At this point, we’ve seen a mounting cumulative case for the reliability of the gospels. The copies we have today are identical to the ones originally written down with 99.99% accuracy, the gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who were eyewitnesses and close associates of eyewitnesses, the gospels were written down very soon after the events they describe, and extra-biblical authors and archeological evidence confirms them at multiple points.
As impressive as the external evidence is, the internal evidence is even more so. In fact, there is so much internal evidence for the truthfulness of the gospels that I have decided to split this section up into two parts. Internal evidence for the gospels’ truthfulness consists of scrutinizing their testimony to find various indications of truth. It is not simply quoting Bible verses to prove The Bible is true, as one skeptic in the comment section on the Cerebral Faith Facebook page said. There are multiple categories of internal evidence. But in this article, I wish to make a cumulative case from the criteria of authenticity.
The Criteria Of Authenticity
Those who’ve read my work on The Minimal Facts argument will know what the criteria of authenticity are, but for those who don’t know, let me briefly explain. The criteria of authenticity are certain principles that many historians use when examining historical testimony. If an event meets one or more of these criteria, it can be said to really have occurred. Usually, these criteria are used with respect to the New Testament in a very skeptical way. Skeptics presuppose the gospels are guilty until proven innocent, that is to say, they presume the New Testament documents aren’t telling the truth until it can be proven that they are. At best, someone may approach the gospels or epistles with neutrality and say “Well, we don’t know if they’re telling the truth here or not.” The criteria have been shown to be very helpful in getting “Core Facts” upon which we can build a powerful case for Jesus’ resurrection even with the deck stacked against our crucial witnesses [1]See my article series “The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection” –> https://cerebralfaith.net/category/evidence-for-jesus-resurrection-series/ for an in-depth look at the … Continue reading. However, in a maximalist case in which the reliability of the gospels is presupposed, the criteria can serve to build a cumulative case for their trustworthiness. For if the gospels can be shown to get things right over and over and over, then approaching events in the gospels via this “passage by passage” approach is no longer necessary. Eventually, you can get to a place where you can simply take the gospels’ testimony at face value to build your case for Christianity’s central truth claims because you’ve already shown the crucial witnesses to be trustworthy. I got the idea to use the criteria of authenticity to mount a cumulative case from Frank Turek as he uses one of the criteria in a rapid-fire way in chapter 9 of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”.
What are these criteria? They are
The Principle Of Embarrassment — If a document records an event that is embarrassing to the one writing it, embarrassing to someone the writer cares about, weakens an argument he’s trying to make, or hurts his cause in any way, it is more likely to be true than false. This principle is built on the common sense belief that if people are going to make up lies, those lies will make themselves look good, make their loved ones look good, strengthen their arguments, or helps their cause. No one makes up lies to make themselves or a loved one look bad, or to weaken an argument they’re trying to make.
Here’s a hypothetical example of this principle in play. Let’s say we had a letter written by George Washington, the first president of The United States, and in that letter, he records an incident where he was riding a horse along the countryside and he had a bad case of diarrhea, causing him to soil himself. Then he says that he went behind a tree, removed his undergarments, and went commando for the rest of the day. A historian examining that document would conclude that this story is more likely to be true than not because such a story is embarrassing to the one who wrote it (i.e. George Washington).
The Principle Of Multiple Attestation — The more independent sources an event is mentioned in, the more likely it is to be true. The more independent sources you have reporting an event, the smaller the odds it is that the event is made up, since it’s highly unlikely for multiple people to concoct the same fiction.
Let’s say that not only did Washington write about his embarrassing case, but three of his friends each wrote documents recounting the incident as well. If this were the case, the incident of Washington soiling himself would be even more likely to be true. Why? Because of the principle of multiple attestations. When you have two or more independent sources record an incident, it’s far more likely to be true than not, because the more and more independent sources an event is mentioned in, the less and less likely it is to be made up. If you had three or four different sources recording the same event, what are the odds that all four sources are making up the same thing? So on top of the principle of embarrassment, we would add multiple attestations to this incident.
The Principle Of Early Attestation — The earlier a document dates relative to the event the document purports to describe, the more reliable the account. The earlier a document is, the less time there was for legend and embellishment to creep in.
The hypothetical documents of Washington’s’ friends were written only 2 years after the event. This short timescale makes it less likely that they would embellish things and inaccurately recall the day.
The Principle Of Enemy Attestation — If Document X is saying something that benefits a person, message, or cause that X is hostile or opposed to, we have an indication of authenticity.
This principle’s logic runs mirror to The Principle of Embarrassment’s. The logic behind this principle is that people who hate you are not going to make up lies to make you look good. People who are opposed to your cause are not going to make up lies that help it.
The Principle Of Historical Fit — If details in an account conform to well-established historical facts of the period, this makes the event in said account more credible.
For example, if Washington’s letters and the writings of his 3 friends described the countryside accurately, described what kind of trees were in bloom in the area that they said they were horse riding in, described the kind of clothes the people back in town wore, etc. these things would heighten the credibility of the accounts.
The Principle Of Dissimilarity — As far as I know, this principle is solely used in examining The New Testament. This principle says that If an event or saying of Jesus cannot be derived from the Judaism that preceded him or the Christian church that came after him, then it’s highly unlikely that the saying of Jesus in question is made up. Some object to the use of this criterion on the basis that we would expect Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi and the founder of the Christian church, to say things that reflect the Judaism that preceded Him and the Christianity that came after Him. This is a good point, but we should realize that criteria cannot be used negatively. This criterion simply states that if Jesus says something that sounds unJewish and unChristian, then Jesus most likely said it. This is because it would be implausible to say that the early church retroactively put these words in Jesus’ mouth or that it was a logical outworking of the Jewish theology of the day. This is probably the most skeptical of all the criteria, and it is used the least often.
The Principle Of Multiple Literary Forms — Greco-Roman Biographies, creeds, miracles, didactic (these would be sermon summaries), apocalyptic. These are the genres of writings in the first-century Roman-Palestinian world. If an event can be found in writings that fall into more than one literary genre, then it’s more likely to be true than not.
The Principle Of Eyewitness Testimony — If a writer claims to be a direct witness to the event he’s describing, this is generally taken to make the event more likely to have occurred.
I won’t be using all of these criteria in this article, as enemy attestation is primarily external confirmation by definition, and the gospels have already been shown to meet the criteria of early and eyewitness testimony in the previous articles in this series. The criteria on which I will mount a cumulative case are on the basis of three of the following; Embarrassment, Multiple Attestation, and Dissimilarity, in this order.
The reason I’m picking these three out of the eight surveyed above is on the basis of three reasons; (1) These criterion can be applied to the gospels the largest number of times, (2) That the 4 gospels meet criteria like early testimony and eyewitness testimony have already been established, (3) the others have a smaller number of applications to the gospels (that I know of anyway). It should be remembered that I’m not mounting a minimal facts argument for the historicity of the core historical truth claims of Christianity. Rather, in this specific instance, I’m building a cumulative case for the trustworthiness of the gospels which will then justify an inference to such truth claims via a different epistemic route. So, if I am aware of only one or two examples where specific criteria can be applied, that won’t be nearly as useful to my cumulative case for gospel trustworthiness as criteria that can be applied to a plethora of events.
Embarrassing Testimony – About The Disciples
Let’s begin by looking at examples from the criterion of embarrassment.
Let me phrase it like this; If you and a bunch of your companions are conjuring up a narrative you wanted people to believe was true, would you, in the narrative, paint yourselves as slow-to-understand, uncaring, rebuked, doubting cowards? The men who put pen to the papyrus certainly did! Not just once or twice, but numerous times!
*The Disciples Are slow to understand — On multiple occasions, they fail to grasp some of Jesus’ teachings. (Mark 9:32; Luke 18:34; John 12:16).
*The Disciples are depicted as uncaring— Not just once, but twice, they doze off and catch some Zs when Jesus asks them to stay awake and pray (Mark 14:32-41). The gospels believe Jesus is God enfleshed (Mark 14:61-65, John 8:58, John 10:30) and yet they tell us that they failed to be his prayer warriors during his most dire hour! Not only that but there is ZERO effort on their part to give a proper burial to their rabbi. Instead, they wrote down that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea. Who was Joseph of Arimathea you ask? Oh, just a member of the Sanhedrin a.k.a the very court that took Jesus to Pilate to have Him killed.
*The disciples are rebuked—Peter is called “Satan” by Jesus (see Mark 8:33). As Frank Turek once put it in a talk he gave at Saddleback Church, imagine Mark is writing his gospel. Peter is giving him information about all that Jesus said and did, and then Mark holds up his hand and says “Wait a minute, Peter! I have a great idea to spice up the story. I think I’ll have Jesus predict His death and then you try to stop him. In response, The Lord rebukes you and calls you Satan”. What do you think Peter would have said if this is how it went down? “Have him call YOU Satan! What’s he calling me Satan for!? I’m the leader here!” [2]Frank Turek, “Why We Know The New Testament Writers Told The Truth: Frank Turek at Saddleback Church”, DVD from CrossExamined.org. This does not appear to be made up.
*The disciples are cowards—Ten out of the twelve go into hiding when Jesus gets crucified. The disciple’s bravado turned cowardice reminds me of that Lord Of The Rings meme where Gandalf says “No matter what comes through that gate, you will stand your ground.” then cue some picture of something to be feared, and then a blurry image of Gandalf shouting “Run!” Peter even denies him three times after explicitly promising, “I will never disown you” (Matthew 26:33-35). Meanwhile, as the men are hiding for fear of the Jews, the brave women stand by Jesus and are the first to discover the empty tomb.
*They are doubters—in spite of Jesus telling them multiple times that He would rise from the dead (John 2:18-22; 3:14-18; Matthew 12:39-41; 17:9, 22-23), the disciples are doubtful when they hear of his resurrection. Some are even doubtful after they see him risen (Matthew 28:17)!
Let me ask you this; if the gospel writers were just fictitiously crafting accounts in order to found a new religion and get people to believe in Jesus, if they were really free to play loose with the facts (or even just make most things up), why do we have so many unflattering depictions of the disciples across all four gospels? If the gospels aren’t trying to tell us the truth about what happened during the three years Jesus walked this Earth, they could have easily painted themselves in a better light. For example, in Mark 8:31-33 when Jesus predicts his death, rather than say “May this never happen to you, Lord” and get rebuked by Jesus, Mark could have had Peter be overcome by the Holy Spirit and then start prophesying. “Amen, Lord, for as it is written in the law and the prophets, the Son Of Man must suffer and then rise again.” And then afterward, Jesus congratulates Peter on his great faith. You certainly don’t have one of Jesus’ inner three, the later one of the “pillars” of Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9), be called Satan by Jesus.
And rather than report that they fell asleep on Jesus twice in his hour of distress, they could have written that they stayed awake and prayed earnestly. And rather than rebuke them upon finding them asleep, Jesus would come and say “Despite your fatigue, you have stayed awake with me during this crucial hour. I thank you, my friends.”
Rather than run into hiding when Jesus goes to the cross and leave it up to a Sanhedrin member, the gospel authors surely would have written the story so that they themselves gave Jesus a proper burial.
Yet what we find in the gospels are repeated instances that don’t paint the disciples in a good light. Again, does this look like they were just making things up? Or does it look like they were telling the truth? People don’t make up things about themselves to make themselves look bad. If they’re going to lie or fabricate details, it will be to make themselves look good. On the basis of the criterion of embarrassment, we have good grounds for concluding that the above-reported incidents really occurred. Moreover, the criterion of embarrassment can be applied over and over like this to confirm multiple gospel episodes that lead to a cumulative case that the authors were committed to telling the truth, warts and all.
However, we’re not done yet. For the gospel authors include many embarrassing and awkward things about Jesus himself! Let’s look at some examples;
Embarrassing Testimony – About Jesus
*Jesus Virgin Birth – The gospels of Matthew and Luke tells us that Jesus was not conceived like an ordinary man (see Matthew 1-2, Luke 1-2). Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. [3]I do affirm the virgin birth, Nick Peters, even if only in a footnote.. Lydia McGrew has written on this topic, while not really explicitly using the term “criterion of embarrassment” to my memory, it is definitely an argument from the embarrassing nature of the Virgin Birth narrative. In episode 2 of her podcast, she says “These accounts don’t really work to appeal to a Jewish or Gentile audience. They’re not what you can imagine someone making up as an appeal to those audiences. Let’s, first of all, think about a Jewish audience. Now, as I’m going to say in a moment here, the accounts of the virgin birth don’t really resemble pagan myths. But let’s put our minds into those of a first-century Palestinian Jewish audience. They tended to be pretty sensitive about any resemblance, however faint, to paganism. This is a point that N.T Wright makes. … He points this out that this could be what we could call ‘triggering’ to first-century Jewish sensibilities to imagine Yahweh causing a woman to be pregnant without the agency of any human man. Even though they’re not sexual in any way, there could be this feeling that ‘You know, that’s getting too close to paganism.’ ‘That’s not something we want to think about Yahweh doing’ and that could trigger Jewish sensibilities. That’s not how you have miraculous births in the Old Testament – those are more similar to the birth of John The Baptist as Luke recounts it in Luke 1.” [4]Lydia McGrew, The Lydia McGrew Podcast, “Virgin Birth 2: Signs Of Truth In The Birth Stories” – … Continue reading
Dr. McGrew goes on to say “It’s not going to be very appealing to a Pagan audience either. In Pagan mythology, when a god impregnates a woman, it’s very lush, very sensual, and very sexual. Often it occurs by sexual intercourse between the god and the woman. Sometimes the god comes in the form of some animal. … there’s nothing like that here. It’s very sober. It bears no resemblance to that mythology. It just says that the power of the Highest will overshadow her.” [5]Lydia McGrew, The Lydia McGrew Podcast, “Virgin Birth 2: Signs Of Truth In The Birth Stories” – … Continue reading)
Dr. McGrew then says that it wouldn’t be appealing to later Christian audiences either as a sort of apologetic. Why? Because the accounts seem to reflect the early Jewish expectations of a conquering warrior who would establish a perfect kingdom right away (as opposed to a suffering servant who died for the sins of the world and will do all of that in his second coming).
Let’s listen to what the angel says to the virgin Mary at the Annunciation:
“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” (Luke 1:31-33)
Put yourself in the mindset of a first-century Jew. You hate the Romans for what they’ve done to your people. They are ruthless and they over tax you. You would probably read this interpreting the words to refer to an Earthly kingdom. In fact, in all probability, this may have been what Mary thought when Gabriel said these things to her. At least initially. And yet, by the time Christianity is founded, it’s clear that Jesus did not found an earthly kingdom.
Even though the proclamation of the early church is that Christ arose, Jesus isn’t around physically. Acts 1 says He ascended into Heaven after His resurrection. Jesus is not visible reigning on David’s throne in a visibly and physically tangible sense. Why would you write Gabriel’s prophesy in that way if you were making up the story? If Gabriel’s words are invented, if Gabriel himself is invented, then you could just have him say something different entirely. For example, Gabriel could have said;
“He will reign over a kingdom, but it will be the kingdom of heaven. It will not be a kingdom of this earth.”
You could put that in there instead. Why not, if you’re making it up? [6]ibid. There are other facets of the narrative that wouldn’t have served as useful apologetics to the early Christians, but I want to move on to another topic. I recommend listening to episode 2 of The Lydia McGrew Podcast for a full treatment of this subject.
So yeah, it doesn’t look like it would have been invented. It would have been embarrassing to a Jewish audience (scandalous even) because of how close it resembles the origin of pagan gods (even though there are, as McGrew said, many many differences), it wouldn’t have been appealing to a pagan audience because of how dissimilar it was to the origin of pagan gods (ironically), and it wouldn’t have served Christians as a useful apologetic. So, who would be best served from this being made up?
In addition to these things, Jesus is…
*considered “out of his mind” his own family, who at one point come to grab him and haul him off back home (Mark 3:21, 31)
*John 7:5 tells us that Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in him. In first century Israel, it was embarrassing for a Rabbi’s family not to accept him or his teachings. [7]See J.P Moreland’s Interview with Lee Strobel in “The Case For Christ”, Zondervan, page 248
*In John 7:12, we read “And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.” (KJV)
*John 6:66 says “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” (KJV). This came on the heels of Jesus saying that to have eternal life, his followers must eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:47-58). The people to whom Jesus was speaking interpreted Jesus’ teachings cannibalistically, and John the writer doesn’t take the time to explain what communion is, assuming that that’s what Jesus was referring to. Both the desertion of Jesus’ followers and the prima facie appearance of cannibalism are certainly awkward features of the text, and ergo, don’t appear to be made up.
*In John 8:30-31, we read of how Jesus turns off “Jews who had believed in him”. So much so, that in verse 59, we read that they attempted to have him killed by stoning.
* John 7:5 tells us that Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in him. In first century Israel, it was embarrassing for a Rabbi’s family not to accept him or his teachings. [8]See J.P Moreland’s Interview with Lee Strobel in “The Case For Christ”, Zondervan, page 248
*In Matthew 11:19, Jesus is called a “drunkard”.
*In Mark 3:22, John 7:20, and John 8:48, Jesus is called “demon-possessed”.
*In John 10:20, Jesus is called a “madman”.
*Luke 7:36-39 reports that Jesus’ feet were washed with the tears and hair of a prostitute. And as Frank Turek points out in “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”, this had the potential to be perceived as a sexual advance. [9]Frank Turek, Norman Geisler, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”, Crossway, page 278
*Finally, Jesus is crucified despite the fact that “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23; cf. Gal. 3:13).
This is not a list of events that would be chosen by the gospel writers if they were doing everything they could to hype Jesus up as the perfect, sinless, God-Incarnate. Additionally, like the accounts of the virgin birth surveyed above, these features of the gospel narratives do not comport with the Jewish expectation that the Messiah would be a political liberator. Indeed, the Old Testament even says that anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. I can think of no better explanation for all of these features of the narrative than that they actually occurred in real space and time. The criterion of embarrassment authenticates each one individually, but collectively, they form a cumulative case that the gospel authors were dedicated to telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Multiple Attestation
This criterion’s use sometimes makes use of internal evidence only, and sometimes employs external evidence. After all, we saw in the previous installment to this series that many of the events reported in the gospels are attested by secular authors, so an argument from multiple attestation can sometimes make use of those outside sources. So, you can say things like “Jesus did blank. This is reported in the gospel of Mark, the gospel of John, Paul, and also Josephus.” However, sometimes sources are only corroborated by two gospel authors who don’t appear to be drawing on the same tradition.
Jesus’ brothers are skeptical of him. This is reported in both Mark and John (Mark 3 and John 7 respectively). The account in Mark where the unbelief of Jesus’ family is mentioned is a totally different context than that of John 7, and ergo, John cannot be said to be copying from Mark here.
Jesus is reported to be a miracle worker in all four gospels. We know this because many miracles are reported in one gospel, but not others. For example, only the gospel of John has the miracle of turning water into wine during the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), and only John contains Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11). Only Luke contains the story of Jesus raising the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-17). So, they’re not all copying from Mark here. Moreover, let us not forget that Josephus and the Talmud attest to Jesus’ miracles, albeit in a neutral and negative way respectively.
James M. Rochford provides these examples in an article on EvidenceUnseen.com.
“Jesus taught that he was inaugurating the kingdom of God. This appears in independent material in four Gospels (Mt. 5:17; 9:37-38; 13:16-17; Mk. 2:18-20; 4:26-29; Lk. 11:14-22; Jn. 4:35).
Jesus taught on divorce. This appears in three independent sources: (1) Mark 10:2-12 = Matthew 19:3-12; (2) the so-called “Q” source that Matthew 5:32 and Luke 16:18 share in common; (3) 1 Corinthians 7.10-11.
Jesus befriended notoriously sinful people. We find in this in material that is unique to Mark (Mk. 2:15-17), Matthew (Mt. 21:28-32), Luke (Lk. 15:1-2), and Q (Mt 11:18-19).” [10]James M. Rochford, “The Criteria Of Authenticity”, — https://www.evidenceunseen.com/theology/scripture/historicity-of-the-nt/the-criteria-of-authenticity/.
Rochford also writes “Jesus died for claiming to be the King of the Jews. This is multiply attested. Above Jesus on the Cross, the inscription said, ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews‘. (Mt. 27:37; Mk. 15:26; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19). This appears in all four Gospels—though it appears in different forms—and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek (e.g. rex, melek, basileus) for all to read.” [11]See ibid.
Jesus’ death by crucifixion is multiply attested, being mentioned by Matthew, Mark, John, Paul in his epistles, and the secular authors Josephus, Tacitus, Mara Bar-Sarapion, and Lucian of Samosata, not to mention the Jewish Talmud. [12]See my articles “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” –> https://cerebralfaith.net/the-minimal-facts-case-for-jesus/ and “The Evidence For … Continue reading
There are a few other examples that I know of, but not very many. Given Matthew and Luke’s frequent dependence on Mark [13]or Mark and Matthew’s dependence on Luke if Matthean priority is true, we often find that multiple accounts in the gospels aren’t really incidents of multiple attestation. It’s important to keep in mind that the multiple attestation isn’t just multiple authors recounting the same thing, but multiple authors who are telling the story apart from each other. If a Fox News news article got their information from CNN who got their information from NBC, this would not be 3 independent sources, but just one source with two additional sources repeating what the original source said. But although Matthew and Luke frequently quote Mark ver batim or almost verbatim in many of their reports, they’re not totally dependent in every single incident either. The Empty Tomb narratives are a good example. In my blog post “The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection – Part 4: Fact (2): The Empty Tomb”, I wrote the following;
“The empty tomb is mentioned in multiple, independent sources. It’s mentioned in (1) The synoptic gospels, (2) the gospel of John, and (3) the early creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15.
Given the fact that the tomb is attested in 3 independent sources, it is very probable that Jesus’ tomb was in fact, empty. Remember what Paul Maier said in the previous chapter? This former professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University said that if an event is mentioned in two or three sources, it’s impregnable. That is to say; it almost certainly occurred. Well, that’s what we have with the empty tomb. Three independent sources. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestation, we have good reason to believe Jesus’ tomb was empty.”
In my book My Redeemer Lives: Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesus, which is an expansion of the aforementioned blog series, I explain more clearly how the tomb is independently attested. I wrote “Matthew is clearly working with an independent source, for he includes the story of the guard at the tomb, which is unique to his gospel. Neither Mark nor Luke mentions a guard at the tomb, so one would be hard-pressed to make a case that Luke and Matthew are copying off of Mark here. Luke also has an independent source, because he tells the story of two disciples visiting the tomb to check out Mary Magdalene’s report. This is not found in Mark or Matthew. And again, like I said before, everyone agrees that the gospel of John is independent from all of the synoptics given how different John is from the other 3. So, in this case, the empty tomb is reported in 4 independent sources. Remember from the last chapter that I quoted Paul Maier as saying that most historical incidents are confirmed on the basis of only one source, and if you can find two independent sources, that makes an event impregnable. Regarding the discovery of the empty tomb, we have, not just two independent sources, but four!” [14]Evan Minton, “My Redeemer Lives: Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesus”, Kindle Direct Publishing, page 68.
Nevertheless, the gospels reporting the same event, but including different details to a degree that we can be certain they’re drawing from different sources, is sadly the exception to the rule. In this section, I’ve almost exhausted my knowledge of where we can be confident that this criterion truly applies. Still, the fact that there are (by my count) about a dozen different instances of gospel events being multiply attested either by other gospels, other New Testament documents, extra-biblical evidence, or as in the case for Jesus’ crucifixion – all of the above, does make for a good cumulative case for reliability. In my estimate, the criterion of embarrassment can be applied far more often. And in my opinion, both embarrassment and multiple attestations are among the strongest of the criteria.
Dissimilarity
This criterion can be applied maybe the fewest number of times out of all of the criteria of authenticity. Therefore, this will be a really short section.
- Jesus’ favorite self-designation “The Son Of Man” Jesus used it 74 in self-referential dialogue out of its 84 occurrences in the New Testament. However, although Jesus in the gospels most often uses this term to refer to Himself, the New Testament epistles rarely call him that, and you can’t find the early church fathers calling him this except on extremely rare occasions. You’ll find the NT Epistles and early church fathers referring to Jesus as “Jesus”, “Christ”, “Jesus Christ”, “Son Of God”, and “God”, but not “Son Of Man”. If the title “Son Of Man” were invented by the early church and retroactively inserted into the mouth of Jesus, we would expect later Christian writers to use this term a lot more than they actually do. Its conspicuous near absence in later Christian writings suggests that this wasn’t a made-up title of Jesus. Rather, the self-designation goes back to the lips of the Historical Jesus Himself.
- The sign nailed above Jesus’ head read “This is Jesus; The King Of Jews” (Mt. 27:37; Mk. 15:26; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19). This meets the criteria of dissimilarity because, again, King Of The Jews wasn’t a title the later church used of Jesus. Yes, what they did call him implied that (I mean, if Jesus is God and the King of the whole cosmos, it logically entails He’s the king of the Jewish people), but the specific words “King Of The Jews” was not applied to Jesus. Any later invention on the part of the gospel writers would probably have had a more grandiose title. “This is Jesus; the son of God” or “This is Jesus; Messiah and Lord.” or something like that. Since the sign matches the criterion of dissimilarity, the crucifixion is confirmed as well, for the sign nailed above Jesus cannot be divorced from the narrative context in which we find it.
- Jesus as a miracle worker. – The specific manner in which Jesus brought healing to those with whom he came into contact is unique to him. New Testament scholar Craig Keener writes, “Pagan magicians typically sought to coerce deities or spirits by incantations; Jesus simply commanded as God’s authoritative agent… Whereas the Gospel tradition provides many miracles stories, none involve incantations.” [15]Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Vol. 2, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2011), p.70., Moreover, the Gospels tell us that Jesus performed a whole bunch of them. Miracles of Jesus are on practically every page of every gospel! By contrast, virtually all other so-called miracle workers would do one or two miracles at best.
Conclusion
Several things in the gospels are confirmed by the criteria of authenticity, and I haven’t even included all that I know on this topic. The gospels, two of which are written by disciples of Jesus as we’ve seen, depict the disciples in unflattering ways repeatedly. They are depicted multiple times as dim-witted, uncaring, cowardly, and doubting. Who would make this up? The criterion of embarrassment verifies the gospel authors at many points, for it is just too unlikely that these unflattering depictions would be made up. Additionally, many events in the gospels are attested in more than one independent source, sometimes by other gospels or other NT documents, sometimes by secular authors, and sometimes all of the above.
The criteria of authenticity are usually used to establish things about the historical Jesus in historical methods that presuppose that the gospels cannot be trusted. However, the criteria aren’t just useful in Minimal Facts type arguments, but they can be used by the so-called Maximalists as well. When you pile up enough historical kernels, eventually you find yourself in a corn field of reliability! If the gospels are verified by the criteria time after time after time, it is a valid inductive inference to their whole reliability. If they would be so truthful in all of these areas such that they report the truth even when it makes it look bad, and other authors corroborate them, then maybe they’re telling the truth even in accounts where none of the criteria are applicable. It’s a normal thing in human affairs to take someone’s word at face value if they’ve had a track record of being proven true time after time. If someone’s testimony is verified at multiple, multiple points, only hyper skepticism would prompt someone to continue to suspect them of lying.
In the case of the gospels, they have been verified at multiple points by extra-biblical authors, and the criteria of authenticity applied to their testimony internally supports them at various points. Why should we not take the gospels as reliable historical documents at this point? I honestly don’t see any reason not to. However, if, for whatever reason, you are still not convinced, stick around for the next blog post in this series. In the next blog post, I will examine internal evidence for the gospels’ reliability that’s so old, it’s become new.
References
| ↑1 | See my article series “The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection” –> https://cerebralfaith.net/category/evidence-for-jesus-resurrection-series/ for an in-depth look at the evidence. CF. “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” and “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 2” |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Frank Turek, “Why We Know The New Testament Writers Told The Truth: Frank Turek at Saddleback Church”, DVD from CrossExamined.org |
| ↑3 | I do affirm the virgin birth, Nick Peters, even if only in a footnote. |
| ↑4, ↑5 | Lydia McGrew, The Lydia McGrew Podcast, “Virgin Birth 2: Signs Of Truth In The Birth Stories” – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/virgin-birth-2-signs-of-truth-in-the-birth-stories/id1629221976?i=1000566424712 |
| ↑6 | ibid |
| ↑7, ↑8 | See J.P Moreland’s Interview with Lee Strobel in “The Case For Christ”, Zondervan, page 248 |
| ↑9 | Frank Turek, Norman Geisler, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”, Crossway, page 278 |
| ↑10 | James M. Rochford, “The Criteria Of Authenticity”, — https://www.evidenceunseen.com/theology/scripture/historicity-of-the-nt/the-criteria-of-authenticity/ |
| ↑11 | See ibid. |
| ↑12 | See my articles “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” –> https://cerebralfaith.net/the-minimal-facts-case-for-jesus/ and “The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection – Part 3: Fact (1) Jesus Died By Crucifixion” –> https://cerebralfaith.net/the-evidence-for-jesus-resurrection_26/ |
| ↑13 | or Mark and Matthew’s dependence on Luke if Matthean priority is true |
| ↑14 | Evan Minton, “My Redeemer Lives: Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesus”, Kindle Direct Publishing, page 68 |
| ↑15 | Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Vol. 2, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2011), p.70. |
“Part 5: Some Internal Evidence”
Specifically, what evidence are you referring to, abd how do you discern evidence from an unsubstantiated claim?
You could always, just, you know, read the article.
I did read the article. This is why I asked the question.
Again, what evidence, and how exactly do you manage to discern between an unsupported claim and evidence?
For example: There is no evidence of a tomb.
Nor evidence of eyewitnesses.
These are simply claims.
And I apologize regarding my comment about moderation. I did not see my initual comment had been released. Thank you.
Me: *Gives an entire 12 part article series giving evidence that the gospels are trustworthy eyewitness testimony, and ergo we can trust what they say about Jesus*.
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Internet Skeptic: “There’s no evidence. These are just claims!”
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Me: “Bruh.”
I offered two examples of claims – the empty tomb and eyewitnesses.
So I reiterate, how do you discern the difference between claims ( as per the two examples I offered and evidence)
I am presuming at this stage you actually understabd the difference between an unnsubstantited claim and evidence?
I understand the difference. Can you tell me what the flaws in my arguments are?
“I understand the difference. Can you tell me what the flaws in my arguments are?”
Sure. No problem. Let’s tackle this one first.
The claim is the character Jesus of Nazareth was buried in a rock-hewed tomb.
What archaeogical evidence is there such a tomb exists?
Why do you require archeological evidence for that? If a case can be made that the written accounts of his entombment are historically reliable, why wouldn’t that be enough. Lots of historical events have been written down that don’t have archeological evidence.
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There is archeological corroboration for the gospels reliability (see part 4 of this series) when it comes to lots of other things, but I’m not certain how we would even know that a tomb even belonged to Jesus in the first place. Especially if he rose from it and left it empty. Modern Israelis might be walking past it on a daily basis and not even realize it. Why require archeological evidence for this particular thing?
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Moreover, we don’t even necessarily need reliable gospels to conclude that Jesus was buried. Dr. William Lane Craig has argued for Jesus’ burial using the “criteria of authenticity” which even non-Christian New Testament scholars use to extract historical kernels of data from the text. For example, Craig argues that the burial of Jesus is unlikely to be an early church invention because the disciples all flee in terror while a member of the very group of people who condemned Jesus to die buries him in his own tomb. Not to mention that its discovery of being empty by women is unlikely to be made up since women were thought to be unreliable witnesses in that court of law. This can be seen from some misogynistic second century rabbinic prayers, and a statement by Josephus concerning their inability to serve as witnesses in a court of law (except in rare cases when no male witnesses could be brought forward). I find these arguments convincing, but I am also willing to go to bat for the overall reliability of the canonical gospels.
“If a case can be made that the written accounts of his entombment are historically reliable, why wouldn’t that be enough.”
Again, this is just an unsupported claim.
Even the Church regard it as simply a tradition.
I have also read that some critical scholars consider the introduction of the tomb scenario to be a later addition.
Remember, everything you are using is from the gospels and nothing is supported outside of theses texts.
Bearing this in mind and to dispel the skepticism of the ‘doubting Thomases’ (pun intended) archaeological evidence is even more pertinant.
And of course the character Paul makes no mention whatsoever of any tomb.
So in reality the gospel accounts of a tomb are not reliable at all.
I asked a question and you called my question an unsupported claim. My question was “If the case can be made that the written accounts of his entombment are historically reliable, why wouldn’t that be enough?” That’s not a claim. That’s a question.
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“Remember, everything you are using is from the gospels and nothing is supported outside of these texts.” – Why do you think this blog series is making the case that the gospels are reliable eyewitness testimonies? I am not presupposing that the gospels are divinely inspired or inerrant. But if the biographies of Jesus can be shown to be reliable eyewitness testimonies, then I don’t see why we can’t consult what they have to say about the historical Jesus. But for what it’s worth, lots of things in the gospels are supported by extra biblical written testimony as well as archeological evidence. Again, that is what part 4 of this series delves into.
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Regarding your claim that Paul makes no mention of the empty tomb; you do know that an argument from silence is logically fallacious, right? Besides, one can argue that an empty tomb is implicit in the early creed of 1 Cor 15. “Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised according to the scriptures.” Dead, buried, raised. What went down in burial came up in resurrection. But again, that is just a fallacious argument from silence. Marco Polo traveled around China for 17 years, and yet he didn’t mention the Great Wall of China, does that mean that there’s no Great Wall of China? Of course not.
1.”That’s not a claim. That’s a question.”
I did answer it. Because your argument is based solely on unsubstantiated claims from the gospels. Ergo, no evidence.
2.But the gospels are anonymous and there is no evidence to suggest they are based on eyewitness testimony. A clever argument is just that… an argument. It is not evidence.
3. “… as well as archeological evidence. Again, that is what part 4 of this series
delves into.”
The term you are looking for here is called historical fiction.
4. The tomb is such a crucial part of the resurrection claim its’ omission by the character Paul indicates he was unaware of any tomb.
This is the view of a number of critical scholars and as an apologist I am sure you are aware of this.
1: No. A question is not an argument. There was no argument. There was no claim. I asked if written sources on something would be enough to establish historicity if those sources could be demonstrated to be historically reliable sources. That is a question. You could answer yes. You could answer no. But no claim is being made.
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2: I argue extensively in part 2 of this series that the gospels are not anonymous. There is a plethora of evidence from both external, early written sources as well as internal clues that Matthew wrote Matthew, Peter was the source behind the gospel of Mark, etc. In fact, there was so much evidence that I couldn’t include it all even in that massive article. I mean, I did have to leave room to respond to objections, after all. But at this point, I think we need to establish what would be sufficient grounds for historicity.
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3: Ok, so let me get this straight. If there isn’t archeological evidence to support something in the gospels, then we are not justified in affirming that it is historical (e.g Jesus’ tomb), but if there IS archeological confirmation for things in the gospels, then that doesn’t mean we can affirm it’s historicity either. You would write it off as historical fiction. So either way, you’re going to deny the historicity of something in the gospels. In that case, why ask for archeological evidence for Jesus’ tomb in the first place? Sounds to me like your mind is made up and you don’t want me confusing you with the facts. Surely you have some criteria for affirming something’s historicity. But it seems to me that I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
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4: So by that logic, we should deny that the Great Wall Of China existed at the time of Marco Polo’s expedition, yes? Let’s be logically consistent here.
I have left comments but you seem to have deleted them / kept them in moderation.
While not wanting to be overly presumptious is there a reason you seem unwilling to release my comments / engage?
All comments are kept in moderation because I get a ridiculous amount of bot and spam comments. But once an individual has been approved (verified to be a real person saying something real), you shouldn’t need to be verified any further.
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As for your comments, you’ve been asking questions that can be answered by literally just reading the articles you are commenting on. You left a comment saying something like “What internal evidence?” Oh you know just the kind I presented in the article. I’m still not entirely sure you’re not just trolling.
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Think about it this way; a good teacher is willing to answer all kinds of questions, but not the ones showed they weren’t paying attention to the lecture that was given before the Q&A session.
1.”I asked if written sources on something would be enough to establish historicity if those sources could be demonstrated to be historically reliable sources.”
Perhaps. Can you provide a suitable example to demonstrate your point as the gospels do not qualify on such grounds.
2.If you follow scholarly consensus then the gospels are most definitely anonymous.
In my experience only extreme fundamental Christians regard the authors to be the names presented in the bible. Icons comes to mind.
I regard the view of the likes of NT Wright
and Ehrman to be more objective and
not coloured by emotional reasons.
3. What I am asserting is the tale of the tomb is unsupported by evidence, and remains a claim. This is further supported by the fact the character Paul never mentions a tomb, which, from the Christians perspective is a crucial aspect of their faith.
And it is worth noting that those executed for sedition, as the character Jesus of Nazareth was, would usually be left on the cross to rot and/or remains thrown in common shallow grave/pit.
4.If Marco Polo made claims about a great wall in China, wrote about in his diary and subsequent expeditions revealed no such wall he would be regarded as a liar or delusional, would he not?
Why then, would you expect the claims of
a tomb to be taken as fact when there is zero evidence to suggest any such tomb?
Perhaps this belief is based solely on faith?
1: This whole series is meant to argue that point, my guy.
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2: I don’t care what the consensus think. I care about what the evidence indicates. To argue that the gospels are anonymous because “the majority of scholars say so” is to commit the bandwagon fallacy. The fact is that there are a number of respectable New Testament scholars who affirm that the gospels are not anonymous but are written by the names that are attached to them. Craig Blomberg, Michael Licona, Wesley Huff, Collin G. Cruise, just to name a few. This may be a minority view, but it is by no means fringe! But even if it was, let’s debate the evidence rather than counting noses. Please avoid logical fallacies like ad populum (a.k.a The Bandwagon Fallacy).
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3: so what do you do with the criteria of authenticity based arguments that I gave in favor of the burial? You didn’t address them. Yes, most of the time they would’ve been left out on the cross. But when Jesus was crucified, it was a Friday, and had already had enough uprisings and riots, and Pontius Pilate’s career was on the line. They acquiesced to the Jewish sensibilities and had the bodies buried before sundown because otherwise it would be a lot of trouble. Moreover, we have archaeological evidence that at least one crucified victim was buried. A foot bone with a nail through it was discovered in 1968 in the north Jerusalem suburb of Giv’at ha-Mivtar, some 15 km from the Old City of Jerusalem. Evidently the nail got stuck in the foot, so rather than remove them and reuse them as Roman soldiers would usually do, they left it in there. Yehohanan was crucified sometime between ad 7 and 70—the period roughly contemporaneous with Jesus. This discovery shows that it is not unfathomable that uncertain occasions, the Romans would let the Jews bury their crucified dead. And finally, if as I have shown over the course of a dozen articles, the gospels are trustworthy in every place that they can be checked, that creates a high antecedent probability that they can be trusted here as well. So the whole argument from what the Romans would usually do just isn’t successful.
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Marco Polo did not deny the existence of the Great Wall of China. He just simply didn’t talk about it. Likewise, the apostle Paul never denied that Jesus was buried. In fact, he actually explicitly says he was buried. Usually, what’s argued is that his tomb wasn’t empty, which is weird given that Jews believed that resurrection was a bodily phenomenon and Paul says that not only was Jesus died but he was buried and then raised in the first Corinthians 15 Creed. But Paul never explicitly mentions the empty tomb or the virgin birth. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t believe them or that they didn’t happen anymore than Marco Polo’s lack of mention of the Great Wall of China that didn’t believe that the Great Wall of China existed. Just take the L on this one. You have committed a fallacious argument from silence.
Apologies. Typo:”(Mike) Licona comes to mind.”
“I don’t care what the consensus think. I care about what the evidence indicates.”
1. “This whole series is meant to argue that point, my guy.”
Yes, I realise, and yet the gospels simply do not qualify for the point you are making which is why I asked for a different example.
Do you not have one to offer?
Btw: “my guy”?
2. Do you not consider the likes of NT Wright and Ehrman to be qualified to make the call the gospels are anonymous based on
evidence?
Furthermore, are you not simply jumping in the evangelical / fundamentalist bandwagon with your view?
3.”… so what do you do with the criteria of authenticity based arguments that I gave in favor of the burial? You didn’t address them.”
Because you are you are using unsubstantiated bible claims to assert this is evidence when it is not.
Yes, I am aware of the bone fragment.
But once again, you have not presented evidence but merely cited anonymous unsubstantiated claims.
You truly need to try and separate your faith in the theological emotionally charged gospel tales and focus solely on the glaring lack of evidence.
I did not say Polo denied the Wall existed
You need to read my comments with more care. I wrote that if Po had claimed there was a Great Wall and wrote about it in his diary and subsequent expeditions found no evidence of any such wall he would be considered a liar or delusional.
By this token you expect the bible account of a tomb to be taken at face value when there is zero evidence for any such tomb.
And while the character Paul does mention a burial he most certainly does Not mention a tomb, which is a crucial part of the resurrection tale.
As we are trying to focus on evidence here, are you seriously going to assert there is evidence for the Virgin Birth narrative?
tale?
1: You’re entitled to your opinion, but I ask for reasons for your view. Why do you think my case for the reliability of the gospels fail? You’ve not interacted with a single one of my arguments so far from any of these articles. But would I be right in concluding that you are now conceding that if a written source can be shown to be reliable, then we can take it for what it says? And that archeological evidence isn’t everything? Also, I seem to recall you putting me in a catch 22 situation with archeological evidence. If there’s no archeological evidence for something, we can’t say it happened. But if we do, then you’d dismiss it as historical fiction. So are you really even worth continuing to discuss with? Do you have an evidential criteria for historicity/trustworthiness that can be met or are you really, as I suspect, determined to reject what the gospels say regardless of what I say?
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2: I think N.T Wright and Bart Ehrman are fine scholars. They’re wrong on this issue though. I side with other scholars like Craig Blomberg, Wesley Huff, Michael Licona, and Peter J. Williams, that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the gospels that bare their names. And in part 2 of this series I gave arguments from external evidence and internal evidence to make a strong cumulative case for that conclusion. I even respond to objections from those like Ehrman who offer pretty terrible reasons to reject traditional authorship. Are you interested in evaluating evidence or do you just blindly go with a majority view because it is the majority view. Hopefully you are the former. Because the latter is af populum fallacy.
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I’m interested in evidence. Facts. That’s why sometimes I am not a good little evangelical and I affirm things like Theistic Evolution. Sometimes I agree with the majority and sometimes I disagree. Because “A lie is a life even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if no one believes it.”
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3: You cited Ehrman but you don’t seem to have read him. You should know that even non-Christian scholars like him will use the criteria of authenticity on the gospels to figure out what we can know about the historical Jesus. Usually they are coming at the gospels and the Pauline epistles from a very skeptical angle, and that’s why they use the criteria in the first place. Things like multiple attestation, embarrassment, dissimilarity. And in the above article, I used the criteria cumulatively to make an internal case for reliability. So yes, I am using documents that are a part of the biblical canon. But no serious New Testament scholar or historian, even the most atheistic ones would take me to task for doing so. The only people who would take me to task are atheists like you I encounter on the internet. Whether it is a Minimal Facts Argument, or a Maximal Data Argument, in either case I am not treating the gospels and Paul epistles as divinely inspired scripture. I am using them simply as ancient documents that report to tell us some thing about this man named Jesus.
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I understood your comment perfectly. Yes, IF Marco Polo claimed he didn’t find any such wall, he WOULD be considered a liar or delusional. But your counterfactual is irrelevant precisely because it is a counterfactual. The truth of the matter is that Marco Polo did not deny the existence of the Great Wall of China. He just simply didn’t talk about it. He just simply didn’t mention it. And if the lack of a mention of something that the person didn’t think it existed, especially something so big like the Great Wall of China, how could you miss something like that, then using the same logic you use from Paul to deny the history of Jesus’s tomb, we would have to deny the history of the great wall of China. And that’s because both arguments commit a logical fallacy known as the argument from silence. I don’t know why you insist on using arguments that commit logical fallacies. But because they commit logical fallacies, I’m never going to find them persuasive.
1.”Why do you think my case for the reliability of the gospels fail?”
For the same reasons Ehrman and every secular scholar states why the apologetic case fails.
“But would I be right in concluding that you
are now conceding that if a written source can be shown to be reliable,…”.
I did write “Perhaps” and immediately asked you to provide an example as the gospels do
not qualify.
Also, I need to make it clear that any claim
if not supported with evidence remains an unsubstantiated claim.
This most definitely applies to much of the Bible, and a great many of the foundational bible tales are not only devoid of evidence but scientific and archaeological evidence flatly refutes the claims.
As you are schooled in the defense of the historicity and reliability of the gospels (apologetics) what do you consider to be major reason the views of those such as Ehrman and Licona are diametrically
opposed?
Re:the tomb.
If there is no archaeogical evidence then all that remains is an unsubstantiated claim.
If the existence of the tomb was never a question why do you consider certain scholars regard the tomb as a later addition to the narrative?
For the same reasons that Ehrman and every secular scholar states why the apologetic case fails? That is quite a broad response. It doesn’t really narrow things down at all. But I do interact with skeptics of Christianity in my written content here. I’ve responded to things Ehrman has said. Maybe you might want to check them out, read them, and then tell me why my responses fail.
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But honestly, I am beginning to not see a point in continuing this conversation. You don’t really seem to know how evidence evaluation works. You’re just “Unsubstantiated claim this” and “That’s not evidence that”. “I am not convinced because of Bart Ehrman’s reasons.” you say. Well, I AM convinced because of Craig Blomberg’s and Lydia McGrew’s reasons. This is hardly a discussion of the merits of the arguments. This is just a brief mention of academics who take different positions and who we agree with.
I know how evidence evaluation works, but as I have stressed from the beginning, of all the claims you have made regarding reliability you have failed to support these claims with evidence and are on record dismissing such things as Adam and Eve and the Noachian Global Flood tale (and
presumably the Exodus Narrative as well) as “irrelevant”.
Bloomberg and McGrew are conservative Christians. Bloomberg is evangelical.
Their views are built upon a foundation of faith.
McGrew states she became a Christian at four!
That tells us family influence must have played a part and some form of indoctrination as well.
As I mentioned, if there were evidence to demonstrate the veracity of all these religious claims this subject would have been closed a long time ago.
However, there is no evidence thus, faith and apologetics.
And Ehrman’s coming from a place of skepticism. So what? McGrew became a Christian at 4? Neat. I didn’t know that. I became a Christian at 17. What’s your point other than possibly alluding to an ad hominem or genetic fallacy argument I’m all too familiar with?
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If you really knew how evidence evaluation works you would…you know, actually do evaluation of the evidence rather than guess at why people like myself and McGrew REALLY believe that Christianity is true. And stop calling the evidence we do present as “not evidence”.
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But yes, the primeval history is irrelevant as to whether the gospels are reliable and whether Jesus rose from the dead (the core vindication of Christianity’s truth). I mean, there are plenty of Christians who take a completely a-historical view of Genesis 1-11. People like biblical scholar Peter Enns for example. While I find that theologically and exegetically problematic, it does nothing to make the arguments for God’s existence unsound or put Jesus back in the grave. Christianity stands or falls on Jesus’ resurrection, not a historical Adam or a historical flood. So yes, it’s irrelevant to our subject here.
“And Ehrman’s coming from a place of skepticism. So what? McGrew became a Christian at 4? Neat. I didn’t know that. I became a Christian at 17. What’s your point..”
Ehrman deconverted because of lack of evidence.
I stated the point regarding McGrew : Family influence and likely indoctrination.
For the record, almost every former Christian I have chatted with over the years has cited indoctrination in one form or another as a major part of their coming to faith.
“If you really knew how evidence evaluation works you would…you know, actually do evaluation of the evidence rather than guess at why people like myself and McGrew REALLY believe that Christianity is true. And stop calling the evidence we do present as “not evidence”.
The fact that I do know is why I can assert what you are presenting are claims and not evidence and this is the same reason the likes of Ehrman deconvert and recognise this fact as well.
” Christianity stands or falls on Jesus’ resurrection, not a historical Adam or a historical flood. So yes, it’s irrelevant to our subject ”
It stands or falls on the BELIEF of the resurrection claim.
If the primeval history and other biblical tales were irrelevant then the so-called fulfilled prophecies would not feature in Christian arguments.
Furthermore, the need for a” savior” would be moot without Adam’s “sin”.
Also, without the Old Testament there would be no argument regarding the character
Jesus being Yahweh incarnate.
It would probably even be impossible to make a case for the Church constructed Trinity.
So in fact, even if one were a Christadelphian or Marcionite all these things are highly relevant as they form the foundation of Christianity.
Yeah. Sure. Ehrman had no emotional reasons for deconverting. Because atheists and agnostics are totally incapable of being biased in any way. 🙄 I think you really believe that, and it’s absurd. You are not a rational person. A rational person would engage with our arguments rather than continuing to poke around at all our supposed emotional motivations. But if I should answer a fool according to his folly, if that is the game you wish to play, then let’s do it. You clearly are in love with your sin and that is the real reason for your unbelief. I don’t know what sin it is (maybe you’re cohabiting with your girlfriend), but it must be SOMETHING that The Bible condemns! Do you see how stupid this is? This doesn’t get us anywhere. We can accuse each other of holding our worldviews for ulterior motives all day long. It doesn’t change the facts. Imagine that I gave a whole bunch of arguments for why Abraham Lincoln was a great US president. But let’s suppose that the real reason I like Abraham Lincoln so much is because he had a beard, and I have a beard so I’m biased towards bearded Presidents. That would still leave my argument for Lincoln’s greatness unaddressed. Those arguments for Lincoln being a great president would not magically become unsound because of my emotional bias towards bearded presidents. It is sad that you don’t know this and continue to preach unbelief at me like a fundamentalist for the other team rather than engage in rational inquiry. It is becoming irritating beyond the point I can endure.
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No, Christianity does not stand or fall on belief in the resurrection. It stands or falls on the resurrection. Christianity is an objective claim about reality. And it’s either objectively true or objectively false. Whether I believe it or not doesn’t change whether or not it’s true. As C.S Lewis once said “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”
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The claim that we would need no Savior without a historical Adam is illogical. I realize some Christian’s have argued this, but it just isn’t true. I have plenty of sins of my own that need to be atoned for. And whether Romans 5 is even teaching some doctrine of Original Sin is debated by theolgians and biblical scholars. I don’t even believe in Original Sin in the first place and I DO affirm a historical Adam. I don’t think that is what Romans 5 is talking about. But again, this is a theological dispute. And my apologetic for the trustworthiness of the gospels and for the historicity of the resurrection does not require any theological pre-commitments. Because I am approaching the gospels as a historian, not at theologian.
1.That you are irritated to the point you are now lashing out with almost incoherent nonsense perfectly illustrates the point I have been making all along, namely, you have zero evidence to demonstrate the veracity of your claims and thus throw an I tenet tantrum when confronted with the reality of your position.
A truly honest religious individual would acknowledge the primary importance of faith regarding their position.
Ehrman deconverted because of the complete absence of evidence for the
foundational tenets of his faith based beliefs
and the problems of the Bible. I am sure it was highly emotional for him to realise how untenable his position had become.
If you consider Adam’s sin has no bearing on your need for a savior then perhaps you need to need to address the issue why other Christians do believe it does and iron out doctrinal issues, and why you consider your
version is correct and theirs false?
If you were truly approaching the gospels as a historian for one thing you would not accept miracle claims because of the complete lack of evidence.
complete lack of evidence.
“No, Christianity does not stand or fall on belief in the resurrection. It stands or falls on the resurrection.”
Incorrect. As there is no evidence for the resurrection claim it stands or falls on the BELIEF the claim is true. This is why faith is crucial to your religion.
Maybe if you were intellectually honest, I wouldn’t be irritated. All you do is commit ad hominem fallacies, genetic fallacies, bandwagon fallacies, and refuse to address anything I’ve said in this article or in any of the other articles that are a part of this series. Shoot, for that matter, you don’t even address the arguments I bring up in the comment section for that matter. Still waiting on why you don’t find the arguments from the criterion of embarrassment a legitimate reason to accept the historicity of Jesus’ burial. But no, what you did was chastise me for even using the gospels when no skeptical New Testament scholar worth his salt would have done so. Nope. Only neckbeards on the internet insist on using everything BUT the books written by guys who said they were there. Oh they weren’t written but the guys who were there. We know this because Bart Ehrman tells us so! You make statements like “Arguments aren’t evidence” and all of this is incredibly frustrating. If you want to know how to actually do this online debating thing correctly, you should look for conversations between me and a guy named Sam Burke. Unlike you, Sam actually deals with my arguments and explains why he doesn’t find them convincing. I then respond to his rebuttals and tell him why I don’t think his reasons for not being persuaded aren’t good. And back and forth we go. Sam is a pretty smart guy and he doesn’t send the kind of low ball (or no ball) objections you have. He actually deals with my arguments and doesn’t tell me I’m a Christian for emotional reasons ad nauseum.
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“If you were truly approaching the gospels as a historian for one thing you would not accept miracle claims because of the complete lack of evidence.
complete lack of evidence.” – There is no rule of history that says we must presuppose philosophical naturalism. 🙄
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Adam and his sin: yes. I have studied the issue. And I know why I hold my position and why those who disagree with me holding their positions. But none of that is relevant to a discussion on whether the gospels are reliable eye witness testimony. None of this has anything to do with what we can know about the historical Jesus. It’s simply a red herring.
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Finally, you’re confusing ontology and epistemology. Jesus’ resurrection is either an objective fact of history or it never happened. If the former, Christianity is true. If the latter, Christianity is false. I understand that you think the evidence I put forth isn’t persuasive. Although I’ll never know why because you won’t address anything I’ve said in my case. But the ontological reality of the resurrection is distinct from whether we can know whether it happened or not. Your failure to make this crucial distinction is baffling.
“Still waiting on why you don’t find the arguments from the criterion of embarrassment a legitimate reason to accept the historicity of Jesus’ burial.”
Every apologetic argument is based on the presuppositional position the tale is historical fact.
They carry no legitimacy in this regard as they are not based on evidence.
The arguments have all been dealt with by every secular scholar or non-believer since Origin had a go at Celsus.
As every argument you make is no different than the hundreds who have gone before I was hoping you might have a different take.
Alas, it dies not seem to be the case and when challenged you get all huffy and stamp your feet, and then accuse me of not being intellectually honest! The irony.
I have no desire to engage in apologetic ping pong.
I asked you to provide evidence.
You have failed to do so at every turn.
“There is no rule of history that says we must presuppose philosophical naturalism. 🙄”
And yet no historian worth their salt would give any credence to the biblical miracle claims any more than they would about those miracle claims referring to Alexander the Great or Vespasian.
Sorry old sport but you don’t get a free pass on that one.
There are no Red Herrings as everything is interlinked.
I am sure you know why you hold your position about “sin”.
However, that fact does not make your position correct. It just means you disagree with other Christians over doctrine.
Without the Old the claims in the New
become meaningless. As I mentioned this is
still the case even if one is a Christadelphian or a Marcionite.
“Finally, you’re confusing ontology and epistemology. Jesus’ resurrection is either an objective fact of history or it never happened.”
Without evidence all you have is belief.
You believe it is historical fact. However, there is no evidence to support this belief and bearing in mind the nature of the claims, the unreliablity of the Bible overall, including interpolation, forgery, and errors across most major disciplines the actual evidence we do have strongly suggests the claims are erroneous.
That you fail to recognise the difference between evidence and an unsupported /unsubstantiated claim indicates either simple stubbornness or wilfull ignorance.
No. No, we don’t. We don’t presuppose that the story of Jesus is resurrection is a historical fact. No matter which methodology you take, there is no presupposition that it is true. If I did pre-suppose that, I wouldn’t even have to write an article, never mind a series of articles, making a case that the gospels are historically reliable. All I would have to do is quote a biblical passage that says that Jesus is risen from the dead, and then say “The Bible says it! I believe it! That settles it!”
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A Minimal Facts approach (commonly championed by scholars like Gary Habermas and Michael Licona), don’t even presuppose that the gospels are reliable, never mind inerrant or inspired. The Minimal Facts approach uses the “criteria of authenticity” on Paul’s letters, and the gospels, and whatever contribution extra biblical attestation can play (e.g Josephus, Tacitus) in establishing core historical facts that the majority of scholars as accept as historical facts, even the skeptical non-Christian scholars. Facts like (1) Jesus died by crucifixion, (2) Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday, (3) The disciples had an experience that they interpreted as a post mortem appearance of the risen Jesus, (4) Saul of Tarsus converted because of an experience that he interpreted as an appearance of the risen Jesus. Some will include (5) Jesus’ brother James went from a skeptic to a believer because I’m an experience that he interpreted as an appearance of the risen Jesus.
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These five facts are argued for, not presupposed. And they are argued for not by quoting Bible verses, but by looking at the gospels and Paul epistles, mostly the latter, and employing the criteria of authenticity to them. So, for example, in articles in which I use this methodology, I will argue that the crucifixion of Jesus is a historical fact because it is multiply attested. It is mentioned by Flavius Josephus, Cornelius Tacitus, the gospel of Mark, the gospel of John, and in the epistles of Paul. And these are independent sources because they don’t appear to be drawing on one another, but getting their information independently. That’s important. Because you can’t just take all four of the gospels and say you have four sources. if there’s reason to think that the sources are drawing on one another, then you have one source. But internal evidence for the gospels suggest that they are working with different traditions and sources. And the likely hood of all these sources making up the same event and treating it as history is very small. The criterion of multiple attestation really only needs two independent sources. We definitely have at least two for the crucifixion of Jesus. But I think when all the extra biblical mentions are paired with the gospels and Paul, they add up to 7. Bart Ehrman, because of his views on the authorship of the Petrine epistles, will tell you that we have as many as 9. And then you have the criterion of embarrassment which I brought up as a good reason to believe that Jesus was not only buried, but also that his tomb was found empty by a group of women. Because of the way women were looked at in that culture.
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A Maximal Data Approach is the approach that I prefer to use these days as I think it is far stronger. I think it’s a much stronger argument because you’re allowed to use so much more evidence. A Minimal Facts approach is very restrictive because you’re only allowed to use things that scholarly consesus will allow you to use. And while I would disagree with Lydia McGrew in saying that you can’t justify the history of the bodily resurrection of Jesus through this method, I definitely think it’s weaker. I think a Minimal Facts approach will get you to the resurrection as a conclusion more likely than not, whereas a maximal data approach will get you to it beyond a reasonable doubt. This approach argues that the gospels are eyewitness testimonies, and that they are reliable, eyewitness testimonies, and then we make our argument for the history of Jesus’ resurrection from that standpoint. We don’t assume that there are eyewitness testimonies. We argue for it. And then our argument for the historicity of the resurrection will be based upon a conclusion we’ve already previously argued for. Neither of these two methods presupposed that the resurrection happened.
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You wrote “The arguments have all been dealt with by every secular scholar or non-believer since Origin had a go at Celsus.” – I am aware. And they’ve all been unsound. Sometimes desperate sounding. I mean, go read my article defending the traditional authorship of the gospels. Bar airman makes the ridiculous argument that Matthew could not written the gospel of Matthew because Matthew spoke of himself in the third person. But he should know that when historians wrote historical events in which they wereinvolved, they referred to themselves in the third person. Josephus does this. And I have examined every single naturalistic theory to account for the empty tomb and the postmortem appearances that skeptical scholars try to bring up to explain away the minimal facts and they are all failures. Although I will say that things like the hallucination theory falls even harder on a Maximal Data Approach because here, you have more than just vaguely described group appearances. You have eyewitness accounts of these postmortem appearances that go into excruciating detail, and I don’t see how anybody could hallucinate these kind of things.
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“As every argument you make is no different than the hundreds who have gone before I was hoping you might have a different take.” – and as somebody who has been researching and debating Apologetic arguments for 14 years, I was hoping you would least have some take at all. Even if your counter arguments are really bad, I’ll take that over no counter arguments at all. No, instead, you just want to accuse me of being a Christian because it makes me feel good. And you wanna accuse Lydia McGrew of the same thing. And you want to poo poo on philosophy and say that arguments aren’t evidence, which technically is true, because arguments are verbal articulations of evidence as I have said, but what I think you mean is that arguments aren’t legitimate ways to get at the truth. And that’s a really stupid thing to say.
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“Alas, it dies not seem to be the case and when challenged you get all huffy and stamp your feet, and then accuse me of not being intellectually honest! The irony.” – Well, you could always engage with the data. Let me put it this way; I love a good game of chess. But I’ve been doing this for 14 years and I am far too familiar with people like you. This is not a game of chess where I am dealing with a smart opponent who can give me a good challenge. It’s more like playing chess with a pigeon who knocks over all of the pieces, craps on the board, and then struts around as if he has won. I think anyone would be understandably frustrated. I love debating. I love having these conversations. But there are certain rules of engagement for how to criticize an opponent that the average person doesn’t seem aware of, capable of, or willing to abide by. Those rules would be; I present reasons for why I hold the view that I do. You disagree and give me reasons why you don’t think those reasons are good reasons. And then, if you don’t persuade me, I will show you why your reasons for your view, or reasons for rejecting my view or argument aren’t good after all. We don’t go after each other’s character, or assume that our interlocutors hold their view for ulterior motives, or basically everything you’ve done over the past 24 hours. If I were playing tennis with you, I would at least require you to TRY to send the ball back. Not just stand there and watch the balls go by you while you pat yourself on the back for being such a wonderful tennis player.
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//”I am sure you know why you hold your position about “sin”.
However, that fact does not make your position correct. It just means you disagree with other Christians over doctrine.”// — No, it doesn’t mean my position is correct. But even if the Christians, who think that Adam has to exist, and that his guilt has to be imputed to us for Jesus to be the savior of the world, that does nothing to put Jesus back in the grave if science shows that there could be no historical Adam. again, that would be a theological problem, not a historical one. Why can’t you understand this distinction? It’s not rocket science. But again, I think that thinkers like John Walton, S.Joshua Swamidass, and William Lane Craig have presented plausible models for reconciling a historical Adam with mainstream evolutionary science. So I don’t worry about it either way. But you seem to be operating from this fundamentalist assumption that if one part of the Bible is brought into doubt or even outright disproved, then that means we have to throw the whole thing out. That nothing recorded in its pages could be accepted. And that’s just not true. The very existence of Christians like Peter Enns who not only deny a historical Adam, but deny biblical inerrancy, should show you that Christianity does not stand or fall on inerrant Bible. And this isn’t Marcionism. Not even the most liberal of Bible scholars will deny the entire Old Testament. As far as history, many think true biblical history began with Abraham. And no Christian scholar denies things like the Davidic dynasty or the Babylonian exile. Genesis 1-11 being relegating to non-history is not the same as rejecting the entire Old Testament. Don’t get me wrong. I am in inerrantist, and I do think that Genesis 1-11 is historical in some kind of way (mytho-history). That said, if I were convinced that the Bible had at least one error, I would not leave the faith. I would rethink my view of inspiration. If Jesus rose from the dead as the evidence indicates, then he is God and should be followed. Everything else is just working out our theology and biblical interpretation. Once we get the central tenants of Christianity, the rest is just having a “faith that seeks understanding”. The Bible not being true in one place doesn’t zap God out of existence and put Jesus back into the grave. Too many people have put all their eggs into the basket of literalism and inerrancy. While a denial of inerrancy would be theologically problematic, imo, it would not be catastrophic to Nicene Christianity.
Everything you have asserted here regarding the resurrection is based on unsubstantiated internal gospel claims.
There are no “facts”. Habermas’ minimal facts argumrnt(there’s thr word argument again) has little or no standing with secular scholarship.
Licona is a rank amateur and Ehrman has taken him to the cleaners on a number of occasions.
Watch any of their debates. Seeing Licona squirm one almost feels sorry fir him.
He is not as bad as Dinesh d’Souza but there are times he comes close.
He was even scapegoated by Geisler and co. a few years back, remember?
Josephus TF is at best a partial reference to someone called Yeshua at worst it is a Christian interpolation in its entirity as it was once considered.
Tacitus merely mentions someone called Chrestus and there is doubt about the reliability of both sources.
Certainly the most you can say about Tacitus reference to a Chrestus is based on
hearsay.
The resurrection is a faith based belief as there is no evidence to support its historicity.
Believers are brought to faith largely based on cultural affiliation /indoctrination, many become Christian long before they ever get to bother reading, let alone study the bible.
McGrew claimed she became a Christian at
four, for goodness sake so she most assuredly DID consider the resurrection a historical fact.
I would venture your conversion at 17 involved similar presuppositional beliefs that
were based entirely on faith /acceptance of the words of your local Pastor /parents/friends or such like.
“Even if your counter arguments are really bad, I’ll take that over no counter arguments at all.”
I have already stated I am only interested in evidence and I’m not interested in an apologetics ping pong.
To date all you have done is make apologetic arguments. You have yet to present a single piece of evidence to demonstrate the veracity of any claim you have made. Not one.
“If Jesus rose from the dead as the evidence indicates.. .”
There you go again asserting there is evidence when all you have are unsupported claims among a collection of ancient religious texts riddled with errors across almost every major discipline.
Why do you flatly refuse to grasp this simple fact?
Well, I hate to inform you, but as someone who values scholarly consensus, then you are going against the scholarly consensus. Because the vast majority of New Testament scholars, both Christians and non-Christians, except what mass calls “The Minimal Facts”. if you really care about going with what the majority of scholars except, then you should accept that things like Jesus’s death by crucifixion, that his disciples claimed to have seen him alive after his death, and the postmortem appearance to Paul are historical facts. Now, you don’t have to agree that they are best explained by Jesus actual resurrection. That’s where the debate lies. And hardly anyone worth his salt in academia debates the things I mentioned. Although the empty tomb is more disputed, Habermas’ survey has shown that it has around 75% acceptance. To continue your BS rethoric of “Unaubtantiated Claims” is just more evidence that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
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But you are free to dispute anything you’d like. I’m guessing you must have some reasons for thinking that things like Jesus’ death by crucifixion and his empty to our historical facts. Can you do me a favor? Show me you know what you’re talking about by playing devils advocate. Give arguments for these faxes if you were a Christian apologist yourself. And then if you’d like you can argue with yourself and show those Reasons that you gave are not good reasons. I’m not goijg to bring them up myself. I mean, technically, I already have. And you never addressed them. But I’m going to stop spoon feeding you all the information just to have you ignore them, call them unsubstantiated claims and continue to guess. What emotional reason I might have to be a Christian. Prove to me that you’ve actually read at least one book by Michael Iona on the resurrection. Prove to me that you’re not just some ignorant neckbeard who’s coming on my block because he wants to argue with some Christians and get some brownie points with his fellow editors were supposedly PWNING an “Xian”.
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“//Licona is a rank amateur and Ehrman has taken him to the cleaners on a number of occasions. Watch any of their debates. Seeing Licona squirm one almost feels sorry for him.”// — Licona is just as much of a New Testament scholar as Ehrman is. They have the same degrees. Yes I have watched Licona destroy airman in debates.
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//”He was even scapegoated by Geisler and co. a few years back, remember?”// – What relevance does this have? I take issue with some of Licona’s views such as his view on inerrancy and the gospels so-called use of literary devices. After all, none of this does anything to affect the soundnessThe Minimal Facts argument. You really do seem to be in the habit of red herring policies. Genetic fallacies. And add homonym fallacies. And basically basically just about every informal fallacy there is. Have you studied basic logic?
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\\”Josephus TF is at best a partial reference to someone called Yeshua at worst it is a Christian interpolation in its entirity as it was once considered.”// – Yes, I have talked about this in blog material you’ve never read on this site. You know, like part 4 of the Gospel Reliability series. But also in an old article called “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1”. It isn’t a problem. Josephus is still a valid witness to the fact that a man named Jesus existed and he got himself crucified at the suggestion of Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin. Maybe you should actually do some more reading and come back when you are a little more aware of the subject matter that you so confidently pontificate on.
//The resurrection is a faith based belief as there is no evidence to support its historicity.
Believers are brought to faith largely based on cultural affiliation /indoctrination, many become Christian long before they ever get to bother reading, let alone study the bible.”// – There’s that Genetic Fallacy AGAIN. Hey, would you like me to buy you a copy of Bo Bennett’s book “Logically Fallacious?”
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//”McGrew claimed she became a Christian at
four, for goodness sake so she most assuredly DID consider the resurrection a historical fact.”// – And that invalidates all the arguments for the validity of the gospels that she gives HOW!? Because the last time I checked, any logic for professor will tell you that any personal facts about the arguER does nothing to effect the arguMENT.
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//”I have already stated I am only interested in evidence and I’m not interested in an apologetics ping pong.”// – I am assuming that by apologetics ping-pong, you were just using a really stupid and childish term for what we in the grown-up in intellectual world called debate. Sorry, but if you don’t want to actually challenge my material, I’m going to have to ask you to not leave any comments. Because if you’re going to publicly call me out for being wrong, I’m gonna ask you what reasons you have for thinking that. Have something to evaluate, so that I can either change my mind or write a response. The comment section of my blog is also open for people who want further clarification on some thing I wrote, or who have honest questions, or just wanna tell me that they liked what I read. But in no case am I going to allow you to just talk about how stupid and wrong I am without backing it up with counter arguments of your own.
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But based on everything you’ve said so far, I think the reason you don’t give any counter arguments is because you can’t counter. You have no idea why you believe what you believe. You certainly have no idea why I believe what I believe or else you’d show a little bit more familiarity with the material. All you do is just take lines from the Neckbeard Atheist playbook and repeat them as nauseum.
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I didn’t wanna say anything because you seem to be new to the site and you seem to be new to just about everything I’m talking about. And I was kind of hoping that I could say something to elevate the conversation. It’s been a while since I’ve actually had a conversation with a skeptic online other than Sam Burke (who I affectionately like to say is the Graham Oppey to my William Lane Craig). But you are technically in repeated violation of Rules 1 and 4 of the Comment Section rule section. –> https://cerebralfaith.net/comment-section-rules/
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This will count as the first warning. But I’m going to need to you to stop psychoanalyzing me (and McGrew) and also to stop bringing up things that have nothing to do with *checks what article we’re arguing on* gospel reliability.
Well, I hate to inform you, but as someone who values scholarly consensus, then you are going against the scholarly consensus. Because the vast majority of New Testament scholars, both Christians and non-Christians”
Wrong! And I challenge you to provide
evidence to show Habermas’s minimum facts theory is accepted by “vast majority” of Non Christian NT scholars.
“Yes I have watched Licona destroy airman in debates.”
Really? I have watched a few involving Licona
and Ehrman and never seen Bart come off
second best. Perhaos I missed one? Please would you link to one that Licona “destroy airman”?
I prefer to watch debates online as what comes out of the mouth and reading body
language is more honest when they are
openly challenged in a live (recorded) debate
where they have no place to hide when
challenged by someone as clued up as a
former die-hard believer such as Ehrman.
But based on everything you’ve said so far, I think the reason you don’t give any counter arguments is because you can’t counter”
I reiterate, every argument you put forth is nothing but apologetics and one’s that have been trotted out for years.
Every once in a while a new kid arrives on the block, Strobel or Wallace and they are hailed in Christian circles as the Next Big Thing.
I asked right off the bat how did you discern between and unsupported claim and e use e, remember!
Furthermore I have stated on a number of occasions I am not interested in an
apologetic ping pong merely for you to show
off how good you think you are having
learned the apologetic material. No thanks.
Been there done that. It is incredibly boring
to the point it makes my filings hurt.
I am only interested in evidence. Not claims.
If you truly do consider you are intellectually honest you will be savvy enough to recognise the difference between evidence and a mere claim and address my request accordingly.
Well, it appears you have nothing of substance to say. Thanks for wasting my time. By the way, it’s incredibly stupid to ask me to defend Christianity without resorting to “apologetic arguments”. Apologetics simply MEANS to give a defense for one’s view. The etymology of the word stems from the Greek word “apologia”, which is the word translated in 1 Peter 3:15 as “defense” or “answer”. To ask me to substantiate my claims without “giving apologetic arguments” is tantamount to telling me to defend my view without defending my view! Look, you’ve wasted too much of my time already. If you refuse to engage with my arguments “pLaYiNg aPoLoGeTiC pInG pOnG”, then I ask you to simply stop commenting. Because that’s what this comment section is for. I didn’t have to have a comment section on my website. I could have configured my blog not to have one. BUT I actually like to engage with my readers. This comment section is for clarifying questions about the articles’ contents (from people who actually have taken the time to read them, of course), honest questions from seekers and doubters, people who might want to add feedback for how I can improve my writing skills or arguments, and yes, even full blown debates with people who disagree with me. But one thing it doesn’t exist for is for neckbeards to come on here and spew your nonsense and then back away when I actually challenge you to support your empty nonsensical bloviating. I have answered you lest you became wise in your own eyes, but now I think it’s time to stop before I start acting as foolishly as you (Proverbs 26:4-5).
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This is the second violation of rule 4. A third strike will get you banned. Because you don’t seem to posess the intellectual capacity to remember, Rule 4 is “Address Relevant Material”. pIng PoNg. pIng PoNg. pIng PoNg. pIng PoNg.
“By the way, it’s incredibly stupid to ask me to defend Christianity without resorting to “apologetic arguments”.”
Meaning: I really do not have any evidence but I am obliged to trot out apologetic arguments as my faith demands.
“This comment section is for clarifying questions about the articles’ content…”
And I have been at pains to do exactly that..
by asking you to present evidence.
In general I have been fairly restrained and civil but over the last few replies you have resorted to ad homs including” neckbeard”, a term I had never encountered before.
Perhaps you would clarify it’s meaning for me?
You do yourself a huge disservice in the manner you have responded, a display of arrogance and hubris, not only toward me but at various points towardsotber Christians and their interpretation of doctrine/scripture.
Irrespective of what you may consider my motives for commenting here you could have simply addressed my opening comment with intellectual honesty and civility rather than equivocating and hand waving.
This is the type of behaviour/response that
is almost de rigueur for Christians /Apologists these days.
Any evidence I DO bring out is quickly labeled an “unsubstantiated claim”. I’ve been patient with you, but you are absolutely unwilling to engage with any of my arguments. If you would simply interact with the material, and not resort, on an ongoing basis to ad hominems and genetic fallacies (e.g you and Lydia McGrew are only Christians because of emotional reasons), if you actually didn’t dismiss every argument backed with evidence as an unsubstantied claim, if you only didn’t call foul with every attempt I have to defend my views (because obviously, I can’t give a defense (apologia in Greek) without giving freaking arguments in defense of my views), and if you would have only had been willing to say from the outset that you were totally unwilling to debate these issues (which you call “Apologetic Ping Pong”), then MAYBE I WOULDN’T BE SO PISSED! Do you realize how much time I’ve wasted humoring your idiotic comments? I’ve even spent my entire 30 minute breaks at work responding to your neckbeard nonsense. Don’t know what that means? GOOGLE IT!