From Johnny 2/24/05

Brady said: There are so many different points and these posts are getting long and unruly. Why don't we take it one point at a time, finish with one point and then go on to the next, in a quick and timely fashion.

That is fine.

Brady wrote: In a previous post I wrote: In my paper, "Atheists and the Resurrection," I point out that most atheists or skeptics do not want to deal with the historical argument for the Resurrection. That they run from it. We see that has happened again. In my paper I call such arguments as Johnny has produced "going outside the evidence." I call it that because this paragraph has nothing to do with the documents from eyewitnesses or close associates of eyewitnesses.

Johnny responded: Why do you assume that the documents are from eyewitnesses? Are you referring to the anonymous Gospel writers wrote in the third person, which indicates the possibility of second hand, or even third hand evidence?

Brady responding to that said: I am not referring to any documents and the problem is neither are you. Read my above quote again. You totally missed the point. I simply pointed out that in your thesis you make statements about history, yet you have no sources from the period that give any indication that the points in your thesis is true.

Johnny Responded: Please quote the historians.

Brady: It is your thesis, you are the one making the statements, and it is your job to show the support. Are there any historians from the period or around the period and place that support your thesis?

My current position is as follows:

The Bible makes initial, primary claims from cover to cover. The Bible states that the God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth. I don't claim to know how the universe got here, but you do. I actually don't need any thesis at all except to ask you to reasonably prove the initial, primary claim that Jesus rose from the dead. The only reason that I make counter arguments is not to claim what actually happened, like you and the Bible do, but only to let readers know that there are other possibilities that have merit.

Regarding "skeptics do not want to deal with the historical argument for the Resurrection," there is no historical argument. Consider the following:

Why Are The Ancient Historians Silent About Jesus?

By Richard Smith

Consider the following list. These are the historians and writers who

DID live within Christ's alleged lifetime or within a hundred years of it, after the time:

Apollonius Persius

Appian Petronius

Arrian Phaedrus

Aulus Gellius Philo-Judaeus

Columella Phlegon

Damis Pliny the Elder

Dio Chrysostom Pliny the Younger

Dion Pruseus Plutarch

Epictetus Pompon Mela

Favorinus Ptolemy

Florus Lucius Quintilian

Hermogones Quintius Curtius

Josephus Seneca

Justus of Tiberius Silius Italicus

Juvenal Statius

Lucanus Suetonius

Lucian Tacitus

Lysias Theon of Smyran

Martial Valerius Flaccus

Paterculus Valerius Maximus

Pausanias

Yet, aside from two FORGED passages in the works of a Jewish writer mentioned above, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there isn't ANY mention of Jesus Christ. At all. Consider:

"Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place -- when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven.

"These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, we unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.

"Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering this time of Christ's reputed existence. This work has perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the ninth century, who was acquainted with it, says: 'He (Justus) makes not the least mention of the appearances of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did' (Photius Bibliotheca, code 33).

"Josephus: Late in the first century, Josephus wrote his celebrated work 'The Antiquities of the Jews,' giving a history of his race from the earliest ages down to his own time. Modern versions of this work contain the following passage:

"'Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Book XVIII, Chapter iii, Section 3).'

"For nearly sixteen hundred years Christians have been citing this passage as a testimonial, not merely to the historical existence, but to the divine character of Jesus Christ. And yet a ranker forgery was never penned.

"Its language is Christian. Every line proclaims it the work of a Christian writer. 'If it be lawful to call him a man.' 'He was the Christ.' 'He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.'

"These are the words of a Christian, a believer in the divinity of Christ. Josephus was a Jew, a devout believer in the Jewish faith -- the last man in the world to acknowledge the divinity of Christ. The inconsistency of this evidence was early recognized, and Abrose, writing in the generation succeeding its first appearance (360 A.D.), offers the following explanation, which only a theologican could frame:

"'If the Jews do not believe us, let them, at least, believe their own writers. Josephus, whom they esteem a great man, hath said this, and yet hath he spoken truth after such a manner; and so far was his mind wandered from the right way, that even he was not a believer as to what he himself said; but thus he spake, in order to deliver historical truth, because he thought it not lawful for him to deceive, while yet he was no believer, because of the hardness of his heart, and his perfidious intention.'

"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly forty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."

The Christ, by John E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books, New

York, 1994, pages 171-3.

Brady, I have a lot more on Josephus if you want me to post it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In short, there is no contemporary evidence that Jesus was a historical figure. This does not mean there was no historical Jesus, but considering the extraordinary claims made about him, it seems reasonable to demand better evidence than that of second-hand, much later sources.

Skeptics are asking for credible, contemporary sources composed during the lifetime of Jesus' supposed ministry. There appear to be none. This would be the very best, most reliable evidence that a remarkable man named Jesus lived in Palestine during the first few decades of the first century.

Plus, if the dead bodies of holy men (in addition to Jesus) were resurrected, walked around Jerusalem, and were seen by many, as the NT claims, then it is reasonable to expect some writer from that era to have mentioned it. After all, resurrected zombies walking around the city would have to be newsworthy enough to at least become an oral tradition and most likely be written down somewhere by someone. None of this proves or disproves anything about Jesus. It should, however, for critical thinkers, prompt doubt as to the veracity of extraordinary claims of miracles that defy our understanding of the way the world works.

In lieu of corroborating evidence, the NT cannot be distinguished from fiction. All fiction contains elements of fact and fancy. Historians accept some of the facts mentioned in the NT (like the destruction of the Temple in 70) but reject the fanciful (the miracles) as unsupported embellishments.

If you further consider the facts that the NT itself has not been transmitted with complete integrity and has been altered and added to (for example, the long ending of Mark) by unknown human beings with unknown purposes and that no one today knows with certainty what the original NT manuscripts actually said (since none apparently still exist), it seems apparent that Christians are left with a huge leap of faith in the book they claim reveals the ultimate truths about reality, a book that by all appearances exhibits the characteristics of fiction, mythology, and religious propaganda.

The problem as I see it is that when the absence of contemporary evidence is combined with other relevant factors, one can reasonably conclude that the evidence in support of the NT accounts of Jesus' life, miracle working, and resurrection is insufficient to warrant acceptance of those claims. Thus, it is rational to place the NT claims in the "unconfirmed and doubtful" folder.

Furthermore, in philosophy there is a key principle -- the Negative

Evidence Principle (NEP) -- that for many thinkers justifies a more forceful rejection of the Christian claims about the NT.

The Negative Evidence Principle (NEP) states that:

"A person is justified in believing that p is false if (1) all the available evidence used to support the view that p is true is shown to be inadequate and (2) p is the sort of claim such that if p were true, there should be available evidence that would be adequate to support the view that p is true and (3) the area where evidence would appear if there were any, has been comprehensively examined" (Michael Scriven, Primary Philosophy, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966)

When I apply the NEP to Christian claims about the NT and Jesus, I conclude that such claims are false. However, if new, better evidence were someday available for fair evaluation, then I would reconsider my belief that Christian claims are false.

In Lee Strobel's 'The Case for Christ,' William Lane Craig mentions "multiple, independent attestations." The simple truth is that there are no eyewitness accounts, period. The Gospel writers were anonymous and wrote decades after the supposed events occurred. The Jesus tale had been told via oral storytelling during those intervening years. Thus, there are absolutely NO multiple attestations by direct eyewitnesses to the claimed miracle events. The vast number of historians, who are the world's top experts at assessing historical documents, DO NOT accept the miracle claims of the OT or the NT, just like they DO NOT accept the miracle claims of other ancient or modern religious texts as historically valid. Furthermore, the NT is NOT classified as history in libraries.

Even if there were multiple attestations, what evidence is there that they were independent? In addition, how many multiple attestations does it take to equal the truth? If there was only one Gospel and no book of Acts, would the Christian Church have still eventually become quite large? Probably so, but likely due to secular factors as Rodney Stark adequately explains in 'The Rise of Christianity. It will do you no good to attack Stark. I don't need him in order to have good arguments, as I have already shown. If the Christian Church would still have eventually become quite large, even though not as large as it is now, then the multiple, independent attestations argument is useless.

You said "I simply pointed out that in your thesis you make statements about history, yet you have no sources from the period that give any indication that the points in your thesis is true." What are your sources, and why should anyone believe them? Unlike you, I am not making statements about history. I am only offering other possibilities that deserve consideration.

The Gospels, Acts and 1st Corinthians indicate at least 10,000

Christians by 40 A.D. Matthew Henry claims tens of thousands by 40 A.D. 'World Christian Trends' estimates that there were 800,000 Christians in 100 A.D. What is your position on this matter? If you agree with the texts and 'World Christian Trends,' then you need to mention why such is the case. If you agree with me and Rodney Stark, then I will tell you that historically, very small groups of people have believed in all sorts of outlandish things, some things even more outlandish than Christianity. If you agree with me and Stark, you will be stating the authors of the Gospels and Acts are liars, in addition to Paul. Which is it?

If the 1st century Christian Church was anywhere near Stark's estimate of 7,530 Christians in 100 A.D., or even 25,000 for that matter, then there is no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of people flatly rejected New Testament claims of miracles, including the resurrection of Jesus. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can fool very small groups of people much of the time. Eventual increases in the rate of growth of the early Christian Church are easily accounted for by secular means, largely via Rodney Stark et al. That would be a good topic for another debate.

The major factor that accounts for religious beliefs is geography, not the Holy Spirit. A loving, all-powerful God would not be limited by geography. If you lived back then and had the means to spread the Gospel message all over the world in one month, would you have done so?

Is it your position that ordinary, verifiable historical claims that would have been known about by tens of thousands of people with varying worldviews automatically validate claims of the supernatural? If so, I will e-mail your comments to the chairmen of the departments of history at several leading universities and ask them for their opinions.

Johnny

From Brady 3/1/05

Well Johnny, I asked we could take just one point at a time. You agreed, and then you went way beyond that point. I think the reason is that you could not answer with any integrity the matter at hand. What was the point? Let’s review; you accused the gospel writers and Paul of lying and making up number in their writings. I asked you had any direct evidence of this? I guess the answer is, NO! There is no historian or writer that directly disagree with Paul and the Evangelists. What you call your “current position” is an acknowledgement of your lack of direct evidence.

Now, let me deal briefly with your indirect approach. Smith lists a number of authors that he calls “These are the historians and writers who DID live within Christ's alleged lifetime or within a hundred years of it, after the time.” However, he seem to forgotten a few others; like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude. There are also those who knew the Apostles or lived and wrote after them, Clement of Rome, Mathetes, Polycarp, Papias, Ignatius of Antioch, Barnabas, and The Shepard of Hermas, There is also the Didache and Justin Martyr that fall within that range.

So, what we really find is that if you Ad Hoc eliminate any works by those who claim to know Jesus and you eliminate the works of their students, and claim (not prove) that any other references about Jesus by others are forgeries, then there is no evidence for Jesus. Isn’t that convenient?

But wait a minute! How do you know that those writers that Smith listed were from the period? What evidence is there that those documents weren’t tampered with and had those passages about Jesus removed? What makes you think that you have an accurate text of any of them? Your NEP (as you have misapplied it) doesn’t do any good unless; you have objective, inductive criteria to test the quality of evidence for these documents and a baseline by which to judge the quantity of evidence for them. But of course if you had the criteria and baseline you could just apply it to the NT and see if the documents were reliable. You wouldn’t need all the other nonsense.

But, just to further point out how stupid this argument is, consider the following: If we eliminate all the Roman historians before we consider what Roman history is all about, what would we know about Roman history? Virtually nothing! There would be a few things here and there; but Asian writers don’t tell us a whole lot about Roman history. It is also true that Roman writers don’t give us a whole lot about Asian history. It’s not like these historians had a “local,” “national,” and “international” section to their writings, like we find in the New York Times. They wrote about things that interested them. There are lots of “big events” that one writer goes over in detail and others won’t even mention it. Did you know that Caesar wrote the only things we know about Caesar’s campaign in Gaul. That was a big event, but there is virtually nothing in the historical record about it. Was it a myth? Was it made up? Try using your NEP (as you have misapplied it) on Caesar at a convention of historians and watch all the laughs you will get as they throw you out as a crackpot. The point is: if your method is used universally and consistently on all history, it will destroy virtually everything we know of the ancient world.

So once again, we are left with no objective, inductive criteria to judge the quality of the evidence, and no baseline by which to judge the quantity of the evidence. Why do you accept the accuracy and authenticity of the authors listed by Smith? Answer, because you prefer it. Why do you question the NT authors? Answer: because you don’t like them. Pure Ad Hoc!

By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, I have over two hundred articles listed on my web site. If all you want to do is just post other peoples papers, I’ll be happy to reprinted seven or eight of them for you to answer in my next post.

Regards,