Over the past month, I’ve been surprisingly busy. I occasionally get asked to do an interview regarding my book Heresy of Ham, but over this past month, I’ve had three different requests! Here is #3 for your view pleasure. The guy who does this “Paulogia” YouTube channel is a former Christian turned atheist, but he isn’t antagonistic to all things Christianity. If you check out his YouTube channel, he has interviewed a wide range of people…and now he has even interviewed me! In this interview, we go through a video by Ken Ham in which he argues that a true biblical worldview must be rooted in a historical/literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11. Enjoy! (Plus, I’ve never seen myself as a cartoon before!)
Yet Another Interview Starring Me (by Paulogia)…all about Ken Ham, Worldview, and How to Understand Genesis 1-11
On a slightly separate topic, I just stumbled upon this (only skimmed) – not sure if you’ve come across it or been told about it: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/12/24/blogger-ken-ham-and-i-are-like-two-peas-in-a-pod/ He’s reacting to a past post of yours.
Wow! I was not aware of this. Jerry Coyne responded to my little post about him and didn’t take it too well! That’s amazing!
Christians and atheists should really stop debating the historical evidence for Christianity’s supernatural claims, including the evidence for a Six Day Creation versus a more elaborate, sophisticated theory of Intelligent Design. The overwhelming majority of Christians do not believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior due to historical or scientific evidence. The overwhelming majority of Christians believe due to their emotions and feelings. One study indicates that 85% of all evangelical Christians first believed in the resurrected Jesus as their Lord and Savior between the ages of 4 and 14! Does a four year old really have the mental maturity to evaluate the probability of a first century corpse reanimation??
Here are two questions most Christian apologists do not enjoy answering:
1. How old were you when you first believed in the resurrected Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
2. Do you perceive the presence of Jesus?
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2022/03/08/the-question-christian-apologists-do-not-want-to-answer/
Would you care to comment on anything actually in the video, or are you just mining to get responses so you can fire of some of your own posts on your blog? I see you’ve gotten 2-3 out of Mormonism! lol… 😉
He’s read many books: https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/
Forty minutes is too long for me to listen to a podcast. So I jumped around a little and found this interesting quote from Joel Edmund Anderson: “If one does a proper exegesis of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and is aware of the genre and culture in which these texts were written, one will come to the realization that they have nothing to do with science.” (paraphrase)
Bible scholars such as yourself can make an educated GUESS as to the intent of the author/authors of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 but there is no way on God’s green earth that you can prove your educated opinion to be an historical fact. It is still only a guess; an assumption. For all we know, the authors of Genesis 1 and 2 had been told this ancient Hebrew folk tale as children, and believing it to be true, wrote it down for posterity. That’s it. That was their intent. For all we know, the Hebrew Creation Story originated in the same way the Aztec and Mayan Creation Stories originated: in some ancient storyteller’s fertile, but scientifically ignorant, brain!
I read a blurb from the Jerry Coyne link above. Please don’t tell me that you tried to tell world famous biologist Jerry Coyne that you know more about the origin of life than he does. Oy veh, Joel.
Gary, you sound like Ken Ham. Experts talk about the proper genre and interpretation of Genesis 1-11 and you dismiss their expertise as “assumptions.” Like Ken Ham dismissing science by saying, “Were you there?”
As for Coyne, I told him he doesn’t know jack about Christianity and how to read the Bible intelligently. On the issue of Biblical interpretation, he is grossly ignorant.
Are you claiming that Bible scholars know as a fact that the authors of Genesis 1 and 2 did not believe their story to be an accurate description of the origin of the universe?
Yes, most Biblical scholars say that.
In reply to Joel. Not so much they knew it was incorrect. More that they didn’t know for certain that it was correct in a pre scientific era. They probably believed by faith it was all correct (and given to them by God).
Jesus seemed to believe that the Genesis creation accounts were historical:
Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
(Matthew 19:3-6 NASB; see also Mark 10:2-9)
Merely alluding to a passage in the Torah to teach about marriage doesn’t automatically mean Jesus was asserting they were historical people. He doesn’t address that topic.
Wrong, Joel. There is no way that modern people can know as fact the intent of ancient peoples writing thousands of years ago. Scholars can make educated guesses, but they cannot know with 100% certainty. Anyone who says they can is pushing an agenda.
You are exactly like Ken Ham in your thinking.
Actually, my views reflect the views of many respected Bible scholars and Near East experts. These scholars believe that the Genesis (Hebrew) Creation Stories were ancient folklore: The origin of the Hebrew creation myth is the same as the origin for the creation myths of the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Mayans, and the plains Indians: attempts by ancient peoples to explain and understand the confusing and scary world around them. These stories were passed down for generations until someone wrote them down. Did the person who wrote down these stories believe these stories to be historically accurate? No today can know for sure! Anyone who say otherwise is pushing an agenda.
From Biblical Archaeology Society: Many scholars believe that the ancient Israelites had creation stories that were told and retold; these stories eventually reached the Biblical authors, who wrote them down in Genesis and other books of the Bible. Creation stories in Genesis were etiological, Shawna Dolansky and other Biblical scholars argue.1 That is, the creation stories in Genesis served to provide answers to why the world was the way it was, such as why people wear clothes and why women experience pain during childbirth.
Creation stories in Genesis were among the many myths that were told in the ancient Near East. Today we may think of myths as beliefs that are not true, but as a literary genre, myths “are stories that convey and reinforce aspects of a culture’s worldview: many truths,” writes Dolansky. So to call something a myth—in this sense—does not necessarily imply that it is not true.
Scholars argue that Biblical myths arose within the context of other ancient Near Eastern myths that sought to explain the creation of the world. Alongside Biblical myths were Mesopotamian myths in which, depending on the account, the creator was Enlil, Mami or Marduk. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the creator of the world was Atum in one creation story and Ptah in another.
“Like other ancient peoples, the Israelites told multiple creation stories,” writes Shawna Dolansky in her Biblical Views column. “The Bible gives us three (and who knows how many others were recounted but not preserved?). Genesis 1 differs from Genesis 2–3, and both diverge from a third version alluded to elsewhere in the Bible, a myth of the primordial battle between God and the forces of chaos known as Leviathan (e.g., Psalm 74), Rahab (Psalm 89) or the dragon (Isaiah 27; 51). This battle that preceded creation has the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish as its closest analogue. In Enuma Elish, the god Marduk defeats the chaotic waters in the form of the dragon Tiamat and recycles https://masterra.com/order-essay.html her corpse to create the earth.”
Source: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/creation-stories-in-genesis/
I listened to the full podcast just now. I also checked whether Answers in Genesis have critiqued ‘The Heresy of Ham’. Apparently they have not. Another point about Ham’s apparent obsession with Genesis 1-11 is that he uses – or perhaps that should be misuses – those chapters to claim that climate change is not caused by additional greenhouse gas concentrations caused by emissions by humans but is some kind of ‘recovery’ from the flood in Genesis. Many people are put off by such drivel (and may assume all Christians are like Mr Ham).
GARY: Are you claiming that Bible scholars know as a fact that the authors of Genesis 1 and 2 did not believe their story to be an accurate description of the origin of the universe?
LEE: More fuzzy verbage again. A story can be “accurate” without being “literal.” When devoted fans call Elvis Presley “the King,” are we to understand by that they actually believe Elvis was a monarch who wore a crown and carried a scepter, and further, that if he didn’t wear a crown and carry a scepter, then that means that he wasn’t really the King after all?
Of course not.
If we can use poetry, allegory and metaphor, why can’t they?
Pax.
Lee.
Experts can no more prove that the authors of Genesis 1 and 2 were using a form of allegory than experts can prove that the authors of the Mayan Creation story was using allegory.
It is all geuss work. Maybe educated guess work, but guess work, nonetheless.
GARY: It is all geuss work. Maybe educated guess work, but guess work, nonetheless.
LEE: You’re essentially correct, though I wouldn’t exactly call it “guess-work.” Scholars who study these ANE creation myths don’t just make stuff up as they go–or at least the good ones don’t. They base it on years of careful study analysis.
There are criteria that are used to evaluate these ANE myths. Someone as well-read as you say you are should know this.
But at the end of the day you just have to take certain things on faith–such as that Plato didn’t invent Socrates but that Socrates really existed. Or that the Bethabara Church trustee wasn’t lying or mistaken in 1869 when he recorded my gr-gr-gr-grandfather’s name as Isom Freeman. I can’t prove that; I only have one source for that. But I take it on faith that the trustee accurately recorded him as being married in 1825 to my gr-gr-gr-grandmother Mary Jones, just like the book says. I’d love another source–say their actual marriage license. But I don’t have one, so I’m forced to exercise a bit of faith in accepting the entry for Mary as being essentially accurate unless I get some better evidence somewhere which causes me to doubt it. Which hasn’t happened in nearly 20 years.
So the preponderance of evidence supports these ANE myths as not having been understood literally–at least not by most educated people, anymore than someone today who claims to be “so hungry I could eat a horse” intends to be taken literally.
Give the ancients credit for not being total idiots.
Pax.
Lee.
Question for you, Lee: Do you perceive the presence of Jesus?
GARY: Question for you, Lee: Do you perceive the presence of Jesus?
LEE: What does this have to do with whether Genesis and other AME origin myths were interpreted literally?
Pax.
Lee.
It gives him an excuse to dismiss you…and write another post for his own blog. Lol…
I believe there are other reasons besides historical evidence and scholarly opinion for why you, Lee, and other Christians interpret the Bible, Old and New, as you do.
You have previously said that you perceive the presence of Jesus, Joel. At what age did you first perceive the presence of Jesus?
Gary, please stop trying to play psychologist. Despite the silly caricature you always throw up in your own posts (and I know you’re just commenting here to mine for quotes for you to take out of context and put in your own posts), when a Christian says he senses the presence of Christ, that doesn’t mean that “a chill runs down his spine, his heart skips a beat, and he feels a sense of being awash in perfect peace.”
It just makes you look petty and silly. So please, grow up.
“when a Christian says he senses the presence of Christ, that doesn’t mean that “a chill runs down his spine, his heart skips a beat, and he feels a sense of being awash in perfect peace.” ”
Please describe what you perceive, Joel.
You’re not a psychologist, Gary. You’re a troll.
Answer the question and I will tell you.
Were the creation stories in Genesis meant to be taken literally?
Maybe not, says biblical scholar Shawna Dolansky in her Biblical Views column “The Multiple Truths of Myths” in the January/February 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Our world is very different from the world in which the Biblical authors lived over 2,000 years ago. The ancient world did not have Google, Wikipedia and smartphones—access to information on human history and scientific achievements developed over millennia at the touch of their fingertips.
Many scholars believe that the ancient Israelites had creation stories that were told and retold; these stories eventually reached the Biblical authors, who wrote them down in Genesis and other books of the Bible. Creation stories in Genesis were etiological, Shawna Dolansky and other Biblical scholars argue.1 That is, the creation stories in Genesis served to provide answers to why the world was the way it was, such as why people wear clothes and why women experience pain during childbirth.
Creation stories in Genesis were among the many myths that were told in the ancient Near East. Today we may think of myths as beliefs that are not true, but as a literary genre, myths “are stories that convey and reinforce aspects of a culture’s worldview: many truths,” writes Dolansky. So to call something a myth—in this sense—does not necessarily imply that it is not true.
Scholars argue that Biblical myths arose within the context of other ancient Near Eastern myths that sought to explain the creation of the world. Alongside Biblical myths were Mesopotamian myths in which, depending on the account, the creator was Enlil, Mami or Marduk. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the creator of the world was Atum in one creation story and Ptah in another.
shawna-dolansky
Shawna Dolansky
“Like other ancient peoples, the Israelites told multiple creation stories,” writes Shawna Dolansky in her Biblical Views column. “The Bible gives us three (and who knows how many others were recounted but not preserved?). Genesis 1 differs from Genesis 2–3, and both diverge from a third version alluded to elsewhere in the Bible, a myth of the primordial battle between God and the forces of chaos known as Leviathan (e.g., Psalm 74), Rahab (Psalm 89) or the dragon (Isaiah 27; 51). This battle that preceded creation has the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish as its closest analogue. In Enuma Elish, the god Marduk defeats the chaotic waters in the form of the dragon Tiamat and recycles https://masterra.com/order-essay.html her corpse to create the earth.”
What is this scholar saying: The Hebrew creation stories are no different from the creation stories of the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Mayans, and the plains Indians: attempts by ancient peoples to make sense of their confusing, dangerous world. These oral stories were passed down for generations until someone wrote them down. Did the person who wrote them down believe these stories to be literally true? There is NO way to know for sure. Anyone who tells you otherwise is pushing an agenda.
GARY: Did the person who wrote them down believe these stories to be literally true? There is NO way to know for sure. Anyone who tells you otherwise is pushing an agenda.
LEE: Not necessarily. Good cases have been made if one will only be open-minded enough to consider them.
Pax.
Lee.
GARY: Many scholars believe that the ancient Israelites had creation stories that were told and retold; these stories eventually reached the Biblical authors, who wrote them down in Genesis and other books of the Bible. Creation stories in Genesis were etiological, Shawna Dolansky and other Biblical scholars argue.1 That is, the creation stories in Genesis served to provide answers to why the world was the way it was, such as why people wear clothes and why women experience pain during childbirth.
LEE: She’s partly right. The examples you cited are trivial compared to what Genesis 1-3 was REALLY trying to do. Which was namely, turn the surrounding pagan ANE origin myths on their heads to argue that there’s only ONE, eternal and uncreated creator-god, who, rather than creating humans to be his slaves, on the contrary, created them in his image and likeness-as NT Wright says to reflect his image in the world and back to him. Rather than mortals creating false idols of some or wood to the pagan deities, YHWH instead creates human beings as HIS idols, to serve as priests on the earth, which is his temple.
So it wasn’t trying to offer a scientific treatise on the mechanics of creation, but instead to show that the creation of the world–and human beings–wasn’t a cosmic accident (as the Gnostics argued), but was planned by the One God, thus exhibits order, purpose and life rather than chaos and entropy or decay.
But Genesis 1-3 is really layered. There are multiple levels at work.
Pax.
Lee.
Joel: “You’re not a psychologist, Gary. You’re a troll.”
As I said above, this question (Do you perceive the presence of Jesus?) really hits a nerve with Christians, unless they are talking to other Christians. In discussions with skeptics, most Christians don’t want to discuss this issue. But, ok. If you are going to pull the Troll Card, which I never pull on you when you leave comment after comment on my blog, I will make this the last comment on this post.
Why do Christians spend so much time sifting through the “nuances” of ancient Jewish and Christian writings? Do they spend a similar amount of time evaluating the ancient writings of other cultures and religions. Rarely. So why do they do it?
They spend hours and hours parsing through the pages of their holy book in order to reinterpret the parts of their holy book which are no longer tenable to modern, educated people. And Mormon, Muslim, and Hindu theologians, scholars, and apologists do the very same thing with their holy books. The fact that this occurs in all religions and cults is proof that bias plays a huge role in the interpretation of religious writings.
Now, add to that the fact that many Christians believe that they can “perceive” the presence of the man-god (who died almost 2,000 years ago), about whom every story in the Bible allegedly points to, and there is no possible way that these Christians can be impartial in their evaluation of the Christian holy book. No way!
Admit it, Joel: No amount of historical evidence is going to convince you that your perception of the presence of Jesus is just your mind playing tricks on you. Until I or another skeptic can convince you of the irrationality your subjective perception of the presence of a spirit (ghost), discussing evidence with you is a waste of time.
I feel sorry for you Gary. You are self-delusional.
GARY: I believe there are other reasons besides historical evidence and scholarly opinion for why you, Lee, and other Christians interpret the Bible, Old and New, as you do.
LEE: With respect, you don’t really know me that well.
Because, on the contrary, “historical evidence and scholarly opinion” are the number ONE factor in how I interpret scripture. The ONLY factor? No. But the driving one.
You seem to be laboring under the mistaken impression that any scholars who are also committed Christians have abandoned their professional academic objectivity and sold out. And that any scholars who are professed atheists/skeptics therefore MUST be more open-minded and objective.
This is a seriously naïve assumption someone who claims to have read as many books as you do shouldn’t be making.
Total, one hundred percent objectivity is neither possible no desirable.
Lemme tell you what I think you’re doing. I think your prior commitment to atheism unduly colors which evidence you’ll seriously consider and which books you’ll take seriously. Most skeptical academics are forced to admit that Jesus’ tomb was really empty. But since their atheism precludes any consideration of the supernatural, they either have to posit some natural explanation or else leave the issue as unresolved: the tomb was empty but no one knows what happened to the body.
Of course Prof. Ehrman sidesteps this whole issue by arguing that Jesus probably wasn’t even buried; instead the whole burial by Joseph of Arimathea in an unused tomb was a fabrication of the early church. To make this argument he ignores historical evidence and other scholars who don’t fit into his narrative.
When people object that he then has to offer a convincing alternative explanation as to what happened to Jesus’ body he counters with:
“…historians who do not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead should not feel compelled to come up with an alternative explanation for why the tomb was empty. Apologists typically have a field day with such explanations.”
So, like most skeptics you’re comfortable with at least admitting the tomb was empty because even most die-hard skeptical scholars are forced by the evidence to admit that the tomb was empty. Yet they, and you, will then pick apart other elements of the gospel stories that are in their/your minds much less historically certain, like when/where and by who the gospels were written, whether some “peripheral” gospel stories are genuine or fabrications, etc. That gets you off the hook from having to offer a valid explanation of exactly what happened to Jesus’ body and you get to maintain your skepticism and discredit the gospels on other grounds, refusing to consider any evidence that doesn’t fit your narrative.
Pax.
Lee.
Lee: “That gets you off the hook from having to offer a valid explanation of exactly what happened to Jesus’ body.”
Some unknown person, persons, or animals moved the body?? Cumulative human history tells us that this is the most likely explanation for any empty grave.
GARY: Some unknown person, persons, or animals moved the body?? Cumulative human history tells us that this is the most likely explanation for any empty grave.
LEE: If people removed the body, then who? How did they get past the Roman guards stationed at the tomb to prevent just such an occurrence? Guards trained to prevent anything of the sort from happening, who knew their lives were forfeit if they allowed anything like that to happen? How do you keep something like that a secret? And what did they do with the body after they moved it?
Matthew 28:11-15 actually reports that members of the Sanhedrin attempted to bribe the guards into saying his disciples stole the body because they had no idea what had happened to it, which is not a story the early church would be likely to have made up.
The gospels go to great pains to stress that, being typical mainstream Messianic Jews, NONE of Jesus’ followers expected him to die, much less be resurrected, so it makes no sense for them to have removed the body since they weren’t expecting a resurrection in the first place.
If animals, how did they get past the guards, and open the large stone, rolling it back to open it? No animals I’m familiar with could pull that off!
So when you examine what it would’ve taken to pull something like that off and then cover it up, believing such a theory actually takes more faith than just accepting the resurrection.
Pax.
Lee.
Lee: If people removed the body, then who? How did they get past the Roman guards stationed at the tomb to prevent just such an occurrence? Guards trained to prevent anything of the sort from happening, who knew their lives were forfeit if they allowed anything like that to happen? How do you keep something like that a secret? And what did they do with the body after they moved it?
Gary: Your statement is based on the huge assumption that someone was guarding Jesus’ tomb.
Most NT scholars doubt the historicity of Matthew’s (and only Matthew) story of Roman guards at the tomb. Most scholars believe this story is apologetic fiction, written for the very purpose that you, Lee, are using it: to refute the claim that someone moved the body. So who could have moved the body? Anyone! The Sanhedrin. Pilate (he changed his mind). Members of Jesus’ family who did not believe he was the messiah and wanted him buried somewhere else. Some of Jesus’ disciples who decided he was not the messiah. Mary Magdalene and her servants. Grave robbers. Religious relic collectors. Teenagers playing a prank.
And please keep this in mind: I am not claiming what happened. If I were claiming what did happen, I would need evidence to substantiate my claim. But I am only stating what I believe most probably happened, and for that I don’t need any evidence whatsoever. Do I need evidence to support my belief that the reason Jimmy Hoffa has disappeared from the face of the earth is because someone PROBABLY killed Jimmy Hoffa and hid his body? No. Not at all. Now, if I want to claim that the New York mafia did it and that they put his body in a barrel filled with cement and dropped into Lake Michigan, then, yes, I need to provide evidence to support my claim. But in both cases (the missing bodies of Jesus and Jimmy Hoffa) I am not claiming to know WHAT happened. I am simply positing a possible explanation, so no evidence is required.
GARY: Why do Christians spend so much time sifting through the “nuances” of ancient Jewish and Christian writings? Do they spend a similar amount of time evaluating the ancient writings of other cultures and religions. Rarely.
LEE: It might surprise you how man “ordinary” Christians can intelligently discuss the nuances of the Quran or the Bhagvad Gita. I wish more could, but nevertheless a lot can.
GARY: So why do they do it?
LEE: Because we want to be as certain as we can be that our faith is properly placed, and not based upon a lie or a superstition. Plus, being familiar with the historical/cultural/social/religious backgrounds of the texts deepens our understanding. Sure, you can read Chaucer’s *Canterbury Tales* without any prior knowledge of late 14th c. English history/culture/religion, but you get much more out of the text if you know a little bit of that background first. Why should reading the Bible be any different?
GARY: They spend hours and hours parsing through the pages of their holy book in order to reinterpret the parts of their holy book which are no longer tenable to modern, educated people. And Mormon, Muslim, and Hindu theologians, scholars, and apologists do the very same thing with their holy books. The fact that this occurs in all religions and cults is proof that bias plays a huge role in the interpretation of religious writings.
LEE: What we’re doing is REMINDING other Christians that until the 18th c. Enlightenment these texts were not normally interpreted in the strictly wooden, literal manner they are today. It was Enlightenment skeptics that insisted a biblical text is either literal history or it’s a myth, meaning a lie.
GARY: Now, add to that the fact that many Christians believe that they can “perceive” the presence of the man-god (who died almost 2,000 years ago), about whom every story in the Bible allegedly points to, and there is no possible way that these Christians can be impartial in their evaluation of the Christian holy book. No way!
LEE: Again, you paint everyone with a very broad brush, and display a very narrow, shallow understanding of how thoughtful Christians approach their faith. We do NOT all think alike and MANY of us are intellectual in our approach.
Lots of Christians, myself included, will tell you that REASON led them to have faith. At the end of the day it comes down to faith, but unlike you seem to suppose, NOT a blind faith devoid of critical thinking.
I know a lot of uncritical Christians but I also know a lot of uncritical atheists and skeptics. Turning your brain off isn’t strictly an Evangelical Christian trait. Lots of skeptics do it.
Pax.
Lee.
“Lots of Christians, myself included, will tell you that REASON led them to have faith. At the end of the day it comes down to faith, but unlike you seem to suppose, NOT a blind faith devoid of critical thinking.”
Do you perceive the presence of Jesus, Lee?
Gary, again, don’t make me have to keep reminding you. THIS post was about my interview with Paulogia regarding some of the claims made by Ken Ham. Once again, you have deviated from the topic of the post and are, again, bringing up things wholly unrelated to it. So again, if you cannot be disciplined enough to actually comment on the actual post, don’t comment at all. Like I said before, that is what trolls do.
I allow you to respond, ad nauseum, to comments directed to you on my blog. Lee has responded to me and and asked me questions. I am only responding to him. When he stops asking me questions and responding to my comments, I will stop commenting.
Ban me (again) if you want, but it will demonstrate your fear of what I and other skeptics have to say.
Gary, at the risk of furthering this childish food fight, look back at your first comment on this post–you are the one who started this nonsense. Please, try to act like a grown up. If you have something worthwhile to say about any given post, go right ahead. If your intent is to jump on any post and start spewing nonsense so you can take comments and turn them into 2-3 inane posts on your own blog, then just stop. Stop acting like a child and try to be a grown up.
GARY: Do you perceive the presence of Jesus, Lee?
LEE: What does this have to do with my comment above? And again, what does ANY of this have to do with whether the ancient Jews and Christians understood Genesis 1-3 literally? But okay, I’ll bite. Yes, I DO feel the presence of Jesus, or the Holy Spirit to be more precise. That doesn’t invalidate the fact that REASON led me to believe that the stories in the gospels are true.
Accepting that, then REASON tells me it’s rational to believe that if the NT is true, I should then expect to feel said presence of the Holy Spirit.
Would I exhibit that obviously subjective feeling of the presence of the Holy Spirit as evidence that the gospels are reliable? NO.
Pax.
Lee.
At what age did you first perceive the presence of Jesus?
I promise that my current questioning ties into the topic of this post: the proper interpretation of the Creation stories.
Let me save us both some time, Lee. Let me put together my entire argument, instead of asking you one question at a time.
Do you believe that Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are the “divinely inspired word of God”? If so, do you believe that there is any reference or prophecy related to Jesus in those two chapters (such as “He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel.”)?
If your answers to these two questions are “yes”, and you believe that you can perceive the presence of the person/being about whom these passages prophesy, and you have perceived the presence of this being since you were a young child, are we to believe that there is ANY evidence whatsoever, regardless of how strong, that would convince you that these passages are nothing more than scientifically ignorant superstitious nonsense and that your perception of the presence of Jesus is merely your mind playing tricks on you?
Correction: “Do you believe that Genesis chapters 1-3…
GARY: If your answers to these two questions are “yes”, and you believe that you can perceive the presence of the person/being about whom these passages prophesy, and you have perceived the presence of this being since you were a young child, are we to believe that there is ANY evidence whatsoever, regardless of how strong, that would convince you that these passages are nothing more than scientifically ignorant superstitious nonsense and that your perception of the presence of Jesus is merely your mind playing tricks on you?
LEE: No. As I said to you yesterday or the day before, for something to be true doesn’t require it to be literal.
What Genesis is basically saying is that there’s ONE God–not a plurality of deities. Further that that one God purposely created the world, and then created man in his IMAGE. Genesis is arguing that the material space-time universe isn’t a cosmic accident nor were human beings created to be the slaves of God, but to care for the earth–his Temple and to reflect God’s image into the world and back up to him.
Genesis is thus using the typical ANE creation-myth format but turning it on its head, in order to tell a true story but nevertheless uses typical ANE figurative, descriptive language to do it. No, the ancient Hebrews and Christians didn’t possess our modern understanding of science but they weren’t stupid; they knew when something was meant as literal history (say, the books of Chronicles and Kings) and when it was meant as figurative (Genesis chapters 1-3 or Revelation).
Because (for multiple reasons I’ve shared here over the past three or four years) I find the evidence for Jesus being/doing what the NT gospels say he did to be compelling, I accept on faith that Jesus was the prophesied antagonist to the serpent of Genesis, regardless of whether there was an actual, literal serpent or 6 literal days of creation or not, whether evolution is true or not.
Pax.
Lee.
In summary, you believe that:
1. Genesis chapters 1-3 is the inspired Word of the Creator God. Therefore, the intent of the authors could not have been to describe a literal six day creation because science has proven that a literal six-day creation is impossible. God does not make mistakes. He would not allow his inspired word to contain a false description of his creation. Due to this fact, you are certain that the author(s) of Genesis used symbolism and allegory to describe God’s Creation, using the language and cultural context of the ancient Hebrews. You are certain that the author(s) did not intend to imply that the universe was created in a literal sense as described in the first three chapters of Genesis.
2. You believe that the purpose of the first three chapters of Genesis, as well the entire Bible, is to point to the coming of Jesus the Christ, the Lamb of God, who would crush the head of the Great Serpent, Satan, by his death and resurrection.
3. You believe that you perceive the presence of the resurrected Jesus and have perceived his presence since a very young age.
Question: What possible evidence would ever convince you that all this is false?? I will bet none.
I am sure, Lee (and Joel, and every other Christian) that you have honestly attempted to evaluate the evidence for the truth claims of Christianity with an open mind. But is it possible to be open-minded when you believe with 100% certainty that the spirit of the person about whom all these claims refer to is sitting right next to you, whispering into your ear in a still small voice, while you are evaluating the evidence?
GARY: I am sure, Lee (and Joel, and every other Christian) that you have honestly attempted to evaluate the evidence for the truth claims of Christianity with an open mind. But is it possible to be open-minded when you believe with 100% certainty that the spirit of the person about whom all these claims refer to is sitting right next to you, whispering into your ear in a still small voice, while you are evaluating the evidence?
LEE: Gary, I never said I’m 100% convinced; that kind of certainty is impossible. But I am convinced enough to take the presence of the Spirit on faith. You seem to think that Christianity demands 100% certainty. It doesn’t and never has.
As the philosopher Roger Trigg points out, common sense tells us that “any commitment, it seems, depends on two distinct elements. It presupposes certain things [to be true], and it also involves a personal dedication to the actions implied by them.”
The very act of believing something means that you take the thing believed to be true. You may not be 100 percent certain that it is true, but if you believe something, you are saying that you are more convinced that it is true than that it is false. Put differently, a belief does not require complete certainty; it does, however, require that you are more than 50 percent certain about the belief. Otherwise, you would be in a state of suspended judgement and not really have the belief in question.
GARY: Question: What possible evidence would ever convince you that all this is false?? I will bet none.
LEE: If you could produce Jesus’ remains, or prove he never existed, I’d be convinced it’s all false. Well, not totally false; I’d still be a theist, because to me the idea that something (the space-time universe) came from nothing is irrational. The cosmological principle says that whatever had a beginning had a cause and we know the universe had a beginning (the Big Bang) thus it had a cause (God or a god).
Pax.
Lee.
I do not contest the possible existence of a creator god. I contest the existence of the Christian god, Jesus the resurrected christ. (I do not contest the existence of the man, Jesus of Nazareth)
So you would continue to believe that your perception of the presence of the spirit of Jesus is true and that there are no true errors in the Bible unless I or another skeptic can produce the remains of Jesus or prove he never existed? That is a pretty tall order, Lee. What is the point in debating historical evidence with you?
GARY: So you would continue to believe that your perception of the presence of the spirit of Jesus is true and that there are no true errors in the Bible unless I or another skeptic can produce the remains of Jesus or prove he never existed? That is a pretty tall order, Lee. What is the point in debating historical evidence with you?
LEE: First off, I have never said I believe in the inerrancy of scripture. The truth of Christianity stands or falls on Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead, not the inerrancy of scripture.
If Jesus wasn’t bodily resurrected, as St. Paul admits in I Cor. 15, Christians are foolish for believing a silly fairytale. If he wasn’t, what happened to the body, and how do you account for the rise of the Church? Every other ancient would-be Messiah was killed by the Romans and his movement disintegrated. That didn’t happen to the Jesus Movement. Explain to me WHY that didn’t happen in Jesus’ case. Why did his original followers–nearly all mainstream 1st c. Messianic Jews–go so far off book as to insist that a) he was executed by the Romans and b) that he was bodily resurrected three days later? Why would they invent such a ludicrous story, knowing that they’d be mocked and ridiculed by other Jews, and the Greeks and Romans, for it? Why were a lot of them even willing to die for such an egregious lie, or silly superstition, if that’s all it was?
Why are we still here 2,000 years later discussing it? Why didn’t Jesus religion go the way of Mithras’ or Dionysius’?
Let me state my position another way: if you could somehow convince me that Jesus was not actually resurrected in real space-time history, that the gospel resurrection narratives are complete fabrications I’d be amenable to your skepticism.
But over the past 30 odd years I’ve read just about every alternative theory on record and honestly do not find any of the alternatives compelling.
So that, when you put all of the pieces together they fit into a whole, complete picture to me, which makes sense and more than rings true.
Pax.
Lee.
1. I believe Genesis 1-3 isn’t talking about creation in a literalistic, scientific way because it was addressed to ancient Israelites, who were not a modern scientific people. It isn’t a matter of “modern science proves Genesis 1-3 wrong, so let’s figure out a different way to interpret them.”
2. The purpose of Genesis 1-3 is to teach five things: (1) There is one God, not many, (2) Creation is good, (3) Human beings are made in God’s image and therefore have dignity and worth, yet (4) Human beings are also immature and sin, and are thus enslaved to death, and so (5) God has promised to work through humanity to ultimately redeem humanity.
3. Stop with your armchair attempt at psychiatry. Yes, Christians sense the presence of Christ at times…but your caricature of what that means is silly.
Then inform me. In what ways do you perceive the presence of Jesus the Christ, and, is it at all possible that this subjective perception of the spirit of Jesus influences your views on the Bible?
Again Gary, stop trying to act like an armchair psychiatrist. I want to say such behavior is beneath you, but since you refuse to stop it, maybe such behavior is the level you’re at. Please, grow up.
Yes, Gary, yes. That’s it.
Dr. Anderson is right. The primary interpretation most of the early church fathers gave to Genesis 1-3 is exactly what he stated in his second point. Augustine (the father of Western theology) for one, comes to mind. In his work *The Literal Meaning of Genesis,* Augustine (354-430 AD) writes:
“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.”
Several centuries later in his *A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation: or, A Compendium of Natural Philosophy,* John Wesley (1703-1791) wrote that the scriptures “were written not to gratify our curiosity [of the details] but to lead us to God.”
So the Church universal has never made a literal reading of Genesis 1-3 a litmus test of true faith. AIG doesn’t speak for all of us.
Pax.
Lee.
That is not the issue. I am completely willing to concede that the author(s) of Genesis, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, MAY have written the first three chapters of Genesis, knowing that their passages were not to be understood literally, but used Bronze Age middle eastern language and imagery, to prophesy about Jesus and to convey other spiritual concepts to ancient peoples such as monotheism. Sure. That is possible.
But can you and Joel admit that it is also ***possible*** that the stories found in the first three chapters of Genesis are nothing more than a primitive middle eastern creation story (stories), no different than the creation stories of other ancient peoples around the globe, such as the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Mayans. Isn’t that also possible??
Can you admit that both of these scenarios are possible?
I assert that your answer to this question, whether or not both of the above scenarios are possible, is TOTALLY dependent on whether or not you can perceive the presence of Jesus. If you believe that you can perceive the presence of Jesus, even if your level of certainty for this belief is only 55-75%, there is no way this can’t but influence your answer to the above question.
According to the Journal of Semitic Languages, most scholars believe that the Genesis Creation Story is a Hebrew adaptation of an older Babylonian Creation Story. According to this source, most scholars believe P (the priestly source) composed the final version of this story as found in our Bibles, obtained from an oral story which had circulated in western Asia for quite some time. Scholars believe the supernatural components of the original Babylonian tale were transformed to make the story compatible with Hebrew culture and the Hebrew religion.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/528125?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Question: Why would an all-knowing God include a modified Babylonian supernatural tale in his inspired “Word”?
The real question: Why WOULDN’T God reveal the truth about Himself in a genre the ancients used to talk about their beliefs about the gods?
GARY: But can you and Joel admit that it is also ***possible*** that the stories found in the first three chapters of Genesis are nothing more than a primitive middle eastern creation story (stories), no different than the creation stories of other ancient peoples around the globe, such as the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Mayans. Isn’t that also possible??
LEE: Yes, it’s *possible,* anything’s *possible,* but but is it *likely*?
The Genesis creation story, despite surface similarities, is actually markedly different from the other ANE stories. The Genesis creation story stands the ANE stories on their heads in all the ways we’ve said.
GARY: Question: Why would an all-knowing God include a modified Babylonian supernatural tale in his inspired “Word”?
LEE: To echo Dr. Anderson, why wouldn’t God speak to the ancients in genres and using language and imagery they’d understand?
Pax.
Lee.
GARY: I assert that your answer to this question, whether or not both of the above scenarios are possible, is TOTALLY dependent on whether or not you can perceive the presence of Jesus. If you believe that you can perceive the presence of Jesus, even if your level of certainty for this belief is only 55-75%, there is no way this can’t but influence your answer to the above question.
LEE: Whether I perceive the presence of Jesus has nothing to do with how I interpret Genesis 1–11.
Even if you could somehow prove that Genesis 1-11 is a complete and total fabrication it wouldn’t substantially alter my faith because there are dozens of other OT (and NT) texts which assert–albeit in much shorter form–what Genesis 1-11 does (one eternal, uncreated, omnipotent God who creates ex nihilo, etc.).
If Genesis weren’t even in the Bible my faith wouldn’t substantially be any different because, as I keep saying, the truth of Christianity doesn’t depend upon whether Genesis 1-11 was intended to be read literally or not. Christianity stands or falls on whether Jesus of Nazareth was literally raised from the dead or not, and I believe he WAS, for a multitude of reasons which have nothing to do with Genesis 1-11.
NONE of the early Christian creeds say anything about how one interprets the first few chapters of Genesis being a cardinal tenet of the gospel.
Pax.
Lee.
”That’s when you have to be biblically competent”
Indeed!
How does one go from regarding the verses in Genesis to be myth then regard the resurrection tale to be historical fact? We have evidence which refutes the claims regarding the Genesis verses in question so what evidence can be brought to bear to demonstrate the veracity of the resurrection claim?
ARK: How does one go from regarding the verses in Genesis to be myth then regard the resurrection tale to be historical fact? We have evidence which refutes the claims regarding the Genesis verses in question so what evidence can be brought to bear to demonstrate the veracity of the resurrection claim?
LEE: The genres are totally different for one. Unlike Genesis 1-11, the gospel resurrection narratives are written in a manner suggesting they’re to be understood as happening in actual space-time history. They reference actual people and actual places and take pains to ground the story in real space-time history. You can tell immediately that they aren’t writing allegory or metaphor.
As NT Wright says, the gospel resurrection narratives read like unedited stories the disciples were still trying to make sense of. The fact that nobody edited them later to harmonize in all their details is telling, nor is there lots of theological commentary about the resurrection, they just report what happened, as incredulous as it seemed to them with not a lot of “this happened so that the scriptures would be fulfilled” type stuff.
Then there’s the fact no other Messianic Jews expected Messiah to be crucified and then resurrected; a crucified Messiah was a FALSE Messiah. So why would the pious Messianic Jews of the Jesus Movement invent stories of his crucifixion and resurrection, a story calculated to ruin any chance of other Jews much less Greeks and Romans, signing on to their new faith? Why did Jesus’ Jewish followers go so far off book? The gospels stress that his disciples were as clueless as everybody else so why purposely make themselves look so ignorant?
The there’s the fact that the gospels go to huge lengths to reassure everyone that Jesus wasn’t a ghost or apparition, but was instead resurrected as a flesh-and-blood person, who ate food.
Then there’s the fact that Christians shifted resurrection from a peripheral belief as it was in Messianic Judaism and made it the central tenet of the faith.
And of course to cap everything off you have all four gospels insisting that women were the first to encounter the resurrected Jesus. This is very strong evidence that the story wasn’t made up, as no male Jews faking a religion they hoped to to patriarchal Jews and Romans would make women the first witnesses to the primary miracle of the new faith. The pagan critic Celsus, one hundred years later cited the fact that a group of “hysterical women” were the first to see the resurrected Jesus as one reason the faith was absurd.
The ancients who wrote the gospels knew as well as we do that normally dead bodies stay dead, and yet they insist that a literal resurrection took place.
And of course you’ve still got an empty tomb. If Jesus never rose from the dead, what happened to the body?
One or two of the above individually might not seem like much but when you put all of them together it beings to look rather impressive. It’s not conclusive proof but to me it is really strong circumstantial evidence.
Of course having an open mind that’s at least willing to look at evidence contrary to one’s world-view is key as well.
Pax.
Lee.
That’s very … ” apologetic”?
And all from the bible. in fact all you have presented are claims.
So what evidence can you present to demonstrate the veracity of the Ressurection of the character Jesus of Nazareth?
ARk: That’s very … ” apologetic”?
LEE: You seem to think by calling my arguments “apologetic” that that somehow reduces their intellectual validity, when in fact, in Greek, to make an *apologia* meant to make a reasoned, rational defense of a stated position. So “apologetics” is as intellectual as it gets my friend.
ARK: And all from the bible.
LEE: Which should be taken seriously by skeptics for what it very obviously IS–a compendium of ancient historical documents. The Bible, including the NT, shouldn’t be written off simply because it makes certain claims the modern skeptic finds incredible to believe; do you chuck Suetonius’ chronicle merely because he calls Julius Caesar “divine”?. There are CRITERIA professional academic NT scholars apply to the biblical texts to evaluate them. This is Skeptic 101.
ARK: in fact all you have presented are claims.
So what evidence can you present to demonstrate the veracity of the Ressurection of the character Jesus of Nazareth?
LEE: My observations above are all valid objections you the skeptic should be comfortable dealing with. If you just brush them off without seriously considering them, that tells me a lot–that you’re either incapable or unwilling to discuss them intelligently.
So. How do you explain the early Church’s telling such a far-fetched story? Why tell ridiculous stories calculated to offend pious Jews and educated Greeks if there’s no evidence for any of it?
Pax.
Lee.
The church has been telling lies from day. 1.
So,once again, as we have evidence that refutes the claims of the relevant verses in genesis, which you agree with, what evidence do you have to support the claims of the resurrection of the bible character Jesus of Nazareth?
Not clever arguments, Lee, but evidence.
ARK: The church has been telling lies from day. 1.
LEE: Hyperbole. Next.
ARK: So,once again, as we have evidence that refutes the claims of the relevant verses in genesis, which you agree with, what evidence do you have to support the claims of the resurrection of the bible character Jesus of Nazareth?
Not clever arguments, Lee, but evidence.
LEE: The gospel resurrection accounts ARE evidence, whether you view them as such or not. You’re making a mistake and confusing “proof” with “evidence.” They aren’t the same thing. Look up “evidence” in a dictionary, for example, the Online Dictionary:
“Evidence is any information so given, whether furnished by witnesses or derived from documents or from any other source.”
The gospels are a) documents b) written by purported eyewitnesses c) compiled from earlier oral sources
So how about we deal with this evidence? Don’t evade, or cast aspersions at me or other Christians, just deal honestly with the evidence. If you’re so secure in your atheism dismantling this evidence should be child’s play, shouldn’t it?
Pax.
Lee.
Lee, it is pointless to engage with those who are logically and rationally retarded. I spent upwards of a year asking Ark what kind of evidence he would consider to be convincing, and he consistently evaded the entire time. This is what disingenuous people do: They demand “evidence,” you provide ancient written testimony, then they dismiss it, say, “That’s not evidence? Give me evidence!” and they CANNOT get off that gerbil wheel of illogical thinking.
It is just pointless to engage with such people.
There is no such thing as ” what type of evidence”.
There are claims and there is evidence.
Genesis claims that someone called Noah built a big boat and packed it with animals and then floated off while Yahweh flooded the entire planet.
Of course we know this is nonsense and the evidence shows us why. Yet Ken Ham will have you believe it is fact. And there are plenty who believe him,as we well know.
In the same vain, the gospels claim that the character Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
All I am asking for is evidence which demonstrates the veracity of that claim.
Do you have any evidence?
ARK: There is no such thing as ” what type of evidence”.
LEE: As a professional public historian and genealogist I can assure you that there ARE differing grades/levels/types of evidence: for example, in genealogy there is primary, secondary and tertiary evidence.
ARK: There are claims and there is evidence.
LEE: As I said above, there are different levels of evidence.
Primary evidence is the best. That would be an original document, such as your grandparents’ marriage license. Secondary evidence is good evidence but not as good as primary evidence. That would be a newspaper report that your grandparents had filed for their marriage license the previous week. Tertiary evidence would be an entry for the marriage of your grandparents in one of those Ancestry.com abstracted marriage indexes which gave you the date and volume number to find the actual marriage license in the county marriage registers. Which one of these would you go with as the best evidence for documenting the marriage of your grandparents? Or would you insist that they’re all equally valid? If you did, you’d flunk my basic genealogy class! (We don’t grade students, but if we did, that would definitely warrant points off.)
ARK: All I am asking for is evidence which demonstrates the veracity of that claim.
Do you have any evidence?
LEE: I have given you evidence. That you continue to insist it isn’t evidence makes you look rather foolish. You want a video-tape of Jesus walking out of his tomb. But even if I could produce such a video you’d only claim it was doctored and made with special effects.
Truthfully, your level of skeptic would not be convinced if you witnessed Jesus walk out of his tomb because you’ve mistaken a paranoid skepticism for critical thinking. Kind of like the Dwarfs in Lewis’ *The Last Battle,* who refuse to acknowledge Aslan creating the New Narnia right in front of them.
The Doc is right. There’s no way to reason with that kind of closed mind.
Pax.
Lee.
You have not provided evidence.
The tales of the ressurection are claims that have not been substantiated .
That is fact.
Also,the long ending of gMark is an interpolation … A forgery.There are 3 versions of the long ending if memory serves?
The gospels are not eyewitness accounts nor is there any evidence they are accounts based on oral tradition.
We know the author of gMatthew used gMark as a template when composing his own version and much of gMatthew is copied, in some places almost verbatim.
Luke fares little better.
In fact all we have is a written account of an event that does not feature anywhere in the historical record and has not been substantiated or verified.
So, in conclusion, yes,the gospels qualify as evidence of an ancient text but not evidence of the veracity of the contents, which remain nothing but a claim.
I know. But I’d like to think it helps me sharpen my own thinking.
Though it does make one long for the old days when atheists actually made logical, coherent arguments.
These conversations with Gary and Ark remind me of the Monty Python “Argument Sketch” (which I’ve abbreviated below):
Man (Michael Palin): Is this the right room for an argument?
Other Man, seated at Desk (John Cleese): I’ve told you once.
Man: No you haven’t!
Other Man: Yes I have.
M: When?
O: Just now.
M: No you didn’t!
O: Yes I did!
M: You didn’t!
O: I did!
M: You didn’t!
O: I’m telling you, I did!
M: You did not!
O: Oh I’m sorry, is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour?
M: Ah! (taking out his wallet and paying) Just the five minutes.
O: Just the five minutes. Thank you.
O: Anyway, I did.
M: You most certainly did not!
O: Now let’s get one thing quite clear: I most definitely told you!
M: Oh no you didn’t! . . . .
M: I came here for a good argument!
O: AH, no you didn’t, you came here for an argument!
M: An argument isn’t just contradiction.
O: Well! it CAN be!
M: No it can’t!
M: An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
O: No it isn’t!
And it goes on from there. You can judge for yourself which one of us is the Michael Palin Character and which the John Cleese character.
Pax.
Lee.
I am not asking for proof,Lee,but evidence.
The gospels make a claim: the character, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
I reiterate. This is a claim .
Now, what evidence can you provide to show the veracity of this claim.
ARK: I am not asking for proof,Lee,but evidence.
The gospels make a claim: the character, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
I reiterate. This is a claim .
LEE: The EVIDENCE for the CLAIM is the four gospels’ resurrection narratives, plus Paul, who actually wrote some 15-20 years BEFORE the first gospel was comprised. Just like evidence for the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 is the English and French chroniclers’ ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLE. How else would we even know about Agincourt if not for the medieval chroniclers?
Same with Paul and the gospels. No scholar I know of (save maybe Richard Carrier) would argue that Paul’s account of the resurrection in I Cor. 15: 3-7 was made up. So you Paul and the four gospels. In NT scholarship terminology you have MULTIPLE (in this case five), INDEPENDENT, SOURCES, meaning they were written by different people in different places and at different times.
Unless we ASSUME going in that no such Battle of Agincourt ever took place and all of the medieval chroniclers, English and French, simply made it up? But that isn’t how serious, adult-level academic history works. Just because you personally believe resurrection to be impossible you don’t start out by assuming that Paul and the gospels were all lying.
Pax.
Lee.
Therefore, as you are an historian you will naturally agree then, that the evidence for the global flood and Noah and his ark is the account in Genesis?
Is it possible that you, as a professional historian and one who one assumes will rely on evidence might see a small problem with your statement?
ARK: Therefore, as you are an historian you will naturally agree then, that the evidence for the global flood and Noah and his ark is the account in Genesis?
LEE: Yes–as an ancient WRITTEN SOURCE it is evidence for a global flood. But in this case is the evidence RELIABLE as history? No. It isn’t. Being written thousands of years after the supposed flood and obviously sharing similarities with other ANE flood myths, the story of a global flood in Genesis cannot be taken as actual history. But it’ is still evidence, which as I keep having to remind you:
“ . . . is any information so given, whether furnished by witnesses or derived from documents or from any other source.”
Genesis is a document, right?
Nobody is arguing we should just uncritically accept the Genesis account of the flood without investigating it first.. When one does that its value as an accurate, authoritative source of evidence diminishes. Nor am I arguing we should uncritically accept the gospel resurrection accounts.
But both are still evidence though.
Pax.
Lee.
It is evidence of a an ancient document but not evidence of a global flood.
Ergo the same thing as the resurrection tale in the gospel. Evidence of a claim but not evidence to show the veracity of that claim.
Until it can be substantiated/verified it remains a claim.
If you can’t tell the difference between the genre of the flood story and the genre of the Gospels, you need to stop and educate yourself before you say anything further.
ARK: It is evidence of a an ancient document but not evidence of a global flood.
LEE: Ark, the EVIDENCE IS the report of an ancient flood in Genesis. The historian then has to decide whether the Genesis account RELIABLE evidence for a great flood or not. But it’s still evidence.
ARK: Ergo the same thing as the resurrection tale in the gospel. Evidence of a claim but not evidence to show the veracity of that claim.
Until it can be substantiated/verified it remains a claim.
LEE: By that logic, the existence of Socrates is nothing but an unverified claim made by one or two of Socrates’ alleged students, seeing as how we have nothing written by Socrates himself and no archaeological evidence to prove he ever existed.
So I guess the existence of Socrates remains nothing but an unverified claim.
So much for the Socratic method!
But this is not, in fact, the definition of “evidence” used by actual historians. Evidence isn’t the same thing as substantiation or proof.
You’ve been drinking the Enlightenment Kool-Aid for too long. The kind of certainty you demand for the resurrection doesn’t exist. If we applied your standard of proof we’d have history textbooks that were much shorter!
Academic historians don’t start out assuming a historical source is lying or mistaken; they don’t uncritically accept it without further evaluation, but neither do they uncritically chuck it out as worthless, either.
You evaluate the claims of Genesis or the gospels using the same criteria you use for any other ancient historical sources.
Pax.
Lee.
I agree, “academic historians” do not begin research with an a priori belief the source is lying.
As you are an historian can you name a non religious colleague operating in the same field who considers the ressurection claim to be historical fact?
The Bible Flood tale is myth likely based on the Gilgamesh epic.
The gospels are considered as Greco-Roman biography by many scholars.
How reliable they are is an ongoing topic of discussion / research.
So, yes, I know the difference. Thanks.
The subject, though, is evidence.
We know there is no evidence of a global flood. Extra-biblical Archaeology and plate tectonics among other things show us why.
Therefore, what extra-biblical evidence/em> is there to demonstrate the veracity of the resurrection?
ARK: Therefore, what extra-biblical evidence/em> is there to demonstrate the veracity of the resurrection?
LEE: Ahhhh . . . . now we’re getting somewhere with your phrase “extra-biblical evidence.”
It looks by this like you’re finally seeing that the gospels ARE evidence? If not (I suspect not), and you won’t listen to me, then maybe you’ll listen to the National Council on Public History:
“Professional historians—people with some advanced training in the discipline of history—bring a particular and often-misunderstood set of skills to the task of learning about the past. They gather and weigh different kinds of ***evidence, including primary sources (documents or recollections from the time period being studied),*** material artifacts, and previous scholarship (secondary sources). Using these sources, they work toward careful, often provisional interpretations of what was happening and why at a given time.”
Did you catch what I highlighted (***)? Historical documents are considered EVEDINCE regardless of their veracity.
So you already HAVE evidence (Paul and the four gospels), you just don’t consider them valid; you want evidence by a disinterested neutral party. Well, as I keep saying, you shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the NT accounts.
But again, the kind of proof you demand for the NT resurrection claims doesn’t exist for many of the accepted events in recorded history.
Pax.
Lee.
If the ‘evidence’ cannot be substantiated or verified it is of little or no value.
The gospels are therefore worthless as evidence and are no more than claims in a book.
I have no doubts you flatly reject Muslims claims regarding the Qu’ran yet you consider the bible to be the inspired word of your god!
I ever ask for proof only evidence.
Your acceptance of the claims of a resurrection are based on faith, nothing more.
At least have the integrity to acknowledge this.
Most of the things you “know” about ancient history, you accept on the basis of faith in the trustworthiness of claims that have been written down–i.e you don’t “know” things; you “believe” the claims that have been written down by others. In most instances regarding ancient history, if you demanded “extra” evidence that verifies claims written in ancient documents, you’d have to conclude you know virtually nothing about ancient history.
And that is why I say you don’t have integrity on this. When it comes to everything else in history, you hold to one standard, but when it comes to historical claims in the Bible, you jump to an impossible standard by which nothing would ever be able to be accepted.
I don’t exercise faith but I do trust certain things,hence, for example we both trust the evidence which informs us that the bible tale of a global flood is fiction.
We both trust the evidence which informs us the tale of Adam and Eve is fiction.
The same standard for which you are asserting I have no integrity is exactly the same standard you display when judging the claims of the Quran , or those of Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard. All of which I have little doubt you dismiss with barely a moment’s consideration.
In essence, what you are acknowledging is ,there is no evidence to verify the resurrection claims of the gospels and that one should take the accounts on faith.
Surely integrity demands that this is the case?
Your “knowledge” of the past fundamentally is dependent on your “faith/trust” in the testimony and interpretation that others have written down.
As for the flood story and the story of Adam and Eve–they are examples of the genre of ANE myth. I don’t believe they are ANE myth because “scientific evidence” proves they’re not historical. I believe they are ANE myth because they have all the literary characteristics of that genre. “Scientific evidence” plays no part in my assessment of what those stories are.
I have no doubt that Muhammad experienced “something” in the cave. I have no doubt the basic historical narrative of his life is accurate. Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard were clearly scheisters. But again, your associating the Gospel narratives with the likes of L. Ron Hubbard shows you aren’t a serious person. You’re not about getting to the truth of things–you just are looking to disparage Christianity and the Bible.
Of course we take the resurrection claims on faith–I believe the historical, written testimony to be true.
How you assess the genre of the Flood tale or the Adam & Eve tale does not deflect from the fact they are both fiction and scientific / archeological/ geological evidence supports this.
That you regard the ressurection tale differently speaks more to the fact you are Christian which is wholly dependant on your acceptance of this tale being true rather than honestly evaluating the account and acknowledging the complete lack of supporting evidence; for to do so would almost certainly see you deconvert – as tens of thousands
Christians do each year.
Why would you even bother to ask in the first place whether or not there is scientific/archeological/geological evidence to support what is clearly a story written in the genre of ANE myth? Why you would even go there is mystifying. BY CONTRAST, the Gospels are clearly written in a different style/genre. Therefore, you go about assessing them in a different way. And in the Gospels, there are tons of historical events, figures, and dates–therefore, you simply cannot take the resurrection claims and equate them as if they were the same thing as the flood story. I take the resurrection account differently because it is different! It is found in an ancient historical biography. It isn’t found in an ANE myth.
I’m sorry, but I’m the one trying to assess things honestly. You aren’t.
I wouldn’t, but clearly the prime exponent of YEC,’Ol Hambo, whose view you felt passionate enough about to write a book, do believe there is scientific evidence.
Agreed. However, evidence is still paramount when determining the tale’s veracity.
Agreed. And a number of these can be be verified from external sources. However, aside from Tacitus and Josephus I can think of no other independent sources for the character Jesus of Nazareth and there are none to verify the story of the resurrection.
Absolutely. But it isn’t unique in the sense of a dying and rising god, as well you know.
But you give all other resurrection stories short shrift, correct?
Why? Because of lack of supporting evidence for one thing.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point. However, once again, the resurrection tale is foundational to your faith . ”If Chris be not raised etc etc…” This will inevitably influence your view of the tale as it is presented in the gospels, and unfortunately without supporting evidence all you have is faith.
ARK: You have not provided evidence.
The tales of the ressurection are claims that have not been substantiated .
That is fact.
Also,the long ending of gMark is an interpolation … A forgery.There are 3 versions of the long ending if memory serves?
LEE: Ark, things aren’t so just because you say they are. You can’t rewrite the historical method simply to bolster your atheism.
First of all, “forgery” is a poor choice of words, because “forgery” implies deliberate deception. Besides, the early Church was aware of Mark’s multiple endings and wasn’t much bothered by it. It’s irrelevant, anyway, because you still have the resurrection in Mark.
And actually having a gospel with multiple possible endings argues more for its authenticity because a *real* forger would’ve made sure Mark had a neat and tidy ending like the other gospels.
ARK: The gospels are not eyewitness accounts nor is there any evidence they are accounts based on oral tradition.
LEE: Actually there kind of is. Whole books have written on the subject (Bauckham’s *Jesus and the Eyewitnesses* comes immediately to mind).
Some of Jesus’ sayings may have been written down when he gave them but the rest circulated as oral tradition, handed down by eyewitnesses, before eventually being written down.
Again, you can’t just say something is so because you want it to be so.
ARK: We know the author of gMatthew used gMark as a template when composing his own version and much of gMatthew is copied, in some places almost verbatim.
Luke fares little better.
LEE: So where did the alleged “Q” sayings source which supposedly contains the material shared by Matthew and Luke but which isn’t in Mark, come from? Isn’t it at least possible that material circulated as oral tradition? Certainly seeing as how no written texts of Q have ever been found.
ARK: In fact all we have is a written account of an event that does not feature anywhere in the historical record and has not been substantiated or verified.
LEE: Josephus mentions the alleged resurrection of Jesus in both the GK ms tradition and the Arabic ms tradition. The GK might possibly be an interpolation but both? Not likely.
ARK: So, in conclusion, yes,the gospels qualify as evidence of an ancient text but not evidence of the veracity of the contents, which remain nothing but a claim.
LEE: That last statement makes no sense; you’re basically saying that the gospels are evidence of a source.
A source is any Item that we can touch, such as a person, a document, a book, or an artifact.
Evidence is information that is relevant to a particular research problem or question.
Thus the gospels are ancient SOURCES which contain EVIDENCE for Jesus’ resurrection.
But regardless of all this we still have Paul’s evidence for the resurrection in Cor. 15:3-7, which is actually an ancient Christian creed he cites when he wrote I Cor. ca. AD 55, but which has been dated to less than ten years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
Paul isn’t easily explained away, either. Though I have absolute confidence that you;’ll at least try.
Pax.
Lee.
It makes perfect sense, you just struggle to understand it.
I suspect there is a degree of cognitive dissonance going on for you.
ARK: It makes perfect sense, you just struggle to understand it.
I suspect there is a degree of cognitive dissonance going on for you.
LEE: See my last above.
Pax.
Lee.
ARK: I don’t exercise faith but I do trust certain things,hence, for example we both trust the evidence which informs us that the bible tale of a global flood is fiction.
LEE: And that would constitute FAITH. Because you can’t KNOW with 100% CERTAINTY, can you? Thus you exercise FAITH, not a BLIND faith, but faith nonetheless. Trust by any other name is still faith, my friend.
You are apparently laboring under the mistaken belief that all faith is BLIND faith. But as I’ve argued before, you exercise faith in dozens of ways every day without even being consciously aware of it. For example, when you buy a latte at Starbucks, you exercise FAITH that the barista hasn’t put poison in it or spit in it. When you buy a steak from the grocer’s or butcher’s you exercise FAITH that the meat isn’t rotten.
BELIEVING something means you’re at least more that 50% certain it’s true. For many things 100% certainty is impossible . . . unless you can read minds or predict the future?
So you’re at the very least more than 50% certain that Genesis 1-11 is ANE myth but you can’t be certain.
ARK: In essence, what you are acknowledging is ,there is no evidence to verify the resurrection claims of the gospels and that one should take the accounts on faith.
LEE: Yet again, we have given you evidence ad nauseum yet you refuse to acknowledge it AS evidence. Surely integrity would demand we accept things as they are and cease playing word games to confuse the issue?
But I’ll go over it again, one final time:
a) Multiple references to the resurrection by Paul, who wrote ca. 49-ca. 67 AD. Paul was a former Pharisee who believed all of God’s faithful would be resurrected at the final consummation of his kingdom, not in the middle of history. How do you explain Paul’s about-face? Or, for that matter, Jesus’ brother (or half-brother) James’ about-face? The gospels say that Jesus’ family thought he was out of his mind for making many of the claims he did, and yet James stepped up to be one of the chief leaders in the nascent Jerusalem Church.
b) Four gospels, written ca. 60 – ca. 93 AD; already, with Paul and then the gospels, we’ve got multiple, early, independent sources.
c) Statement in the TF by Josephus that Jesus’ followers claimed a resurrection, which exists in both Greek AND 10th c. Arabic Melchite Christian mss , making a Christian interpolation less certain, as the Arabic mss translations are independent of the earlier GK mss.
d) The statements of dozens of early Church fathers, ca.. 100s-ca. 200s AD.
e) The fact that NOBODY in Messianic Judaism was expecting Messiah to die, nor then be resurrected in the middle of history instead of at the final consummation of YHWH’s kingdom, coupled with the fact that lots of non-Jews found the whole idea of bodily resurrection absurd, if not downright offensive. So IF the disciples experienced some kind of “cognitive dissonance” which indicated that Jesus was bodily resurrected when he really WASN’T, seeing as how none of them were expecting anything even close to that, why would they jettison centuries of Messianic expectations in favor of what was probably just a hallucination or their minds playing tricks on them? But actually, the gospels record that the disciples DID think Jesus was an apparition or ghost . . . until they touched his body and watched him eat a meal.
f) The empty tomb. Show me the body! Where are Jesus’ remains?
g) Having WOMEN as the first witnesses. Calculated to put off potential Jewish AND non-Jewish converts so why keep insisting the women were the first witnesses knowing critics like Celsus would just make fun of them for saying it?
h) The fact that the early Church was proclaiming the resurrection in creedal statements within a mere 3-5 years of Jesus’ crucifixion. This is WAAAY to early for myth and legend to accrue.
i) The fact that the early church modified earlier Jewish teaching on resurrection in several significant ways, such as moving it from a peripheral belief to the central tenet of the faith
j) The fact that so many early Christians were willing (and in the case of martyrs like Ignatius) eager to die for what you call a myth or fairy-tale.
You shouldn’t let the fact that this is circumstantial evidence keep you from thinking critically about it. One or two of these pieces of evidence might not look impressive, but taken as a whole, the skeptic, to quote Ricky Ricardo, has some ‘splainin’ to do.
You HAVE TO take off your Enlightenment blinders, first, though.
So just please deal with the above evidence. Otherwise, what are you afraid of?
Pax.
Lee.
‘
ARK: I agree, “academic historians” do not begin research with an a priori belief the source is lying.
As you are an historian can you name a non religious colleague operating in the same field who considers the ressurection claim to be historical fact?
LEE: Of course not because if they DID they’d be Christians instead of non-religious! (Although I know a lot of academic historians who ARE believers because of the evidence). For many of my non-religious colleagues I would argue that their opposition to the idea or for some of them indifference to it, guarantees that they never really examine it carefully.
I’ve also read a lot of NT scholars who, because of their prior commitment to materialism refuse to entertain the idea of resurrection, but instead will say that SOMETHING happened only they don’t know exactly what happened and simply leave it at that (though a few try to offer explanations). Many of them simply avoid dealing with the issue.
Pax.
Lee.
Thank you. Miracles do not fall within the purview of historical research ergo, no (non religious) historians will countenance them. Because of the lack of evidence,
ARK: Thank you. Miracles do not fall within the purview of historical research ergo, no (non religious) historians will countenance them. Because of the lack of evidence,
LEE: Not so fast.
As NT Wright argues, the resurrection (assuming it really happened) is history, and so it differs from science: “Science studies the repeatable, while history studies the unrepeatable.” The resurrection was a “one-off historical event” (it supposedly happened in real, space-time history) just as Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was a “one-off historical event” (it happened in real, space-time history), thus by the rules of the hard sciences neither event is repeatable or falsifiable. Wright reminds us that the historian, like the scientist usually makes assumptions about what is possible, and here one’s openness to the possibility of the supernatural is heavily conditioned by his or her worldview. Even granting this point, however, Wright acknowledges that “faced with the thoroughly repeatable experiment of what happens to dead bodies, ”some evidence is in order.”
Which brings us back to . . . You guessed it: Paul and the gospels.
Wright notes the notorious differences in the resurrection stories but uses the fateful tale of Ludwig Wittgenstein brandishing a poker at Karl Popper at an argument which broke out at a meeting of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club (at which Popper had just read a paper), on October 25, 1946 as an analogy. As with the brandishing of hot metal by the emotional Wittgenstein, so with the resurrection: “surface discrepancies do not mean that nothing happened . . . they are a reasonable indication that something remarkable happened.
Wright then goes on to deal with the strangeness of the gospel resurrection accounts. The prominence of female eyewitnesses, the lack of idealization regarding Jesus’ death, and the downright odd way in which he appears and disappears all argue against a later fabrication. For Wright, the stories reflect the events substantially as they happened.
Wright then circles back to his original topic. On the one hand, Wright poses a question to the “scientific” historian. If this is the best explanation, as shocking as it is – can we accept it? This is a key question. Someone might object, “Well, all right. There is something here that is hard to explain, but look – dead people stay dead. There must be another explanation.” Here Wright brings worldview back into play: “I respect that position, but…it is…a matter of choice, not a matter of saying that something called scientific historiography forces us to take that route.”
It ultimately comes down to faith, but not a blind faith. The former bishop reminds us that “The most important decisions we make in life are not taken by post-Enlightenment left-brain rationality alone.” He argues that believing in the resurrection is reasonable.
A big part of the problem is the Enlightenment’s baggage. Wright says:
“When Marcus Borg and I debate each other on these topics, we don’t use the word ‘miracle’ because we both agree that the term is too infected by post-Enlightenment debates. It is accompanied, especially in America, with the idea that God exists outside natural processes and sometimes reaches in and does *something* and then pushes off again. That is how a lot of people think of miracle, though that view is more part of the superman myth of God than part of Christian theology and history.”
Wright further argues that:
“The historian has to offer a plausible hypothesis of why the disciples used the language of resurrection. My hypothesis is that there were two things: an empty tomb and sightings of Jesus. An empty tomb by itself doesn’t mean that much, nor do visions — many people have had visions, particularly after somebody they love has just died. Given the accounts of the empty tomb and of the sightings, however, I think the historian is faced with two parts of an arch with the piece in the middle — the resurrection — missing. The question is: Are these just two isolated phenomena?
“The historian cannot prove the resurrection in the same way that one can prove that Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. But I think the historian can say: Here are the plausible explanations. And there is an extreme implausibility of virtually all the rival suggestions, such as the one that James, the brother of the Lord, was walking around in the garden at the same time, and because he looked rather like Jesus, the women saw him in the half light. That story is not going to last more than an hour or two.”
Pax.
Lee.
Wright is Christian.
ARK: Wright is Christian.
LEE: So what? He’s also a respected world-renowned NT academic and historian. They don’t just invite anyone to Glasgow University to give the Gifford Lectures, as they did Wright in 2018
Pax.
Lee.
ARK: Wright is Christian.
LEE: THIS is all you can say in response to Wright’s and my arguments?
Typical. If you can’t address the argument being made you simply cast aspersions on the guy making the argument.
You should be a politician, Ark.
Pax.
Lee.
Okay … fair enough. As you think I am biased against Christians and are not happy with my call for evidence, let’s try Dominic Crossan. He’s a Christian.
Please address his argument regarding the resurrection of the character Jesus of Nazareth.
And, in case you are tempted to derail this thread, you are not allowed to say he is not a proper Christian.
The fact that this entire thread has derailed from the actual original blog post made me snicker as I read your words. lol…Whatever.
It’s all about evidence, is it not?. This is the reason you are at loggerheads with Ken Ham. You even did him the honour of writing a book!
I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy on display by Christians, here, and in other spheres,
It’s unfortunate you are so close minded you cannot see this yet (with Lee) are at pains to try to assert I am close minded
This is what is truly risible.
However, on second thoughts, maybe you, rather than Lee should address Crossan’s argument regarding the Resurrection of the character Jesus of Nazareth?
After all, you have the qualifications to meet his argument head on as it were, so it should not be that difficult for you.
ARK: Okay … fair enough. As you think I am biased against Christians and are not happy with my call for evidence, let’s try Dominic Crossan. He’s a Christian.
Please address his argument regarding the resurrection of the character Jesus of Nazareth.
LEE: We’re never really going to get anywhere because you don’t seem to understand what constitutes evidence.
But as for Crossan, he doesn’t believe there WAS a resurrection, but instead argues that wild dogs ate the corpse of Jesus before it could be buried. Crossan has said, “I do not think anyone, anywhere, at any time brings dead people back to life.” Thus his world-view colors his interpretation of the resurrection narratives.
To Crossan “resurrection” is a metaphor for a deeper, inner spiritual transformation of some kind. Jesus was in some way “exalted” by God and the only terminology the disciples could come up with to describe that event was “resurrection”–despite the fact that that word only and ever denoted a dead body being raised to life and not some kind of “exaltation.” This was his basic position in his 2006 debate with NT Wright which was later published.
In their 2006 book *The Last Week* which Crossan co-authored with the late Prof. Marcus Bog Prof. Crossan argued that it doesn’t matter whether the resurrection literally happened or not. What REALLY matters is how that story can still serve as a metaphor to transform our lives via “Jesus’ ongoing presence.”
Dr. Ben Witherington III summed up my opinion of Crossan and Borg’s view nicely, and much better than I could’ve said it:
“’Resurrection Lite,’ or the resurrection of pure metaphor or even pure otherworldliness, was not what the earliest Christians believed in. ‘Less intellectually filling, still tastes great,’ was not their motto. They had an interest in historical reality, especially the historical reality of Jesus and his resurrection, because they believed that their faith, for better or for worse, was grounded in it.”
As for Crossan being or not being a “proper Christian,” who makes that call?
Anyone can claim they’re a Christian, but that doesn’t necessarily make them one, anymore than me sitting in a dog kennel makes me a dog.
So here we have a “proper Christian” who denies the most important core tenet of Christianity. To me that’s like a card-carrying vegetarian who loves pork.
Pax.
Lee.
But his argument is based on the lack of evidence.
Same as me.
So YOU have defined what a Christian is based on your acceptance of someone’s else’s interpretation.
I consider this more than a little biased.
And you did not address his argument, but merely dismissed it, and to do that you copy and pasted someone else’s text, to boot.
ARK; But his argument is based on the lack of evidence.
Same as me.
LEE: No, Ark. Look carefully at what he said:
“I do not think anyone, anywhere, at any time brings dead people back to life.”
THIS statement is why he doesn’t believe the evidence in the gospels for the resurrection, because of his prior commitment to a non-supernatural faith. Crossan will tell you the gospels are EVIFDENCE, just not RELIABLE evidence for a factual portrait of the historical Jesus.
ARK: So YOU have defined what a Christian is based on your acceptance of someone’s else’s interpretation.
I consider this more than a little biased.
LEE: So a vegetarian who eats pork is a legitimate vegetarian? A Christian who doesn’t believe in miracles is a Christian? Don’t there have to be some, basic criteria to define who’s in and who’s out of various groups/religions? Could I REALLY be a Muslim if I didn’t believe in Muhammed OR the Quran? Would merely having Muslim parents make me a Muslim, or do I actually also have to believe and do certain things?
ARK: And you did not address his argument, but merely dismissed it, and to do that you copy and pasted someone else’s text, to boot.
I did not dismiss his argument. That I posted Witherington addressing his argument, whom I agree with does not constitute a dismissal.
But okay. Let me reiterate, completely and totally in my own words:
I think Crossan wants a non-supernatural Jesus, a Jesus who walked around making pithy sayings, but never really made any real demands on people, other than a kind of Bill and Ted “be excellent to each other” kind of thing, and Crossan thinks Jesus was a non-violent revolutionary, crucified as a threat to Roman stability, yet exactly how this Jesus came to be viewed as enough of a threat to get executed by the Romans kind of escapes me.
Because he does not believe miracles can or ever did occur Crossan (though Crossan accepts Jesus’ healings) wants a Jesus divorced from the supernatural. Yet to divorce Jesus from the supernatural–including the resurrection–is akin to trying to divorce Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from the American Civil Rights Movement.
So no matter the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, Crossan has to explain it away because of his prior commitment to a denial the supernatural.
Pax.
Lee.
Yes,Lee, l know what Crossan said. And he said this because the resurrection claims in the gospels have no supporting evidence to demonstrate their veracity.
Crossan does not consider the gospel accounts to be historically reliable.
He doesn’t have to explain anything
However,Gerd Ludeman’s perspective is interesting, and workable.
People do not become Christian because of the supposed evidence about a resurected Jesus, they become Christian because of faith, due to Indoctrination at the knee or because of later trauma related to emotional issues.
Francis Collins is as good an example of the latter.
And you fall into one or the other of these camps, as does Joel.
If there was compelling evidence rather than mere anonymous accounts it would follow that believers in other gods and other faiths would likely convert in an instant.
And this is why faith and Indoctrination, not evidence, is crucial to maintain belief.
ARK: However,Gerd Ludeman’s perspective is interesting, and workable.
People do not become Christian because of the supposed evidence about a resurected Jesus, they become Christian because of faith, due to Indoctrination at the knee or because of later trauma related to emotional issues.
LEE: William L. Craig converted because of the intellectual underpinnings of the faith, as did Nancy Pearcy. I could name dozens of others. Alister McGrath immediately comes to mind. McGrath is a former atheist who has a PhD in molecular biophysics from Oxford; after his conversion he became a theologian and an Anglican priest. CS Lewis was an atheist and professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford and Cambridge who converted after he studied the intellectual evidence for the faith.
Many grow up with the fuzzy, emotional version of Christianity you think characterizes the faith yet stay in the faith because of the intellectual evidence.
ARK: Francis Collins is as good an example of the latter.
LEE: Why do you keep saying this?! Collins DID NOT convert because of “later trauma related to emotional issues”!!! He converted because he noticed terminal patients who were at peace with dying because of their Christian faith, then read intellectual books like CS Lewis’ *Mere Christianity* and was persuaded by Lewis’ arguments for the existence of a Moral Law. It still took Collins two years before he officially converted and became a practicing Christian.
You need to read Collins’ book before you try to lecture others on why he converted.
ARK: And you fall into one or the other of these camps, as does Joel.
LEE: Ark, you have no idea what you’re talking about man.
Is it really reassuring to live in such total denial?
Pax.
Lee.
Sorry ,Lee, you’re wrong.
Every one who becomes a Christian is because of Indoctrination as a child and / or always includes an emotional / traumatic component in adult conversions.
Collins converted because of a form of Death Aniexty. He acknowledges as much in a video about his conversion. Go look it up.
I’ll venture you and Joel fall into one or the other of the two camps.
Of course culture plays a huge part as well, which is why you are not Hindu or Muslim for example.
Supposed intellectual reasons only feature as a means to justify the emotional aspects in lieu of the abscence of verifiable evidence.
In other words, faith.
So, Crossan who most definitely self identifies as a Christian , is probably the most honest of the lot of you in as much as he recognises there is no evidence for the resurrection claims found in the gospels.
The point I have been making all along.
Hahaha…Good Lord, Ark. That’s awesome.
Thank you,Joel!
Nice of you to say so.
Out of interest, as I can’t remember if I ever asked,were you indoctrinated as a kid or did you convert as an adult?
Please don’t try to play armchair psychiatrist. Lol…
Not at all! Merely trying to see if your upbringing/ conversion follows the generally established pattern or were there other factors involved.
So … Raised Christian or teen/ adult conversion?
When you tell someone, “If you’re a Christian, I already know that you were either ‘indoctrinated’ into a cult as child or you have suffered “emotional trauma” as an adult,” you are really telling the world, “I have my pre-determined categories into which I pigeonhole all Christians into. I don’t respect them as mature, thoughtful adults who make intelligent decisions. I have already determined them to be either brainwashed or emotionally damaged.”
When you start with that, and then say, “Okay, Christian, which one are you?” why would you expect them to answer you or to treat you seriously? By the very way you broach the topic, you are declaring, “I am NOT an open-minded, thoughtful person who wants to find the truth. I am a self-righteous troll, looking to condemn and belittle everyone who doesn’t share my views.”
As you obviously reject my either or scenario, it seems you are alluding to another option?
Yes. I grew up in a Christian home, but then critically examined and thought out Christianity when I was older, and came to the conclusion that it was indeed true.
But it isn’t, of course and there is no evidence to support the foundational claims /doctrines. Any genuine critical examination will reveal this lack and this is where one’s cultural roots often come into play.
But you at least put Judaism and Islam through the same critical examination, yes?
Was there also an emotional trigger of any kind,something along the lines of what Collins experienced?
Hahaha…oh, it isn’t true? Well then!
You wrote you critically examined it and concluded it was true. What specific evidence did you examine which revealed it’s veracity?
Oh, and don’t you fancy tackling Crossan’s argument re: the lack of (substantiated, ) evidence for the gospel resurrection claims?
You and he are both scholars and I’m pretty sure you’re aware of his position and why, yes?
I read him a long time ago and was thoroughly unimpressed. I’m not going to bother rehashing all that because (a) I already know what your response will be, and (b) Again, this OP was about my interview about Ken Ham.
Your rejection of Ham’s interpretation revolves around evidence. I would have thought you might apply the same or similar with regards Crossan’s position and the resurrection of Jesus?
Maybe some other time. I’m not going to get into a full-blown critique of Crossan in a thread that stems from my interview about Ken Ham.
Fair enough. Might be worth to consider a post at some time? That would certainly be interesting!
ARK: Every one who becomes a Christian is because of Indoctrination as a child and / or always includes an emotional / traumatic component in adult conversions.
LEE: And you’ve personally interviewed every adult convert for the past 2,000 years?
Of course not. That argument is facile.
ARK: Collins converted because of a form of Death Aniexty. He acknowledges as much in a video about his conversion. Go look it up.
LEE: I don’t have to “look it up” because I’ve read Collins’ book where he tells readers in his own words how and why he converted. But since I don’t have my copy of *The Language of God* handy here’s what Collins says about his conversion from Biologos’ website:
“One afternoon, I was with one of my patients, a wonderful woman, much like a grandmother, who had very bad heart disease. She had a particularly bad episode of chest pain while I was with her. She got through it, and at the end of that, explained to me how her faith in Jesus was the thing that helped her in that situation. She realized that the doctors around her weren’t really able to give her that much help, but her faith was. And after she finished her own very personal description of that faith, she turned to me. I had been silent, and she looked at me quizzically, and then she asked, ‘What do you believe, Doctor?’ I was stunned. I said I didn’t really know. Her question had made me realize that as an atheist, I had arrived at an answer to the most important issue that we humans ever deal with. Is there a God? And I had arrived there without ever really looking at the evidence. I was supposed to be a scientist. If there’s one thing scientists claim they do is to arrive at conclusions based upon evidence. And I hadn’t taken the trouble to do that.
“So I was determined to search for evidence. I was greatly assisted by a pastor who lived down the road, who tolerated my blasphemous questions and gave me a copy of CS Lewis’ wonderful book, Mere Christianity. Here was an Oxford scholar, a prodigiously developed intellect, who had traveled the same path. Within those pages, I realized for the first time that one can come to belief on a rational basis. In fact, I soon discovered that there are many pointers towards a creator that come from science itself. The universe had a beginning. It follows elegant mathematical laws. And it is fine tuned by the way all those constants that determine the behavior of matter and energy seem to have been set just in a certain, very precise range to make life possible. As I searched for more evidence of what God must be like, I encountered the person of Jesus Christ. I was amazed to discover how much we know about his life. I had thought that Christ was as much myth as history. As I studied more, I learned there is a great deal of evidence for his teachings, and even for his having risen literally from the dead. The evidence was compelling, and it demanded a decision. That day at my patient’s bedside started a journey for me, a journey that I was reluctant to begin, but I felt I needed to. It was a journey that I thought would result in strengthening my atheism — but to my surprise, resulted in my conversion. I am now a follower of Jesus.”
I don’t see anything in the above about “death anxiety.” I DO see a lot about Collins looking for and finding EVIDENCE, which he says he found COMPELLING, leading him to the ultimate conclusion that “I realized for the first time that one can come to belief on a rational basis.”
This should settle the issue of how/why Collins converted.
Pax.
Lee.
Why,as an atheist, would he respond to her question with: I don’t really know?
Why as an atheist would he be remotely interested in any god let alone the Christian god? This is not what an atheist would say and his response is therefore somewhat untruthful and suggests he was anxious, especially being around people who were close to death .
To then go on a bender in pursuit of evidence sounds fascile.
That he went to a pastor and then read Lewis is bordering on the comical.
In truth he found no evidence merely an answer to his anxiety.
He reveals no evidence nearly offers standard apologetic/evangelical drivel.
I might buy the god of the deist but Yahweh/Jesus? No sir, that is simply risible.
In this little speech he sounds almost as bad as Strobel!
That he claimed to finally commit himself to Jesus,falling to his knees upon seeing a frozen waterfall that reminded him of the Trinity, is borderline psychotic.
So once again you claim evidence but fail to present any.
Give it up, Lee.
It is faith, not objective, verifiable evidence.
Simply an unsupported claim. Always has been and always will be.
Sorry, didn’t see this .
ARK: Why,as an atheist, would he respond to her question with: I don’t really know?
LEE: Because he was being HONEST? Because for an atheist to say categorically that God doesn’t exist is a statement of FAITH? Even your poster-boy Richard Dawkins has to admit that he can’t say categorically that God doesn’t exist.
ARK: Why as an atheist would he be remotely interested in any god let alone the Christian god? This is not what an atheist would say and his response is therefore somewhat untruthful and suggests he was anxious, especially being around people who were close to death .
LEE: It takes real chutzpah for you to speak for all atheists and tell them what they can or cannot say. To insist that atheists tow a party line sounds suspiciously like the kind of group-think you accuse Evangelical Christians of being prey to.
Apparently being an atheist nowadays means never seriously questioning the presuppositions upon which your atheism is based and then closing your mind to any evidence that doesn’t support those presuppositions.
And you accuse ME of blind faith?
In other words, “Don’t bother me with facts or evidence because I’ve already made up my mind.”
ARK: To then go on a bender in pursuit of evidence sounds fascile.
That he went to a pastor and then read Lewis is bordering on the comical.
In truth he found no evidence merely an answer to his anxiety.
He reveals no evidence nearly offers standard apologetic/evangelical drivel.
I might buy the god of the deist but Yahweh/Jesus? No sir, that is simply risible.
In this little speech he sounds almost as bad as Strobel!
LEE: Again, have you even READ his book? 90% of the book is an examination of various types of evidence, including the evidence for design from DNA.
ARK: That he claimed to finally commit himself to Jesus,falling to his knees upon seeing a frozen waterfall that reminded him of the Trinity, is borderline psychotic.
LEE: And you got your PhD in psychology from where exactly?
ARK: So once again you claim evidence but fail to present any.
Give it up, Lee.
It is faith, not objective, verifiable evidence.
Simply an unsupported claim. Always has been and always will be.
LEE: What I provided you with is EVIDENCE in Collins’ own words that his two-year conversion was based upon a RATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF THE EVIDENCE and not a nervous breakdown as you claimed!
Have you even read his book?
Pax.
Lee.
What you have provided is pretty much bog standard testimony from an evangelical Christian who believes he was atheist but sounds more like he was simply having a crisis of faith.
I wonder how he would have reacted if asked the same question by a Muslim or Hindu?
No doubt we would probably be looking at a devout Muslim Francis Collins clutching the Qu’ran to his breast extolling all the virtues of divine guidance and frozen waterfalls.
I imagine that devout Christians such as you would likely be praying for his soul or vilifying him and the US government for placing him,a Muslim for goodness sake, in a position of such influence?
Let’s be honest here, Lee, it’s obvious Islam is the correct religion to follow as it declares itself to be in the opening of the Qu’ran.
Furthermore, numerous highly qualified Islamic scholars will explain to you why the resurrection tale is simply nonsense … No doubt with evidence to support their assertions.
Consider the hundreds of millions of Muslims who acknowledge this.
Are they all lying? Is Islam some sort of global conspiracy to undermine Christianity?
Or perhaps they have simply been indoctrinated? Culture etc…?
However, one has to wonder why on earth you of all people are unable to recognise the fact of the sincerity of Muslims and the veracity of their faith and are apparently steadfast in your resistance to convert when the evidence is as plain as the nose on your face!
It is truly amazing to see just how much, and to what extent, you have insulated yourself against listening to anyone else who thinks differently than you. It doesn’t matter if the guy is a leading scientist of the time, or a leading Biblical Scholar, or a Christian who has actually read all your revered non-Christian thinkers/scholars and have found them not convincing. In your mind, if anyone disagrees with you, they are either indoctrinated, insincere, or inflicted with trauma. And that means you don’t have to respect them or really take anything they say seriously. You dismiss them out of the gate.
Open-minded, that is not.
Cultish mentality, it is.
It is truly amazing to see just how much, and to what extent, you have insulated yourself against listening to anyone else who thinks differently than you. ,
I have probably listened to / read every major Christian apologist including the likes of Keller, Wright, Lennox, Craig, Turek, Licona, Habermas, Strobel and oodles more … including you!
Every one of them relies on faith. None has ever presented evidence to demonstrate the veracity of their beliefs. Faith first then clever arguments to justify them.
Not any more it doesn’t. Maybe at some point it did. But I I have read and listened to too many to consider I am likely to hear anything substantial regarding evidence for their beliefs from any of them. Plus, there are so many highly qualified Christian deconverts , degreed individuals who attended divinity schools, have PHDs, and many went on to become ministers.
Also there are many similarly qualified bible scholars who are NOT in the least bit Christian who recognise that the Christian position regarding so-called evidence is untenable. Faith wins out every time.
In the main this is correct, and not because they disagree with me but because their position lacks credibility. All you have to do is read a handful of the Testimonies on the Clergy Project to understand why this position is often fact.
Or, you could write a rebuttal here and now explaining why the hundreds if not thousands of deconverts, and especially former professionals , are wrong.
This would be a test of just how brutally honest you are, especially as so many deconverts were once in the same or similar position as you and Lee, devout and imbued with an unshakeable faith that they believed was supported by evidence.
Once again, all you have to do to dispel my ”close minded” view is provide concrete evidence to demonstrate the veracity of the foundational claims of your religion.
“Or, you could write a rebuttal here and now explaining why the hundreds if not thousands of deconverts, and especially former professionals, are wrong.”
I have no desire to do that. I’ll respect any person’s decision. If I don’t agree with them, I’m not going to obsess in trying to “rebut” them or “prove them wrong.” And that’s the difference between you and me–you feel it is your mission to go out attacking every Christian out there and trying to “prove them wrong.” That kind of close-minded ferocity says a lot about you, quite frankly. There’s no way to dispel your close-mindedness–you’ve locked the doors to your mind from the inside.
But you already have. You wrote a book for goodness sake!
If that isn’t ”close-minded ferocity” I don’t know what is!
And you did it because you know Ham is wrong and his type of apologetics is damaging in so many was, not least of all for young children.
So why stop here?
Why would you balk at demonstrating why a deconvert is also wrong in their thinking?
Surely, as with YEC, you have solid evidence to demonstrate why deconvertees have taken the wrong path?
Surely, you know the difference between those two things.
It all boils down to evidence,Joel.
You take pot shots at Ken Ham and YEC, yet now seem affronted for some odd reason at the suggestion you should dismantle the reasons put forward by those who deconvert.
Why not take Ehrman to task?
Surely you have enough “firepower” to wipe the floor with his scepticism?
I can’t imagine you would be afraid to tackle his reasons for deconversion head on?
I wrote an entire series on one of Erhman’s books. I’ll challenge academic arguments all day long. I’m not going to attack someone over whether he believes/disbelieves in God.
I wouldn’t expect you to.
So what are some of the academic reasons his deconversion is …. ‘Wrong’?
Such academic reasons would logically be able to be extrapolated to include ( most) other deconvertees.
There are no “academic reasons” for deconversion.
Here’s a link to the first post I did in my book analysis of Ehrman’s “How Jesus Became God.” Enjoy…
http://www.joeledmundanderson.com/bart-ehrmans-how-jesus-became-god-part-1-a-book-analysis-series/
So it would be fair to state there are no academic reasons for conversion either, yes?
@Joel.
Which aspects of the resurrection did you subject to critical examination and what objective evidence did you uncover which led you to conclude its veracity?
Oh, and I did ask what was the evidence you critically examined but you have yet to respond.
Perhaps this evidence would give me something new to research?
Dear Dr. Anderson,
One aspect of your blog that is pure comic gold is the relationship you have with Gary and Ark on the one hand. That was something I really enjoyed. These two trolls are so enamored with your blog that they keep returning for more.
Yours sincerely,
Computer Nerd
I wonder why when one presses on your name it redirects straight to Joel?
Huh?
When one taps on the name Computer Nerd it directs to your name. Odd ,don’t you think?
No clue…yes odd
I’m not computer savvy enough to know how these things work. *Shrug*
Anyhow, what was the evidence you critically examined to determine the veracity of Christianity that made you become a believer?
ARK: Anyhow, what was the evidence you critically examined to determine the veracity of Christianity that made you become a believer?
LEE: I can tell you what evidence I examined as an adult that KEPT me a believer:
a) The internal evidence that Paul and the gospels are reliable sources.
b) The external evidence for the reliability of Paul and the gospels
c) The ancient non-Christian historical sources for Jesus
d) The evidence for the existence of a Moral Law
e) Reading philosophy, ancient and modern, Christian and non-Christian
f) The evidence for the universe’s beginning and fine-tuning
g) Studied the Enlightenment, modernism and postmodernism
h) The evidence for/against truth-claims of other faiths/systems/worldviews (atheism; Judaism; Islam; Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Scientologists, Christian Scientists, Mormonism, Hinduism, Buddhism; Bahai; Wiccans, Druids, UFO Abductees, Satanists, etc.)
i) Reading the counter-arguments of atheists and skeptics in internet forums, which so far have been pretty unpersuasive because for the most part (there have been one or two exceptions over the years), none of you are able/willing to rationally discuss the actual evidence. Certainly not if your and Gary’s arguments are the standard. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it it is.
What I’ve read is something like three hundred books more or less so far on the above topics, and will keep reading. I must’ve talked with something like two dozen atheists/skeptics at this point and will probably keep talking to non-believers.
I was not prompted to do any of this study by any deep traumatic episode; I just decided at about age 25 (am now 52) that if if my faith was/is true it can withstand my intellectual scrutiny, that I needed to know, not just WHAT I believe but WHY I believe it.
Does any of this mean I’m 100% certain or don’t occasionally have doubts? Of course not.
But at this point I think if I ever de-converted it would be on emotional and not intellectual grounds because the intellectual grounding for the faith/my faith is too strong. At this stage of my life I can’t really imagine being so emotional that I threw reason out the window but I suppose it’s theoretically possible.
Pax.
Lee.
You fail at the first point The gospels are not reliable.
They are anonymous and riddled with error across multiple disciplines including interpolation and outright forgery.
The long ending of gMark, the Johannine Comma and the women caught in adultery come to mind as three well-known examples.
Perhaps you need to broaden your reading material to include highly qualified bible scholars who are NOT Christians?
ARK: You fail at the first point The gospels are not reliable.
They are anonymous and riddled with error across multiple disciplines including interpolation and outright forgeries.
The long ending of gMark, the Johannine Comma and the women caught in adultery come to mind as three well-known examples.
LEE: Your working knowledge of NT studies isn’t very impressive if you automatically equate textual variants with “forgeries.” Someone as well-read as you claim to be shouldn’t make such mistakeS.
ARK: Perhaps you need to broaden your reading material to include highly qualified bible scholars who are NOT Christians?
LEE: A few non-Christian scholars I’ve read:
Mustafa Aryol
Marcus Borg
JD Crossan
Lena Einhorn
Bart D. Ehrman
Paula Frederiksen
Robert W. Funk
Karen King
Gerd Lüdemann
Amy-Jill Levine
Hyam Maccoby
Marvin Meyer
Elaine Pagels
Barbara Thiering
Geza Vermes
These are the ones I can think of off the top of my head who I have in my library. Are these authors “non-Christian” and “highly qualified” enough for you? If you’d like to debate the major arguments of any/all of these I can oblige. But the whole thing is just silly.
The fact is that nothing you said above in any way constitutes a valid, rational argument. You post a lot but always manage never actually say anything.
And the way you purposely distort/misinterpret Francis Collins’ conversion story–which I posted from his own website and which I notice you haven’t commented on–doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence that you are willing to have an honest discussion.
Pax.
Lee.
Forgery is not “Textual variant” …and yes, I know the difference so you are either being wilfully ignorant or plain disingenious.
So,after reading all these non Christian scholars you remain a believer.
Wow…well your faith is very strong.
I have no interest in apologetic arguments and especially not with with one so obviously steeped Inthe faith and close minded to evidence as you are.
As your entire faith rests on the supposed bodily resurrection of the bible character Jesus of Nazareth either produce evidence to demonstrate the veracity of this claim or we’ll simply have to acknowledge you have nothing to offer and leave it at that.
It’s up.to you?
ARK: Forgery is not “Textual variant” …and yes, I know the difference so you are either being wilfully ignorant or plain disingenious.
LEE: Apparently you don’t, the way you keep using textual variants and multiple endings of Mark as proof of “forgery.” Or is there someone else making posts from your account?
ARK: So,after reading all these non Christian scholars you remain a believer.
Wow…well your faith is very strong.
LEE: Because I have not found their arguments persuasive. Simple as that.
ARK: I have no interest in apologetic arguments and especially not with with one so obviously steeped Inthe faith and close minded to evidence as you are.
LEE: I’m not sure you really understand what an apologetic is.
And for you to call me “close-minded” is a riot. Would a close-minded person read Robert Eisenman or Dom Crossan?
ARK: As your entire faith rests on the supposed bodily resurrection of the bible character Jesus of Nazareth either produce evidence to demonstrate the veracity of this claim or we’ll simply have to acknowledge you have nothing to offer and leave it at that.
It’s up.to you?
LEE: I have literally INUNDATED you with evidence. The fact that you repeatedly and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it AS evidence and intelligently deal with any of it puts the onus on you and makes you look foolish.
I don’t think you’re capable of dealing with it, so why pretend? Why not just admit it?
Pax.
Lee.
Re Textual variant. You’ve claimed to have read Ehrman. He covers this issue.
The ending of gMark – there are two(known) – is recognised as an interpolation / forgery.
There are more than enough scholarly references for you to search so I’m not going to bother with an extended explanation when you are simply being disingenuous.
It doesn’t feature in the earliest gospels and is a later addition. Period.
Christian apologetics (Ancient Greek: ἀπολογία, “verbal defence, speech in defence”)[1] is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity against objections.
Wiki.
Anything you’d like to add to try to defend your ignorance?
obviously you still don’t understand how evidence works and are sticking with your faith. If this ware not the case you would have converted long ago.
So, yes, you are close minded. Indoctrination has this effect on people. It might net be regarded as your ”fault” but you should have enough intellectual savvy by now to acknowledge that faith, not evidence, is what holds you to religion.
The only source is the gospels. It is already recognised they are anonymous and unreliable. Also, the long ending of Mark is an interpolation/ forgery so this diminishes any claims of evidence for the resurrection tale.
If you cannot provide any objective evidence to verify the claims then they remain claims. Period.
Have the decency to acknowledge all you have is a claim and your faith in that claim.
After all, this is why you are a Christian and not Muslim, is it not?
I just continue to read your responses, Ark, and just shake my head. Just amazing.
While you are reading me and I’m reading you we are dialoguing. That’s being open minded!
This can only be a good thing, surely?
Maybe if we strive to always be completely honest and follow where the evidence leads, the truth will prevail?
I am more than happy with this.
ARK: Re Textual variant. You’ve claimed to have read Ehrman. He covers this issue.
The ending of gMark – there are two(known) – is recognised as an interpolation / forgery.
There are more than enough scholarly references for you to search so I’m not going to bother with an extended explanation when you are simply being disingenuous.
It doesn’t feature in the earliest gospels and is a later addition. Period.
LEE: The fact that it’s a later addition doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a “forgery.” You use that word because it evokes deliberate dishonesty with an intent to deceive. The multiple endings of Mark could be late yet not “forgeries.” The early fathers were aware of the issue and not really bothered but, and neither am I. You still have a resurrection in Mark no matter which ending you pick.
ARK: Christian apologetics (Ancient Greek: ἀπολογία, “verbal defence, speech in defence”)[1] is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity against objections.
LEE: If it’s making a rational defense in support of a position why do you make fun of and sneer at apologetics?
ARK: obviously you still don’t understand how evidence works and are sticking with your faith. If this ware not the case you would have converted long ago.
LEE: You have it backwards; I’m sticking with my faith BECAUSE of evidence. But I can’t make you understand the basic fundamentals of how evidence works in history. Lord knows I’ve tried, yet you keep clinging desperately to this made-up, hyper-skeptical definition of “evidence” you’ve invented.
The Cambridge Dictionary gives this as one of its definitions of evidence:
objects, documents, official statements, etc. that are used to prove something is true or not true, especially for legal or insurance purposes
If that doesn’t describe Paul (which you’ve never addressed) and the gospels, I don’t know what does!
ARK: So, yes, you are close minded. Indoctrination has this effect on people. It might net be regarded as your ”fault” but you should have enough intellectual savvy by now to acknowledge that faith, not evidence, is what holds you to religion.
LEE: More long-winded hyperbole.
ARK: The only source is the gospels. It is already recognised they are anonymous and unreliable.
LEE: “Anonymous” doesn’t necessarily equal “unreliable.” You say they’re “unreliable?” Prove it. Tell me–in specifics–how they’re “unreliable.”
ARK: Also, the long ending of Mark is an interpolation/ forgery so this diminishes any claims of evidence for the resurrection tale.
LEE: Maybe you oughta READ Mark 16 first? Because if you did you’d notice that even with the short ending of Mark at verse 8–which nearly ALL translations will tell you about in a footnote–in verse SIX the tomb is empty of Jesus’ body and the angel tells the women that Jesus has been resurrected.
So whether you prefer the short ending or one of the variants makes absolutely no difference. You still get a resurrection.
But I want you to stop ducking Paul’s creedal statement centered on the resurrection from I Cor. 15:1-7 and explain it. Even without the gospels we still have Paul as our earliest witness to the resurrection.
Pax.
Lee.
Your continued refusal to present a single piece objective evidence, and your off hand dismissal of acknowledged non Christian scholars has become pedantic and exhausting
You are more than welcome to have the last word.
That should’ve been I Cor. 15:3-7.
Pax.
Lee.
ARK: Your continued refusal to present a single piece objective evidence, and your off hand dismissal of acknowledged non Christian scholars has become pedantic and exhausting
LEE: How is that any different than you offhandedly dismissing conservative scholars?
Regardless, I did not dismiss on-Christian offhand. I told you that I read them and did not find their arguments convincing. That hardly constitutes offhanded dismissal.
ARK: You are more than welcome to have the last word.
LEE: You can’t or won’t address any of the real issues so your retreat behind a screen of arrogance and ego. Okay. Fine. Suit yourself.
If you ever do want to have a real discussion you know where to find me.
Pax.
Lee.