From Johnny 3/4/05

Johnny wrote in a previous post: "Logically, it is not up to skeptics to reasonably disprove the Resurrection. Rather, it is up to Christians to reasonably prove the Resurrection.

Brady responded: 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.

Agreed.

Brady wrote: 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?

Although I reserve the right to change my position in the future, for now the proper criteria should consist of the following:

1) You need to provide internal eyewitness sources regarding the Resurrection. So far, you have none. None of the anonymous Gospel writers claimed to have seen Jesus. All that you have is that the Gospel writers claimed that other people claimed that they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead.

2) You need to provide external eyewitness sources regarding the Resurrection. So far, you have none.

3) Paul never claimed to have seen Jesus in the flesh.

4) The Gospels, Acts and Paul indicate 10,000 Christians by 40 A.D. If

New Testament claims of miracles, including the resurrection of Jesus, are true, then the numbers were to expected. However, if the claims were false, the early Christian Church would not have begun to grow more rapidly until after the deaths of the supposed still living eyewitnesses, which would have been late in the 1st century. There is no evidence at all that such was not the case. Unless you can justify the numbers, you have no intelligent arguments to make whatsoever.

Let me put it another way. How many people bought the claims by 40 A.D. and by 100 A.D.? If Rodney Stark's well-corroborated estimate of 7,530 Christians in 100 A.D. is anywhere near being accurate, then the Gospel writers, the author of the book of Acts and Paul lied about the numbers, bringing into question New Testament claims of miracles, including the resurrection of Jesus. People who will tell several lies will always tell more lies.

As you know, many Christian apologists say that people could have checked out claims of the resurrection of Jesus for themselves. First of all, the evidence, Jesus, was soon gone, making any further eyewitness investigations impossible. Second of all, there is no evidence that the numbers of Christians indicated in New Testament are anywhere near being accurate. Third of all, the return of Jesus is the only evidence possible that can adequately verify the Resurrection. That prophecy is by far the most important prophecy in the entire Bible, and it remains unfilled. The return of Jesus would prove the Resurrection, but the Resurrection does not prove that Jesus will return to earth. However, some internal and external eyewitnesses would help your case.

I would like to add that logically, Jesus should either have appeared to everyone or to no one at all. Selective appearances make no sense, and especially not confined to Palestine. I would also like to add that readers can read my entire argument against the resurrection in my essay a www.askepticalapproach.com. Readers have been able to read your entire essay on the Resurrection, so it is only fair that they can read my entire case against the Resurrection as well.

Johnny

From Brady 3/9/05

Well Johnny, I give you a “B” for effort, but a “D-“ for content.

First, your criteria are not supposed to be directed at the NT directly. It has to be criteria that can be used for any document or event. Second, if we were to apply your criteria to the rest of history we would once again find virtually nothing getting through. Third, some of your points are not criterion at all, for instance: 3) Paul never claimed to have seen Jesus in the flesh. This is at best your opinion, at worst an argument, but whatever it is, it is not a criterion for historical investigation.

You do know what a criterion is, don’t you? It is some sort of test that the document goes through to determine if the evidence is good enough to answer a question. For instance, one point you did bring up is that of eyewitnesses. The best sources are people who are “in the know.” In history, this is usually an eyewitness or the close associates of eyewitnesses. Of course, in researching history, sometimes it is necessary to examine sources even further out. And we must recognize that much we know about the past comes from third and fourth hand reports. But back to our criterion, you have no test or series of test that help us understand if the writers are eyewitnesses or the associates of eyewitnesses. You simply declare via fiat that: None of the anonymous Gospel writers claimed to have seen Jesus. A criterion we might want to have is: is there any reason to believe that the information found in the NT is coming from eyewitness sources? With this we can actually look at the documents and see if they have any claim to be “in the know.” We also might want to know if there is any good reason outside the documents to believe the writers are actually people in the know? Another might be is there multiple attestations to the event by people in the know? One big one might be: do we have an accurate copy of the documents themselves?

All of these questions apply to all documents and historical events, not just the NT and the Resurrection. There are a few others I could suggest, if you would like, but this is your turn to suggest criteria.

Other issues: you wrote: If Rodney Stark's well-corroborated estimate of 7,530… We are back to this again. Can you give any corroboration to Stark’s estimate? That was the whole point in our last debate; all the prime sources disagree with Stark, there is no corroboration! If by corroboration you mean that other people, who live 2000 years after the events, like what Stark wrote, then you need to get a good dictionary and look up corroboration.

Johnny wrote: I would like to add that logically, Jesus should either have appeared to everyone or to no one at all. I assume by “logically,” you mean deductively necessary, since inductive logic doesn’t fit here at all. So, why don’t you show us why it is deductively necessary? I am sure we will all be waiting to see your syllogism.

Johnny, when you emailed me and asked for another debate you said that you had new material and that you had learned how to debate these issues. After seven rounds of dialog it is clear that this is all the same old stuff and that you still have no clue on how history is investigated. If you can't come up with something of substance soon we will have to end this discussion or turn it to someone else's argument that is based  standard methods of historical criteria, such as F. F. Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Regards,