot."

Like how king David, the man after God's own heart, sent a man off to war to get him killed so he could take his wife? That's a pretty clear example of God favoring the big-shot over the little guy. Blatant exceptions--i.e. whenever a Jew was powerful--aside, you're right: the Jews wrote their Bible alongside a history of any number of indignities perpetrated on them by the larger powers around them. Gee, I wonder why the God who chose them just so happens to favor the little guy so much. Really, it's a tremendous coincidence.

"I Corinthians 15 is NOT just hearsay."

Verse 3: For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...

This establishes most of what he says as hearsay. The only logical exception is what he claims he saw, already aware of resurrection claims--and the word he uses to describe it is vision. In other words, hearsay and hallucination.

David B Marshall said...

Moe: When I talk about "prior probability," I mean prior to examining the strictly historical evidence for the resurrection, not prior chronologically. The effect of Jesus' life is part of the totality of evidence that must be taken into account to access prior probability. To give an analogy, Superman is more credible as an alien than, say, the guy who fills your tank at the gas station. Why would someone come all the way from another star system to pump gas?

What evidences the Resurrection is not that total picture, but the birth of the Church in its first 100 years.

Plus, even if I HAD engaged in circular reasoning at that one point, which I did not, that would not make the argument as a whole circular.

"Who would martyr themselves for something they couldn't know, but believed anyway? The answer: a lot of people."

Here's you're missing an important distinction, one often made by apologists. Yes, people die for lie, as I think Josh McDowell put it -- but not for what they know to be lies. Jesus' first followers, like Paul, would not have died for the claim that they had seen Jesus alive, if they had not.

"And in any case, yes, passively accepting Roman persecution is in fact submission. It threatens Roman power not one whit."

Of course it threatened Roman power, that's why they persecuted. It didn't threaten to OVERTHROW Roman power, but it put limits on that power.

DM: "This is a common theme in the OT -- God choosing the insignificant over the big-shot."

Moe: "Like how king David, the man after God's own heart, sent a man off to war to get him killed so he could take his wife? That's a pretty clear example of God favoring the big-shot over the little guy."

How long has it been since you've read the story? Actually, that story is a GREAT example of God favoring the weak over powerful oppressors. Do go back and read it more carefully -- you've missed the point.

The event that led to Paul's conversion is described as a visual and auditory phenomena, which was not limited to Paul himself. Paul does describe this, after telling the story, as an οπτασια, which NT Wright describes as "a general word for something which is seen in a way one would not normally expect." This is usually translated as "vision," but clearly it did not mean "hallucination," which would be limited to Paul alone, would not cause him to go temporarily blind, and would not cause a stranger to come and knock on his door and cure his blindness. You appear to be flailing.

Moewicus said...

"When I talk about "prior probability," I mean prior to examining the strictly historical evidence for the resurrection, not prior chronologically."

Your line of argument is confused. You examine and reject Martin Luther King, jr. as a candidate for resurrection based on the total package--but MLK jr is not poorly documented like Jesus, nor is he thought to have resurrected. Examining Jesus' effect as a package including the effects of belief in his resurrection as a candidate for resurrection is circular. No doubt if MLK were claimed to have resurrected and spawned a religion his influence would be similarly enduring. Were he similarly poorly documented, he would be as amenable to being on every side, often the wrong side, of every great reform in human history--just like Jesus. People whose thinking we think of as "good" today, many of whom are demonstrably better than Jesus as I've already established, have existed in just about every culture. The historical accidents of Christianity's success thus do not argue for increased prior probability for Jesus' resurrection.

Furthermore, prior to examining the strictly historical evidence for the resurrection, we see that many religions and cults spread based on charismatic individuals who all have miracle stories centered around them. Did they all perform miracles, or do charismatic individuals surrounded by superstitious people accrue miracle stories? Either one diminishes the prior probability of Jesus actually being the messenger of God. Your question "within the Socratic world-view, what sense would a resurrection make?" also diminishes the prior probability, since the Jews had a prior tradition of resurrection stories. The more surprising supernatural tale has more prior plausibility, since the cultural mediation of experience has a strong influence on thinking.

"Yes, people die for lie, as I think Josh McDowell put it -- but not for what they know to be lies. "

Way to miss the point. People will die for, and believe fervently in, things they can't know about. As I pointed out in a previous comment that was either deleted by you or eaten by the software, Mark originally ends at 16:8, with the women who went to the tomb being afraid and saying nothing. How do we know this wasn't the basis of resurrection belief--that the women waited for a while, told of their experience later, and the experience was interpreted as a resurrection after the fact? McDowell's line is an exercise in psychological naivete even on its own terms. People are fully able to convince themselves of lies, convince each other they saw things they didn't, and report the utterly fantastical on a whim. If such beliefs happen to include the idea of heaven, being justified through faith, etc, why wouldn't people die for such ideas? People can also be too entrenched in a lie to back out. Joseph Smith was repeatedly harassed by opponents of Mormonism, and could have been killed multiple times before he actually was. That doesn't make me believe his racist theology any more than it does backwards Christian theology.

[comment split for space, part 1]

Moewicus said...

[split for space, part 2]

"The effect of Jesus' life is part of the totality of evidence that must be taken into account to access prior probability."

"Of course it threatened Roman power, that's why they persecuted. It didn't threaten to OVERTHROW Roman power, but it put limits on that power. "

So how does Christianity being imposed on the Roman empire by its emperors, with paganism and heresies being persecuted by force, comport with the "god is on the side of the weak" and "christianity threatened roman power" hypotheses? Hint: they don't. Christians were often persecuted for refusing to support imperial cult orthopraxy, not genuinely threatening Roman power in any meaningful way. Christian emperors accepted christian-derived limitations without much bickering. Such restrictions were irrelevant to the exercise of power: Constantine enslaved millions by inventing and imposing peasantry, a full exercise of power that suppressed the weak. Some influence.

"Actually, that story is a GREAT example of God favoring the weak over powerful oppressors. Do go back and read it more carefully -- you've missed the point. "

David gets to repent and get away with a civil war and an heir whose name became a by-line for wisdom. His first child by Bathsheba? Dies by illness. God punishes the weak--his concubines, his child, Israelis who have no part in his crime--without even touching David, reinforcing backward notions of patriarchy and honor. God privileges the powerful and throws everyone else under the bus. 1 Kings 2:45. You were saying?

"The event that led to Paul's conversion is described as a visual and auditory phenomena, which was not limited to Paul himself."

The accounts are a) inconsistent b) not well described in Paul's own letters c) highly similar to Pentheus' story in The Bacchae. All of these things militate against such a straightforward reading of his conversion. Did Paul's companions see a light, or merely hear sounds? If the former, why didn't it blind his companions, too? If the latter, why couldn't they understand it? In either case, why weren't the companions converted too? Both cases are consistent with the companions merely observing Paul act weird and being confused by it. None of these are inconsistent with hallucination, symptoms such as blindness are vulnerable to being psychologically "faked", and the more fantastical elements are consistent with invention a la Cicero inventing speeches based on what the occasion called for. Like I keep saying, we don't accept Herodotus' story, based on eyewitness interviews, of swords and shields animating and fighting of their own accord during battle: if not that, why accept this much less fantastical account in which the eyewitnesses are not identified and the use of their accounts is not critically examined by the author--which is what a good historian is supposed to do? Christians have engaged in pious invention throughout history: Christian partisans are seldom trustworthy when it comes to the facts, and I wouldn't expect a follower of Paul to be any different, especially since his initial credibility was so low.

"like Paul, would not have died for the claim that they had seen Jesus alive"

Paul didn't die for that claim, he was persecuted for preaching against following the old laws and circumcision. I see no good evidence of any of Jesus' first followers dying for the claim that they had seen him alive, let alone that they had any chance to retract the claim. For most of them, the cause of death is not known and the stories which accumulate even around the best ones are plainly legend.