From Johnny 3/2/05

Brady wrote: 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.

Logically, it is not up to skeptics to reasonably disprove the

Resurrection. Rather, it is up to Christians to reasonably prove the Resurrection.

Some Christians attempt to change the widely accepted burden of proof into the burden of disproof. That is simply ridiculous. Who could possibly disprove a man's claim that he saw a pig sprout wings and fly?

The Bible is full of original, primary claims from cover to cover, starting with the very first verse, which says "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." I still have good arguments without referring to any skeptic scholars whatsoever. The burden of proof is on you. I don't claim to know how the universe got here, but you do. I don't need to claim that anybody lied. All that I need to do is ask you to reasonably prove the original, primary claims regarding the Resurrection.

Brady wrote: 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.

But how many people bought the claims in the first century? The book of Acts mentions that 3,000 people became Christians after hearing a single brief teaching by Peter. The numbers indicate that there would have been at least 10,000 Christians by 50 A.D. If Jesus did rise from the dead, the numbers were to be expected. However, if the numbers were false, then there is no doubt whatsoever that the early Christian Church could not have begun to grow more rapidly until after the deaths of the supposed still living eyewitnesses. If the numbers were false, then Rodney Stark's estimate of 7,530 Christians in 100 A.D. makes perfect sense. In 'The Rise of Christianity,' Stark's bibliography is 20 pages long, showing that Stark is a careful researcher, and that he has a lot of scholarly corroboration.

Brady wrote: 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?

My current position is not to claim any forgeries, only to ask you to reasonably back up your original, primary claims.

Brady wrote: 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.

Since the Bible is full of original, primary claims from cover to cover, I don't have to claim anything. Such being the case, your job is to reasonably prove the claims. Any skeptic can logically say "While I can't disprove the Resurrection, neither can Christians prove it."

Brady wrote: 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?

Why must we know about Roman history beyond a reasonable doubt?

Does it make any difference in our lives one way or the other? Of course not. Heaven, hell and eternity don't depend upon our knowing how reliable Roman history is.

Brady wrote: 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 with go over in detail and others won't even mention it. Did you know that Caesar wrote the only thing 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.

Oh my. You trying showing up at a convention of historians and tell them that the only acceptable prerequisite course for examining claims of the supernatural is New Testament 101. In fact, I would like for you to find just one chairman of the history department at Yale, Harvard, Brown, UCLA or Stanford universities who agrees with you historical criteria for examining claims of the supernatural.

Even if miracles are reasonably possible, Christians haven't even come close to reasonably proving which miracles occurred at which places at which times.

Brady wrote: 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.

The most logical thing for us to do is to accept a general consensus of historians regarding the Resurrection, and I have no doubt whatsoever that a general consensus of historians will agree with me regarding the Resurrection.

What exactly is your method? What external eyewitness sources state that Jesus rose from the dead? What external second hand sources state that Jesus rose from the dead?

Brady wrote: 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.

What skeptics wouldn't like to spend eternity in comfort? In addition, what skeptic wouldn't like miracles to be available to help people?

Regarding "Why do you accept the accuracy and authenticity of the authors listed by Smith?," as I said previously, my current position is not to claim anything. That is your job.

All of the Bible apologetics in the world cannot explain the following:

Geography is the chief factor that determined how many people became Christians in the 1st century and beyond, not the Holy Spirit. A loving, all-powerful God would not be limited by geography. If the God of the

Bible does not exist, then it is only natural that especially during the first few centuries, the only people who could have known about the Gospels would have been people who lived within a certain radius of Palestine. Even today, a person born and raised in Iraq is not very likely to become a Christian. However, if 25 newborn babies with Muslim parents were sent to the United States to be raised by devout fundamentalist Christians, and never had any future contact with their parents or anyone else from Iraq, they would most likely become Christians.

From Christians' point of view, if they became skeptics and it eventually turns out that the Bible is true, they will spend eternity in hell. On the other hand, from skeptics' point of view, if they became Christians and it eventually turns out that they will become dust in the ground, they will be no worse off than before they became Christians. Therefore, skeptics are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads completely free of coercive influences.

The claim of the Resurrection can be settled if and only if Jesus returns to earth. Nothing less will do. This is analogous to General Douglas MacArthur's promise to return to the Philippine Islands during World War II. MacArthur returned to the Philippines Islands, fulfilling his promise. Jesus has not yet fulfilled his promise, and there is no evidence that he ever will.

In Lee Strobel's 'The Case For Christ,' William Lane Craig mentions of "multiple, independent attestations." Even if there were multiple attestations, what evidence is there that they were independent? In addition, the anonymous Gospel writers always wrote in the 3rd person, leaving open the possibility that they were not eyewitnesses. Further,

Paul did not see Jesus in the flesh. All that he is claimed to have seen was a vision.

If there were only one Gospel instead of four, would still be Christian? I assume that you would. If Paul had only mentioned 10 eyewitnesses instead of 500, would you still be a Christian? I assume that you would. If there were only 15 existing copies of New Testament manuscripts instead of 5,000, would you still be a Christian? I assume that you would.

Since many Christians living today are of the opinion that 5,000 copies are pretty convincing, it cannot logically be ruled out that early Christians had the very same attitude and made lots of copies for the purpose of impressing people living in future generations.

2 Corinthians 11:14 says "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." There are no good reasons to assume that it is not God who is the angel of light and that it is the Devil who is actually trying to help us.

Johnny

From Brady 3/4/05

Johnny wrote: Logically, it is not up to skeptics to reasonably disprove the Resurrection. Rather, it is up to Christians to reasonably prove the Resurrection.

Let me get this straight, after you committed fallacy after fallacy, after you insisted that the rules of logic not be imposed upon you when you make your “brilliant arguments,” you now want to tell me what is logical? You are the one who insisted on making the silly argument where in you accused Paul and the Gospel writers of lying, and now that you are called on to defend your accusation, to provide an objective reason that anyone would think it is true, you hide behind, “The burden of proof is on you.” Let’s make a deal, you don’t make any other ridiculous arguments, I won’t ask you to defend them, OK? Let’s also just pretend all the other logical fallacies you committed in your latest response didn’t happen, and we’ll start fresh.

As for the burden of proof being on me: to fulfill the burden, an objective, inductive criteria and a baseline must first be established. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing when the burden is fulfilled. I have asked you three times in this debate and numerous times in our past debates if you would like to find the criteria and baseline or if you would like me to do it. Each time you have run away from it. So, once again, do you want to do it or do you want me to?

Regards,

Brady