Were the Early Christians Gullible Dweebs II? (to Hedrick, Carrier, Avalos, and Price)

Here's an old article I posted at christthetao.com some years ago.  Since people are still making use of Richard Carrier's deeply flawed arguments that early Christians were gullible and credulous, and that's why they believed, let me reproduce it here, so I can point it to people who are fooled.  (See Part IV, if you're in a hurry.)   

This discussion began when a grad student in philosophy named Landon Hedrick posted a critique of a comment I made in The Truth Behind the New Atheism about what Christians mean by "faith."  The topic was the Resurrection.  Hedrick invited three historians or Bible scholars who are radical critics of Christianity to comment: Richard Carrier, HectorAvalos, and Robert Price.  (All of whom I have debated, before or since.)  All three agree with Hedrick that early Christians lacked good grounds for faith.

These three have become popular among skeptics lately. (All three, for example, contributed in various ways to an upcoming anthology called “The Christian Delusion,” which I was asked by the editor to blurb.) They have respectable credentials, and offer some of the most radical criticisms of Christianity on the market.

Landon began by courteously introducing me. He then gave a bit of history to our dialogue. I’ll skip the first few paragraphs and begin with a few words on Carrier's Sense and Goodness Without God. Then I'll address his critique of my book and response to these gentlemen's skeptical critique of early Christians.   Pardon the occasional jumps in formatting and spacing: this is from a PDF, and resisted adjustment. 

 

I. On Richard Carrier’s approach to the Bible 

Landon Hedrick: I . . . began recommending to Marshall that he pay

more attention to Richard Carrier's work (especially his criticism of
Christian apologetics). He eventually did take me up on that challengeand purchased Sense and Goodness Without God, though his initial response to one section of that book left much to be desired. I continued encouraging him to read further and he finally did offer some meatier critiques. I may post about some of these later, but for now I'll simply link to what he thinks is one of his best critiques.

DM: Here were my conclusions after reading the first two chapters of Carrier’s book. They were, I still think, born-out by the rest of the book, and provide a useful précis of Carrier’s approach to Scripture:

"Richard Carrier finds great eloquence and deep wisdom in the (Taoist classic) Dao Dejing. He apparently fails to find any of that in the Bible, pointing only to irrational thinking and poor writing. But THE SAME wisdom, presented in equally eloquent, and far more vivid terms (and sometimes almost the same words!), is in fact present in many key passages of the Bible. Carrier is, therefore (whether through bias or incompetence), probably a poor reader, when it comes to the Bible. His starkly black-and white but informed rhetoric favor the former explanation. The rest of his argument is therefore probably best read with strong skepticism, but not without hope of finding some things of value."

 

II. Hedrick’s critique of The Truth Behind the New Atheism

LH: Today, however, I want to resurrect some of my old comments on

his book The Truth Behind the New Atheism. I informally reviewed the
book in Amazon forums, giving it 3.5 stars. But there were still plenty of significant problems with it, in my opinion. His writing was often vague (especially when discussing the issue of the Bible being inspired by God),full of irrelevant comments and needlessly abstract metaphors, and peppered with unwarranted claims.

DM: As a philosopher, Landon apparently prefers a drier form of
exposition. I don’t stake a position of Biblical inspiration in this book, because I am writing a response to Dawkins and Co on behalf of Christians in general. I do recommend the perspectives of C. S. Lewis and Nicholas Wolterstorff as alternatives to the “fundamentalist” positions the New Atheists prefer to attack.

Finally, few of my claims were “unwarranted,” though Landon may not always be aware of the warrant, as we will see.

LH: One in particular that jumped out at me was on page 17, where

Marshall writes that the disciples of Jesus were given "enough firsthand
evidence of his resurrection that they were willing to die for him."

This wasn't the first time I've heard such a claim, as it's been repeated

endlessly by Christians who defend their faith. For example, in his book

More Than a Carpenter, Josh McDowell asks "who would die for a lie?"
The implication of that question is that, since the disciples were in a
position to know whether or not Jesus was resurrected, and since theywere willing to die for the belief that he was, then he really must have been raised from the dead.

Response: There are two major initial problems with Landon’s comments here. First, the claim he is responding to is off-hand in the context of the book – far from being one of my main points, it is only fourteen words long, and of tangential significance in its original context. Second, Landon has, no doubt unintentionally, changed the meaning of the original contextualized comment dramatically.

The subject of the chapter is the meaning of faith, not evidence for the resurrection. More specifically, I am responding to Dawkins’ claim that for Christians, faith means believing “not only in the absence of evidence, but in the teeth of evidence.” Here’s a fuller version of the passage Landon debunks. I had just quoted scientist Hubert Yockey, who cites the story of “doubting Thomas” to argue that Christianity promotes “blind faith.” These two paragraphs are my reply. I’ll put a slightly longer version of the passage Landon objects to at the end in red:

“The story of doubting Thomas is often cited to prove Christianity demands blind faith. When the other disciples reported they had met the risen Jesus, Thomas (true to character as

developed in the Gospel of John) found the story hard to swallow. ‘Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails . . . and put my hand into his side, I will not believe,’ Thomas famously retorted. When he met Jesus he was told, ‘Reach here with your finger, and see My hands, and reach here your hand and put it into My side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing. By contrast, Jesus blessed those who do not see, and yet believe. Dawkins cited

the same text in The Selfish Gene: ‘Thomas demanded evidence. The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did not need evidence, are held up to us as worthy of imitation."

“There are several problems with taking this passage as a general repudiation of critical thought.

First, Jesus did give Thomas – and the other disciples – enough firsthand evidence of his resurrection that they were willing to die for him . . . Second, Jesus often did miracles, calling them ‘signs,’ which . . . show strong evidence of historicity . . . “

So the issue here is not, contra Hedrick, the resurrection. Nor is it the value of evidence for the resurrection. The issue is what Christians mean by faith, and how Christians should interpret a key passage of Scripture theologically. In that context, my comment disproves the point Dawkins and Yockey are trying to establish. The passage shows Jesus giving the disciples first-hand evidence of his resurrection. That is the main point,

and from within the discourse of Christian theology – which alone is the issue here – it is sufficient to undermine the “blind faith” interpretation of this passage.

The words Landon cited are part of a throw-away a fortiori argument.

That leading disciples died for a faith that was supported by evidence is not a major argument here, but seems well established from several early sources.

But the basic problem with Landon’s criticism is that he has not read my comment accurately – perhaps because he himself has been focused on the issue of evidence for the resurrection. My comment is about the Christian idea of faith.

 

Worse, all four skeptics badly misread the early Christians on the same subject, as we will see.

 

III. Faith and the Resurrection

LH: New Testament scholar Robert M. Price gives an
immediate counterexample by referring to Joseph Smith, writing that "non-Mormons believe he had concocted the whole Mormon religion, yet he was willing to die for it.  Does that make it true?"

DM: This is a deeply flawed analogy. Joseph Smith died when a lynch

mob broke into the prison where he was being held, and he had a shootout with them. He was imprisoned after followers wrecked a press that criticized him. There is no sign he went to death willingly. Anyway, Joseph Smith was well-rewarded in this life for his fables. I would not think to dispute the proposition that a man will risk death for sex – it
is the theme of much of world literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad to half the movies on TV.

Landon: Nevertheless, some sort of deeper analysis of the issue is

required.

DM: Indeed!

Landon: Putting the argument into a logically valid form, it looks like this:

(1) If the disciples of Jesus were willing to die for their belief that he was resurrected, then they must have had good evidence that he was.

DM: I made no such claim. Jesus in fact DID give the disciples evidence
that He had risen, but I didn’t claim that was a necessary condition for them being willing to die.

(2) The disciples of Jesus were willing to die for their belief that he was

resurrected. 

This appears true.

(3) Therefore, the disciples must have had good evidence that Jesus was resurrected.
 

Again, Landon makes my argument work to an historical conclusion that was in fact its theological premise. I am not here trying to establish that the disciples had good reason to believe – I am assuming it to show that the Christian idea of faith involves reason.

IV.  Just How Gullible Were the First Christians?  (And are modern skeptics?)

Landon: “If David Marshall, Josh McDowell, or anybody else could show

that (1) and (2) are true, then it would follow that the disciples had
good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus--which entails that there is
good reason to believe that Jesus was really raised from the dead (since having good evidence for something is a good reason to believe it). Can David Marshall show that the premises of the argument are true?

“Regarding (1), he would have to show that it would have taken good

evidence to convince the earliest disciples that Jesus really was raised from the dead.  Of course, it would take good evidence to convince the scientific community that somebody was resurrected, and I would be impressed if someone like James Randi was given enough evidence that he was willing to die for such a belief . . . But what reason do we have to think that ordinary first century Palestinians would have required good evidence to believe such a thing? Were they generally skeptical people who would have demanded solid evidence before believing extraordinary stories?

“The New Testament itself seems to refute this notion. Acts 2: 1-42 says that Peter gave a speech to a large group of Jews, and on the basis of what he said, (note: Landon’s emphasis) three thousand people converted that day."

 

DM: In other forums Landon has shown that he can read carefully. But here Landon misreads Luke even more badly than he misreads me. It wasn't just a sermon.  Peter referred to the widely-recognized miracles of Jesus (“as you yourselves know”), the eyewitness news of a resurrection that had just happened 40 days before in that very city, and spectacular signs that had just happened in front of everyone – tongues of fire falling on the disciples, them preaching in dozens of languages. Is it really likely that it was just on the basis of what Peter SAID that some of his audience converted? Certainly that is not what Luke is trying to convey! Landon appears to have read this story with no attempt to enter into it, as if it were a fictional anecdote told in the course of a philosophy paper.

LH: “If it were the case that people, in general, were skeptical of claims about extraordinary events, then why would such a large number of people believe the resurrection merely on the basis of Peter's speech?

Note the word “merely” here – underlining Landon’s original  misreading of the text.

Historian Richard Carrier writes of this passage:

"’Thousands of people, we are told, decided to convert immediately. Not a single one of them checked a single fact. These converts do no other research, make no other inquiry, make no effort at all to interrogate Peter or any other witnesses or check any of the material facts. The authorities are not consulted. No one asks to hear Joseph of Arimathea on the matter, or indeed any other Christian besides Peter. They simply trust what Peter says -- which is woefully ambiguous and short on details." 

DM: I’m afraid what this proves, Landon, and not for the first, or the tenth time, is that you should be careful when reading Richard Carrier.  He has again led you off a cliff, intellectually speaking. His comments here are, again, patent nonsense. These people convert based on (a) remarkable miracles enacted before their eyes; (b) knowledge of more such miracles, (c) the passion, and witness to the resurrection, (d) and only then, Peter’s powerful sermon.

LH: “Of course, Marshall could claim that Carrier is reading too much into the text here, because it doesn't explicitly say these things about the converts."

DM: Actually, the problem is he’s reading too little – he’s overlooking the

most patently obvious things about the scene Luke describes. To rework an apt metaphor from C. S. Lewis, he’s tripping over a herd of elephants in the room in his eagerness to pick fern seed out of the carpet.

In order to make such a colossal misreading, one has to remove oneself from the scene. One wonders if, having misread Acts so badly, Dr. Carrier EVER enters into an ancient text realistically.

Landon: “Or look at all of the other examples from Acts that Carrier
provides in the above link. The author of Acts records numerous
conversions where people hear a speech, see some sort of healing
miracle, and are convinced that Christianity is true (i.e. that Jesus rose
from the dead).”

DM: Here Carrier moves from a single text in Acts, to Acts as a whole.

And here his error is multiplied many times over.

Actually, the response to Christian sermons in Acts is far more mixed, and often less positive. Usually the positive response is more like, “We’d like to hear more about your beliefs.” Or “they earnestly studied the Scriptures to see if these things were true.” The negative responses begin with scoffing, and end in stoning, beating, imprisonment, etc.

And let’s not overlook the persuasive power of a good healing. Even with that, the folks in Lystra ended up stoning Paul and Barnabas. But let Carrier hang himself with a little more apostolic rope before we explore the full folly of this position:

Carrier writes: "Never once does Acts report anyone checking any facts pertinent

to the Resurrection before converting. To claim they did such checking, but that Acts simply doesn't say so (not even once), is circular reasoning... Indeed, Acts rules out any such tactic, since Acts says again and again that conversions are won on the very same day the gospel is preached--there are rarely any delays of days, weeks, or months, as would be required for evidence to be gathered, witnesses sought out and questioned, and letters exchanged. And even when any such duration is mentioned, there is still no indication that any such efforts were engaged in that time. None at all."  

DM: Carrier seems to hold an unreasonable image of what itinerant evangelism is like. I have done a little of it. It usually involved a lot of critical questioning. Of course the audience doesn’t immediately run out and set sail for Israel to check sources. But it is simply untrue to imply they treated the claim of the resurrection uncritically. They engaged the witness, the person who had claimed to see the risen Christ. Personal testimony IS evidence for most of us when the witness seems credible –and we know that Paul often spoke of how he met Jesus. No doubt later some had opportunities to talk with more witnesses, as other apostles filtered up from Palestine – Jews seem to have been fairly mobile within the Hellenistic world, as Rodney Stark shows in Cities of God. More generally, Carrier’s depiction of evangelism in Acts is simply false.

Acts is full of arguing and reasoning.

Believers "refute" or "baffle" (συνεχυνεν, 9:22) opponents, "debate" (συνεζητει, 9:29); "speak effectively" (λαλησαι ουτως ωστε πιστευσαι,14:1) and "prove" (διακατηλεγχετο, 18:28).   These are verbal marks of pervasive, many-sided appeals to evidence (signs, natural theology, the resurrection). 

 

Why would that be necessary if ancient audiences were so gullible?  And indeed, read Acts -- or the gospels -- carefully, and you find audiences are NOT that "eager to believe," even with all the miracles. Jesus is, for instance, subject to all kinds of criticism in the gospels.  As I put it in Why the Jesus Seminar Can't Find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could,

"All four gospels contain nit-picking, suspicion, entrapment, barbed comments,
and angry denunciations, directed by respectable citizens at Jesus. He is accused
of being a commoner, a sinner, a ‘Samaritan and a demon,’ of breaking Jewish law,
the Sabbath in particular, not paying taxes, lack of education, blasphemy, insanity,
and black magic.” (106)

Their categories might be a little different from those of Richard Carrier, but to claim the gospels portray the ancients as gullible rubes who lap up any wild superstitious claim without reason,  is, well, a wild and superstitious claim. LH: “It is hard to believe that Marshall would want to claim that the
disciples were paradigm examples of skeptical thinkers--and I don't
imagine he would actually claim this (though he does seem to think
that there is good historical evidence that they were pretty skeptical).”
DM: I don’t “seem to think it,” Landon. It’s one of the most obvious characteristics of the Gospels and Acts. Read them through ans underline expressions of doubt, and appeals to reason and evidence.

Don’t overlook any more elephants – they have a habit of stepping on the toes of people who aren't paying attention. 

LH: “Surely Marshall knows that there have always been people who will believe things without good evidence.”

DM: Yes, and unfortunately you and Richard Carrier seem to be two of them, in this case. You’ve followed Richard in falsely asserting that Peter persuaded his audience in Acts 2 purely by the power of rhetoric, even though spectacular miracles are recorded in vivid detail in that very same chapter. And then you follow him in overlooking the many expressions of skepticism, doubt, and critical thinking that pervade the writings of the evangelists.  

LH: “Some of the most confident Christians I have encountered cite
nothing other than the scriptures (and, sometimes, the inner feeling of
the Holy Spirit) for their belief that Jesus conquered death. And people in the ancient world were no different. If anything, they were even more
gullible, and less skeptical.“

DM: Do you recognize the trick you’ve just played? You went from “some Christians” to “people in the ancient world.” In other words, you’re specific in the first case, and general in the second – without warrant, and overlooking evidence for skepticism. You also casually dismiss both the good sense of ordinary Christians (a common failing among academics) and the probative power of the Christian Scriptures, which I defend in (the title is relevant here) Why the Jesus Seminar can’t find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could.

LH: “So even if it is true that the disciples were willing to die for their
faith, that does not entail that they had good evidence for it. “

DM: Here you take yet another false step. A few people in Acts expressed faith quickly, as a few do in itinerant evangelism – Luke gives a very realistic account. But you have
neglected to point out the basis for their faith, which is not just words, but powerful
supernatural signs, in most cases. You’ve also leaped from “express belief in” to
“die for.” Luke does not say these people died for their faith right off the bat.

I think you have Josh McDowell wrong, too. It’s been a decade or two since I read
him. But as I recall, his argument is that “Lots of people die for a falsehood. But
no one dies for what they know to be a falsehood.” In other words, the disciples

claimed to have seen Jesus, and were in a position to know if they really had or not.

It is hard to understand why they would die for what they were in a position to

know was untrue. That’s McDowell’s argument – not that willingness to die in
itself entails warrant for faith.  LH: “Biblical scholar Hector Avalos confirmed this to me, writing:

"There is a lot of evidence that people did believe in resurrections with very little
evidence, and one is in Mark 6:14-16 where it states that Herod was convinced
that John the Baptist had resurrected. Note how little evidence he needed to believe that.

Apparently, Herod just "heard" about miracles, and witnessed nothing himself."  
DM: Now here’s an interesting argument. Avalos takes Mark’s account of
Herod’s REMARKS at face value – though it could hardly have been firsthand.
Yet he rejects his account of the most climactic weekend of his life – the passion of Jesus and apparent resurrection. Apparently third-hand rumors of off-hand comments from a single Gospel are worthy evidence, when they support your view, but plausibly first-hand reports of the most cataclysmic event in Mark's life, confirmed by other early reports, should be thrown out, when they undermine it.  But I don’t think this scene much supports Avalos’ point, anyway. Herod has murdered John, against his will. He’s feeling guilty, like Hamlet’s uncle. In response to rumors of Jesus’ miracles, he makes a revealing comment – perhaps he has heard a rumor about Jesus bringing other people back to life. Whether or not he believes it, is another matter.  

LH: Robert M. Price, in a private communication, revealed another
important point:

"One must keep in mind the great power of "cognitive dissonance." History has shown that there is pretty much no extreme people will not go to in defending that which they have a great stake in. If you had spent decades defending the proposition that Jesus rose from the dead, even if you had originally merely surmised or guessed it, even had you made it up, you might well give your life than back down from the claim, to save face, because otherwise your life would be revealed as one big joke, and some people simply cannot live that down."

DM: Price’s words cut both ways, since Christians and atheists are made out of the same mortal cloth. But given the manifest and chronic mis-readings chronicled above, the skeptics here might usefully apply this to themselves first. There’s plenty of cognitive dissonance in evidence in comments by skeptics here. They badly misread not only a minor point in my book, and a major argument by Josh McDowell but, more importantly, repeatedly misrepresent the central texts they attempt to comment on. They fail to recognize enormous and obvious facts that stand directly in front of them,
like elephants in full trumpet – Pentecost, miracles, the fact that Christians offered numerous rational reasons for belief that are still convincing today, and the deeply expressed and still familiar skepticism of their 1st Century audience.

New "gospels" and the Pearl not of Bob Price.

So you find the Pearl of Great Price.  Problem is, it's hidden in the world's biggest oyster, and you can't force open the shell.  Worse, the oyster lies under 4,000 fathoms of cold, dark, pressurized seawater.  If only you could bring that baby up from the depths and pry open its knobbly treasure chest, your family would live in the lap of luxury until the stars reign down. 

That's a bit how I feel about my argument for the historicity of the gospels, originally made in Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus, but Grandma Marshall Could.  The pearl is stuck in that book, which almost no one has read, or probably ever will. (Maybe I should have given it a more dour title?)  And even when I present the argument verbally in public -- I pry and pry (even pray), but cannot seem to remove the spherical beauty from its mishapen calcium carbonate exoskeleton, and let the world watch it shine. 

Twice I've tried to explain this argument in debate -- first with Robert Price, then with Richard Carrier.  I thought Bob Price kinda understood what I was getting at, though it was difficult to explain in a few minutes in the back-and-forth of a skeptical webcast.  With Carrier, I made this one of just three arguments for the reasonableness of Christianity.  Carrier sluffed off the other two arguments as "irrelevant" (the existence of God and the occurance of miracles!), then proceeded to entirely miss the point of this third and, by default, most important argument.

But the issue is too important to give up.  The pearl shines too lustrously to leave at the bottom of the ocean. 

This is a Pearl of Great Price.  It is more than just a knock-down argument for Christianity.  It is the Gospel, in fact it is the person of Jesus, shining in the clear sunlight of history. 

So I feel it was right to make this argument central.  It's not just that I believe this argument can blow the cover off Carrier's own attack on the gospels, which is due to be published later this year.  (Yes, I think it will do that.)  More importantly, I think Carrier and Price and other such skeptics help reveal the true and unequalled value of the gospels by their very attempts to disprove or minimize them.  Carrier's response actually helps underline the historicity of Jesus and the general accuracy of the gospel accounts, and show why all such arguments against that historicity are doomed to ignomious failure. 

Search as they will, neither Richard Carrier, nor Bob Price, nor the Jesus Seminar, can find anything at all like a gospel.  Read rightly (or even read at all), such works as Thomas, Apollonius of Tyana, Herodotus's Histories, and Acts of Peter underline not just the uniqueness of the real gospels, but their historicity.  By frantically trying to locate parallels (hiding the desperation of a century's long search with a confident tone, and appeals to books most of his audience hadn't read), Carrier does Christians and truth-seekers in general a favor.  He helps demonstrate the rarity of genuine gospels, far rarer than pearls, and their credibility, even while thinking he achieves the opposite.

This will take two posts.  In the present post, I zero in on (1) my argument for the uniqueness of the gospels, as explained in our debate; and (2) Carrier's attempts in response to find parallels (even while, as I think it is necessary to point out here in more detail, quite misunderstanding my argument.  No disrespect is intended to Dr. Carrier, he is not the only one.  But I think it will help for me to underline here, where his reading goes off the rails). 

Pardon me if I repeat myself a little.  This is an important argument, and however much pushing and pulling it takes, I am determined to haul this pearl into the light. 

The following post will then offer (3) a brief description of the 26 historically -relevant characteristics themselves.  (Please read Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus for a description of all 50 characteristics, and defense of most of those traits in light of NT scholarship.)  (4) a systematic comparison between the canonical gospels, and the four best parallels Carrier could think of, at least on the spur of the moment: Apollonius of Tyana, Book of Tobit, The Golden Ass, and Plutarch's Life of Romulus. (5) What this analysis shows about how unique and credible the gospels are, how blind their critics tend to become (again, no disrespect to anyone in particular), and how hard it is to find real parallels to the Pearl of Great Price. 

These will be longish posts.  But they will also, I think, be among the most important I've written in this forum to date.  Your patience is appreciated, and I hope will be rewarded -- even this life.


(1) How the gospels prove themselves, historically. 

Here are my oral arguments, which give a fair summary of some relevant points historians have made about Jesus, and of my argument that partly follows from those insights:

A. I disagree with Richard Carrier in that I think that conventional historical research on Jesus has yielded a great deal of fruit . . . Thomas Jefferson, a skeptic, said the "eloquence and persuasiveness" of the Gospels goes "far beyond" the "feeble minds" of the gospel writers to invent. William Paley found the "similtude of manner, which indicates the actions and discourses proceed from the same person." In other words, you can triangulate from the different gospels to an historical person.

Robert Funk, the founder of the Jesus Seminar, wrote about parables, on which he was an expert. He said (they were) "virtually unknown in the OT, and rarely successfully imitated in Christian lore . . .Very few sages have achieved the same level of creativity" as the Jesus of the gospels. ((136, 153) John Crossan realized that Jesus was a "prophet of the margins" who overturned social convention. Richard Burridge has shown that the gospels conform to the category of bioi, or Greek biography. Morton Smith, a professor at Columbia University where Richard studied, showed that miracles infuse every single layer of the gospels. Jesus was a worker of miracles, the historical Jesus must have worked miracles . . .

Marcus Borg . . . realized that Jesus could be all these things at once, like blind men feeling the elephant . . . Borg recognized that Jesus was a "spirit person." He was "a charismatic healer or 'holy person.' He was a subversive sage who undermined conventional wisdom and taught an alternative wisdom. He was a social prophet, and an initiator of a movement the purpose of which was the revitalization of Israel." . . .

Richard Bauckham has recently written a brilliant book showing that the Gospels almost certainly contain a great deal of eyewitness testimony. NT Wright, the great British scholar, has shown, as philosopher Raymond Martin says, "The Gospels makes remarkably good historical sense." One of the tools that he uses to show that is something called double similarity, double disimilarity, which I think is a very powerful tool.

This is a sampling of some of the historical research on Jesus . . .

But my contention is that ordinary readers can meet Jesus by simply reading the Gospels for themselves. Our eyes are created or evolved to recognize human faces, and no one, having read the Gospels, can unrecognize Jesus without cost to his or her honesty.

I describe fifty characteristics that all four gospels share in common, having to do with setting, style and literary character, Jesus as a moralist, Jesus in society, how he treats other people, Jesus as a teacher, and theological characteristics. Many of them (are not) something one would make up just to make up a good story. These are things we pick up on without noticing.

At least twenty-six of these characteristics relate to historicity. And all twenty-six strongly favor the essential historicity of the main narratives of the Gospels. But I maintain that we pick up on these qualities even without noticing . . .

In sum, I argued the following points: (1) Historical research has revealed a great deal that is trustworthy about Jesus -- even from skeptics like Thomas Jefferson, Marcus Borg, Robert Funk, John Crossan, and Morton Smith.  (2) Many of the characteristics thus confirmed as internal to the gospels, show that Jesus was a remarkable person. who appears historical.  (3) Bauckham also argues that they contain "a great deal" of eyewitness testimony.  (4) But I maintain that the historicity of the gospels is and should be immediately evident to most readers because human beings naturally recognize unique personalities like that of Jesus.  (5) The gospels share 50 characteristics, many of which would not have been added on by people who were just making up a story.  (6) Twenty-six of those characteristics directly support the historicity of the gospels. 

Notice what I did NOT say in my opening argument.  I did NOT claim the gospels should be trusted merely because they were written close in time to the events they record.  (Though that is, in fact, one of 26 characteristics that I think support their historicity.)  I did NOT claim that we know the names of their authors.  (In fact, I think we do know the names of three of them - though I've never made that part of my argument.)  NOR did I let slip that these 26 characteristics were just my subjective opinion, or that of Christians generally -- instead, I cited a number of scholars who are hostile to Christian orthodoxy, in support of this point.  These were the arguments Carrier appeared to expect, however.

B. Richard Carrier:

Now he talks about the gospels as evidence.  The fact is, we don't know who wrote them, or who their sources were.  And they look just like other tales of gods and demigods, and we don't believe them. 

Centuries before Christianity, the goddess Inanna and the gods Romulus and Zaimoxus were preached as having died and been resurrected from the dead and communicating with their followers afterwards.  Those who believed in Zalmoxus even received eternal life . . .

It's just another mythical superhero story . . .

We don't have access to the original evidence in the case of Jesus.  We only have the writings, forty years later, of the hard-core believers . . . Books written 40 years later by fanatical believers just aren't reasonable evidence.  We can't rely on them.  We need the original evidence, or evidence we can directly confirm now.  But we have no access to that anymore.  We therefore cannot reasonably believe in Christianity based on its unverifiable faith literature.

Inanna and Zaimoxus, I dealt with earlier in this series.  (See C, "Fact-Checking the Gospels.")

Note though that to this point, Carrier barely mentions my actual arguments.  He appears to be mainly reciting a litany against some other scholar he expected to show up and talk a lot about the Resurrection and about how early the gospels are. 

Carrier does implicitly refer to my main argument glancingly, though, when he says the gospels "look just like other tales of gods and demigods." Later in his first rebuttal, Carrier comes back to this all-important point:

He talks about the eloquence and beauty of Jesus' statements in the gospels.  I find this a typical view of Christians who are somehow enamored of the gospels.  I read a lot of ancient philosophy from a lot of ancient philosophers.  And in fact, I find them much more eloquent and beautiful.  I think there are things in Seneca, there are things in Musofeus Rufus, that are much more brilliant, much more deeply argued, much more beautiful, and much more eloquent, for sure . . . Read the philosophers I talked about and compare them to Jesus, and you'll see that there isn't anything actually special about Jesus . . .

This shows that so far, Carrier badly misunderstood my argument. 

In fact, I didn't say anything about "beauty," and little about "eloquence."  I did quote Thomas Jefferson, not a Christian, who did refer to Jesus' eloquence "and persuasiveness" (not "beauty").   But even that was to make an historical point: that the gospels were not invented by Mark or the other evangelists, but triangulate back to an historical Jesus.  I also claimed there were a total of 26 traits in the gospels that imply historicity, citing more non-Christian scholars than Christians to illustrate some of those traits. 

In other words, the characteristics of Jesus in the gospels are part of an argument for the general historicity of the gospels, showing that they are telling the truth, at least in large part, about Jesus. 

So what do Seneca or Rufus have to do with the price of lettuce in Alexandria?  No one is denying that they were historical figures, or that their writings come down to us much as penned!  Bringing them up just shows that Carrier isn't following the argument, yet. 

Carrier further misses the point by supposing that his subjective appraisal of Jesus' teachings should be taken as some sort of rebuttal of "Christians who are somehow enamored of the gospels." 

Again, Jefferson was not a Christian, nor were five or six of the ten scholars I cited.   If Jefferson, like Renan, Gandhi, Lin Yutang, Tolstoy, and much of the Jesus Seminar, were "enamored" of Jesus, that had nothing to do with their commitment to Christian orthodoxy, of which they had none, but rather their wise perception of human character.  On whether Jesus' teachings stand out among ancient and modern teachers, it is Carrier Contra Mundum.  He misses what the world sees, and is the worse for it.  (And no, reading a bit of Rufus again has not changed my mind -- even if his work were terribly relevant to the historical point.) 

But then Carrier does try to find fictional parallels to the gospels, first in regard to miracles:

We don't believe loading magical weapons depended the Greek temple of Delphi all by themselves.  Yet within forty years of that, Herodotus claims witnesses said they did . . . That the gospels contain such dubious tales, not only proves they aren't reliable, it proves their authors couldn't tell the difference betweeen a true story and a false one.  They just wrote down anything they wanted, or whatever they were told.

I replied (now onto my first rebuttal) by citing Carrier's earlier use of Herodotus, and other wild tales, as a crowbar to deconstruct the gospels:

What is the character of the Gospel miracles? I looked through all the stories Richard told in one of his talks to a skeptical organization, SKEPTICON, and I looked at those miracles, and then looked at the miracles of the gospels. And I found that the gospel miracles tend to evince five consistent characteristics. First of all, they tend to be realistic in their background narratives. Second, they're purposeful, in the sense that they're not just done to show off. Third, they're constructive. They tend not to curse, they tend instead to heal and to help. Fourth, they respect the integrity of Nature, and the integrity of human beings -- they don't make people bark like dogs. Fifth, they tend to point people to God. Twenty-nine stand-alone miracles in Luke, thirteen stand-alone miracles in John. The lowest, on a scale of one to tend, by my admittedly subjective counting, was realism in John, about 8.6. And all the others were like 9.7, 9.8, around there.

So the Gospel miracles tend to have these characteristics very strongly. But all the stories that Richard is conflating with those miracles, tend to not have those characteristics at all. So I would not even use the word "miracle" for both sets of events. I would say that some are "miracles," and I would prefer to use the word "magic" for the other ones . . .

But that argument is focused on miracles.  I recognized that my description of the 25 other characteristics that demonstrate the historicity of the gospels needed more explanation.  So I ran out the clock in my first rebuttal trying to give a bit of that explanation and pry open that oyster:

Now are there any parallels to the gospels? Richard Carrier's going to give an argument called "Why the Gospels almost certainly are myth." I took the gospels and analyzed them according the 50 characteristics that define them. And then I compared them to ancient myth and works that contain myth, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, Hercules, the Iliad, the great Journey to the West in China, according to eight theological qualities, and 42 non-theological qualities. And I found that, again and again, the gospels tended to line up with historical works like Tacitus' Agricola, and most of all Confucius' Analects. In many of those 42 characteristics, the gospels not only lined up with the historical accounts, but exceeded them in historical value on all those characteristics.

Let me see if I can name a few of them quickly.

* Dramatic personai disappear in the gospels, they don't keep reappearing. Jesus overturns hierarchy.

* His unique, yes transcendent teachings, as most of the world recognizes, contrary to Richard Carrier's comments.

* Jesus notices individuals in a way most people don't in the ancient world.

* According to Walter Wink, the way his teachings about women, the way he treated women, was unique in the ancient world --"without parallel," are his exact words.

* There's a styllistic contrast between Jesus and the narrators, in the gospels.

* Jesus' radical dialogue with his culture.
So I began by focusing on one of the 26 characteristics that make the gospels historically credible, the nature (as distinct from the fact) of supernatural signs one finds in the gospels.  I pointed out that stories Carrier thinks similar to those miracles, like that of the Grecan temple in Herodotus defending itself like Hogwarts, is actually not similar at all, for five concrete reasons: realism, purposefulness, constructiveness, integrity towards Nature, and pointing people to God.  

I then briefly named six more characteristics that define the gospels. 

Obviously, this is a hard argument to make orally, and I can't blame Carrier, or perhaps most of the audience, if they failed to follow it completely.  I recognize that abstract oral argument is likely to be lost in translation.  That's why I supplemented those points in two ways: (1) with the story about my wife meeting a friend whom she recognized, which parallels how we meet and recognize Jesus in the gospels; and (2) by citing non-Christian and eminent Christian scholars to support my points.

Carrier cannot be blamed for not grasping my detailed argument for each point, though he would probably have gotten the gist if he'd prepped for the debate by reading my Jesus Seminar book.  But I hope that by now, the patient reader understands the genuine character of the argument a little better.   

Why am I explaining this in relation to my debate with Carrier?  Am I just trying to make myself look good at Dr. Carrier's expense?  Am I kicking myself for not thinking of the best arguments, fast enough? 

Maybe a little of the latter.  (Though there really wasn't time.)

But mainly, I am doing this analysis not to spite Carrier, but because I agree with his point that an oral debate should only be the beginning of learning. What matters most is truth, which is the genuine "Pearl of Great Price," and is worth hard work to obtain.   

Also I think Carrier, Price, Ehrman, Pagels, and the Jesus Seminar gang, provide us a wonderful service, and help underscore with vigor the unique and historical nature of the gospels.  They do this, in part, by scanning the ancient world for parallels to the gospels, and then by making arguments for those parallels, so fragile a three-month old puppy chased by a toddler could bring them all down. 

Carrier did finally offer three supposed parallels to the gospels from ancient pagan literature.  He also repeated his earlier claim, with great confidence, that other ancient works of "faith literature" have "all the characteristics of the gospels:"

Now everything he says about the gospels is true of all kinds of faith literature in all religions.  He picks on certain kinds of examples that look different from the gospels. But that's special pleading. He's picking certain examples through selection bias to make his argument.

There are other examples that look more like the gospels, for example, the Book of Tobit. Or Plutarch's biography of Romulus. Or Philostratus' biography of Apollonius of Tyana. There are a lot of these examples of faith literature that look more like the gospels. And if you wanted me to sit down and research and find the most similiar example, I could. But it's not necessary. There's plenty of examples like this that have all the characteristics of the gospels . . .

I underlined texts Carrier claims parallel the gospels. (Price also brought up Apollonius of Tyana, as has foolishly become common practice.)  Carrier continued:

He talks, for example, about Jesus noticing individuals, about that being unusual. I don't see that as being unusual. There are lots of stories in the ancient world -- Apollonius of Tyana notices individuals.   Pliny the Younger notives individuals. You can pick just about any kind of genre of writing and find examples of people noticing and interacting with individuals and having compassion on them. There's an example from Isis' cult, Apolleus in The Golden Ass, which is often praised by classicists as showing an unusual amount of compassion to the subjects, including slaves and animals. Because what happens to the hero is, he turns into a donkey, and he goes through all the experiences of a donkey. And it relates all the suffering and misery and abuse he endures as a donkey, showing sympathy even for animals. We don't get that from Jesus, of course.

He talks about the way Jesus treated women as being unique. That's not even remotely true. If you read the writings of Musonius Rufus again, or Epicurus, they actually have more enlightened and more extensive feminist views about women, judging by the standards of the ancient world.  So that's not an exceptional case.

Am I really guilty of "selection bias" in arguing from the characteristics of the gospels to their historicity?

Hardly.

In fact, I came up with my list of 50 characteristics empirically, by studying the gospels and New Testament scholarship.  I then picked biographical and fictional literature from the ancient world to compare, according to three criteria: (1) texts that skeptics often compare to the gospels, like the "Gospel" of Thomas and, yes, Apollonius of Tyana (I could have included The Iliad for this reason, if I had at the time been aware of the work of Dennis MacDonald); (2) influential myths that combine elements of history and the supernatural, here including The Iliad, Hercules, Epic of Gilgamesh, and Journey to the West; and (3) Analects of Confucius because like the gospels, it was written by unknown disciples in the decades after the Master's death, among other evident parallels.

"Mommy!  I found a pearl!"

But I am delighted to analyze other supposed parallels in the same way.  Critics of Christianity do us all a great service by assiduously searching for such parallels, even if they come across ultimately like children who overturn rocks on the beach, hoping they will find a precious pearl in an old castaway, weatherbeaten shell that turns out to be a cockle clam or a muscle. 

So this will be my task in Part II, to see if in fact the "faith literature" Carrier cites does in fact "have all the characteristics of the gospels," or hardly any of them.

Carrier's mention again of Rufus, Pliny the Younger, and Epicurus shows again that he still may not be entirely following my argument.  Their historicity is not much in question.  At the end of a long post, let me simply add my opinion that while I see the Stoic school as among the most noble of non-Christian creeds (I wrote an article praising Rufus' student, Epictetus, for Touchstone Magazine last year), Rufus' sensible but rather prosaic proto-feminist philosophy cannot really compare to Jesus' "You are right in saying that you have no husband" or "Neither do I condemn you."  If someone proved that Arratus "really" wrote Rufus' words instead, who would faint in shock?  By contrast, the loss of Jesus' words would leave a gap in the cosmos.

But what about Apollonius?  Or Romulus?  Or Tobit?  Or the Golden Ass?

Do they really share "all the characteristics" of the gospels?  Or especially, those 26 that I claim show the gospels are historically credible?

So on to the Pearl itself: the historical characteristics of the gospels, and how they contrast with these four new 'fake gospels.'