This is an announcement post, so I hope my patrons over at www.patreon.com/cerebralfaith forgive me for not making it an early access blog post.
On January 2nd 2024, I will be speaking at the Defend conference at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary . My topic will be “Making The Maximal Data Argument More Attractive” and in my talk, I will be responding to the efficiency obejction from Minimal Facts proponents. For those who don’t know, The Maximal Data and Minimal Facts are two different approaches to establishing the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. For a long time, I only used the latter method because I was under some misconceptions about the former. I basically thought you had to produce a book’s worth of content to defend the reliability of the gospel’s. “The Maximal Data Approach is too inefficient” I thought. This is an objection that many Minimal Facts guys (including Michael Licona) bring to the argument. I do not believe that Maximalists like Lydia MCgrew or Erik Manning have done a sufficient job in responding to the efficiency objection. So, I was like *Thanos impression* “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” I have done so in my 11 part blog series “The Case For The Reliability Of The Gospels” in the final installment of that series, under the subsection “A Message To Christians: How To Use This Material”. But I hope to reach people who haven’t read that article at this conference.
The reliability of the gospels should be defended, and to my shame, I neglected to do this. I was so apathetic towards defending the reliability of the gospels that I had almost no content on this until I put out the 11 part series. I was almost exclusively a Minimalist. Now, as I have said, I am not against The Minimal Facts Approach. But if you choose to use it over a Maximalist approach, it should be for the right reasons. My aim in my talk will be to show that you don’t have to always make an exhaustive case when using the gospels as your sources for arguing for historic truth claims.
I hope to see you there. My talk will be a breakout session. You can sign up for your conference ticket by clicking this link — https://brushfire.com/nobts/defend2024/553643/details
So come on down to Louisiana! I can’t wait to meet you.
