Cross Post: "Scientific Atheist" on Jesus

[jpholding]

The follow comments come from a member of Planet Wisdom who calls himself Scientific Atheist. We'll see if we can get some cross posting out of him.
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SA was asked:

"Anywho, what I'm wondering is what do non-believers think of Jesus? What do you guys think happened to Him? Do you not believe He even existed? Or, do you believe He existed, but was not crucified? If you believe He existed and was crucified, do you not believe He was then resurrected?"

SA replied with:

"Do I believe he existed? He probably did.

Do I believe he was crucified? Maybe, although there is no contemporary record of this outside the disciples accounts.

My comment: There is no elaboration here, but I note at once that SA offers the standard "line" implying that somehow we need "contemporary record" of the crucifixion. Josephus, Lucian and Tacitus lived after Jesus died, of course, and are our best secular witnesses to the crucifixion.

For some reason skeptics never seem to be able to justify this requirement. All three of these writers were not "contemporary" with events they otherwise record, yet I have yet to see any professional historian make some issue of the matter, as though Tacitus is not reliable until his work records what was in his own lifespan (does this mean, what happened when he was a gurgling baby, he can be trusted to relate?). The "not contemporary" objection is an unjustified excuse. I'd like to see SA explain why it isn't.

SA continues:

Do I believe he was resurrected? No.

What do I believe really became of him if he was crucified? I don't know, there is no good evidence to substantiate any claim that I could make on this, and there are a multitude of things that might have happened - so I can't really claim that I know."

My comment: There is little here but evasion and non-answer. Vague claims of "a multitude of things" are an admission that the person has no answer and no explanation.

Someone replied with:

"What I don't understand is, no one (not in times past, or recent) has been able to come up with "good evidence" to contradict what the Scripture claims happened to Jesus."

SA typed in response:

"No wonder, there is so little evidence (of anything around that time, far less Jesus), and some has even been destroyed by the church (so they say).

My comment: So "they" say? Who in the world is "they"? Acharya S? Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code? Some magazine SA read in the barbershop? What kind of sourcework is this for a "scientific" atheist?

We maintain that the evidence for a person named Jesus existing is more than sufficient. Tekton has a huge article on this subject, which won't fit, so we'll just challenge SA on one of the cites: Tacitus, my favorite. Here is the core text on that where I believe we will find SA's concerns. (I don't think for example he's naive enough to suggest that Tacitus' passagewas forged, but we will see.)
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Is this historian/writer a reliable source? Is there good reason to trust what they say?

The answer here is: Absolutely! The Tacitean literature is full of praise for the accuracy, care, critical capability, and trustworthiness of the work of Tacitus, and it is singularly unfortunate that many writers in this subject area have failed to appreciate this!

Syme, who was regarded as one of the foremost Tacitean scholars, says [Sym.Tac, 398] "the prime quality of Cornelius Tacitus is distrust. It was needed if a man were to write about the Caesars." He adds [ibid., 281, 282] that Tacitus "was no stranger to industrious investigation" and his "diligence was exemplary."

Chilver [Chilv.Tac, 24] indicates that "for Tacitus scepticism was inescapable is not to be doubted."

Martin [Mart.Tac, 211] , though noting difficulties about discerning Tacitus' exact sources, says that "It is clear, then, that Tacitus read widely and that the idea that he was an uncritical follower of a single source is quite untenable."

Grant [Gran.Grec, 40-3; see also Gran.Tac, 18] , while charging Tacitus with bias, error, and "unfair selectivity" in various areas (especially associated with the Emperor Tiberius), nevertheless agrees that Tacitus "was careful to contrast what had been handed down orally with the literary tradition." Elsewhere he notes that "There is no doubt that (Tacitus) took a great deal of care in selecting his material." [ibid., 20]

Dudley [Dud.Tac, 29] notes that despite problems in discerning what sources Tacitus used, "it may be said with some confidence that the view that Tacitus followed a single authority no longer commands support."

Mellor [Mell.Tac, 20, 45] observes that although he made use of other sources, including friends like Pliny, Tacitus "does not slavishly follow, as some of his Roman predecessors did, the vagaries of his sources." He adds (ibid., 31-2) that, "If research is the consultation and evaluation of sources, there can be little doubt that Tacitus engaged in serious research though it is not often apparent in the smooth flow of his narrative." Tacitus "consulted both obscure and obvious sources," and "distinguishes fact from rumor with a scrupulosity rare in any ancient historian."

Benario [Benar.Tac, 87] tells us that Tacitus "chose judiciously among his sources, totally dependent upon none, and very often, at crucial points, ignored the consensus of his predecessors to impose his own viewpoint and his own judgment."

Wellesley [Dor.Tac, 65-6] remarks that investigation "very seldom shows (Tacitus) to be false to fact" and that archaeology has shown that "only once or twice is Tacitus found guilty of a small slip." He adds: "When the sources differ and the truth is hard to decipher, (Tacitus) takes refuge in ambiguous language or the balance of alternative and sometimes spiteful variants," rather than doing original research to determine which option is the truth. We may note that there is no such ambiguous language in the Christus cite.

Finally, Momigliano[Momig.CFou, 111-2] , while pointing out that Tacitus was of course "not a researcher in the modern sense," nevertheless says that he was "a writer whose reliability cannot be seriously questioned." He cites only one possible major error by Tacitus, but puts it down to him relying on a trusted predecessor rather than official records.

We therefore conclude that there is every reason to trust Tacitus as reliable. (Note not a word here about him not being "contemporary"!)

..."The sum total of the picture is clear. For the main narrative, Tacitius assumes the responsibility of the historian to get at the truth and present it. His guarantee was his own reputation. To make this narrative colorful and dramatic, he felt justified in introducing facts and motives which he might refute on logical grounds or leave uncontested but for which he did not personally vouch. There is no indication that he followed blindly the account of any predecessor." [ibid., 203-4] Mendell also notes that Tacitus was concerned for maintaining his integrity as a historian.

In the Annals, the work with the paragraph on Jesus, Mendell cites 30 instances where Tacitus uses specific phrases "to substantiate a statement or to present a statement for which he does not care to vouch." [ibid., 205] Mendell also notes that "In Books 11-16 of the Annals (the Jesus cite is in 15) Tacitus "concerns himself with the evidence and source references to a greater extent than in the earlier books." He relies on other historians, a bronze inscription (11.14), reports or memoirs (15.16), personal testimonies (15.73), and physical evidence (15.42). There are indications of searches for first-hand (15.41) and written (12.67, 13.17) evidence. [Mende.Tac, 207] Thus the cite on Jesus comes in the middle of one of Tacitus' most carefully-documented works.

In reporting a conspiracy of Piso to assassinate Nero, Tacitus acknowledges the difficulty of accurate knowledge of such conspiracies, indicates where his knowledge is uncertain, and does not use of one of Pliny's quotes as positive evidence because he considers it to be "wholly absurd." (15.53) [ibid., 209]

In short, Tacitus was a very careful historian - he would certainly not trust a source that he held in such disdain as he did Christians, and he would carefully check material that came to him, even from his friends...

Wells suggests that Tacitus "was merely repeating what Christians were then saying" [Well.WhoW, 20] ; "was surely glad to accept from Christians their own view that Christianity was a recent religion, since the Roman authorities were prepared to tolerate only ancient cults," [Well.HistEv, 17; Well.JesL, 42] and "(t)he context of Tacitus' remarks itself suggests that he relied on Christian informants."

This, as we have noted above, would be completely out of character for Tacitus: Careful inquiry was indeed part of Tacitus' modus operandi. (Ironically, in reference to the fact that Tacitus does not even say in the passage where Pilate ruled, Wells says, "Tacitus cannot be expected to give the life history of every incidental character he mentions." - [Well.JEaC, 186] . Would that he applied that criteria to Jesus in such a way!) Moreover, we have clear evidence that Tacitus would not simply repeat what he was told by people whom he disliked: When reporting on the history and beliefs of the Jews, whom he despised as much as the Christians, it seems fairly obvious from the disparaging descriptions given that Tacitus was not inclined to consult the Jews' "own view" or even "Jewish informants." Certainly no Jew told Tacitus the horrible things he suggested about the origins of Judaism!

But in a more positive light, we can also find two possible additional reasons for Tacitus to have investigated Christianity carefully:

First, a likely cause for investigation erupted right in Tacitus' backyard, so to speak, in Rome c. 95 A.D. Emperor Domitian's niece Domatilla, and her husband Favius Clemens, were accused of "atheism," related to "being carried away into Jewish customs." Judaism of course was a recognized religion, so it is quite likely that the "Jewish custom" referred to is Christianity [Benk.PagRo, 15-16] . Here, then, was a perfect motive for Tacitus to investigate the movement historically: Some of Rome's highest-placed people seem to have joined the movement!

Second, Tacitus seems to have had an interest in "pretenders," notably those who claimed to have been risen from the dead! Bowersock [Luc.TacT, 5] notes that Tacitus offers an "exceptionally detailed account" of "an adventurer who claimed to be a resurrected Nero," and also offered two other similar stories. In light of this, Tacitus would probably have shown a rather strong interest in claims of some kind of "pretender" being raised from the dead, as was the case with Jesus. (As an added note, considering the trouble that Tacitus records was gone to in order to unmask these "pretenders," a persuasive case can be made for Roman investigation into the claims of Christianity. The fact that Tacitus does not report any sort of "debunking" of Christus is even more significant!)

Benko [Benk.PagRo, 16] summarizes by noting that Tacitus "was too good a historian not to look into the origin of the cult" once he had reason to look into it, and that reason is provided either by Domatilla (as Benko suggests), by Tacitus' special interest in "pretenders," or by the accusations of Nero concerning the fire. Tacitus would check his sources carefully, and this makes his reference to Jesus all the more valuable.

The issue now turns to the question: Where did Tacitus get his information of Jesus? There is really no way to tell. Ancient historians generally felt no obligation to reveal their sources. (Dudley [Dud.Tac, 28] writes in this regard: "...an ancient historian was under no obligation to give his sources in detail, nor even to mention them at all," and Grant [Gran.Tac, 20] adds that "systematic, careful references are a modern invention.") Tacitus could have gotten his information from the work of historians whom he trusted, and whose work is now lost to us....

SA goes on:

However, I can come up with no convincing evidence against Barney and Betty Hill's accounts of being abducted by alien beings, and becoming close friends with them - and I don't believe them either (and I have the added advantage in this case of being able to interview and cross examine them, their friends, family, bank accounts etc as they are both still very much alive).

I hae yet to see a historian make an issue over their inability to "cross examine" such people, or pretend that this means that history as recorded is subject to doubt. Rather, they analyze what data they have and arrive at conclusions. SA needs to show us that the evidence is meagre enough here to warrant a "no verdict" -- I do not know enough about the Hills to comment, but I very much doubt that, for example, the Hills would have been able to encourage people to be socially ostracized or killed for their story (the Hills, I do know, got plenty of positive attention), or that they had physical evidence on the order of a missing body. SA needs to elaborate, not just throw out vague comparisons.

"we have so little evidence of that period in history, and no other accounts at all of Jesus or his life. Remember, lack of contra-indicating evidence doesn't equate to indicating evidence. There are many theories that are literally impossible to disprove - but most are not true.

Furthermore, there is the question of how much evidence has been "lost" or destroyed or hidden by the pious over the years. I wouldn't put it past the church, that's for sure."

This merely repeats what is above. We'd like to see SA justify his paranoia with some actual evidence. We are missing all but less than a dozen of the military pay slips issued by Rome, yet I don't see anyone claiming some conspiracy over it.

[Elisha]

No responses from skeptics, yet, JP. Tessie did give you this thanks:

Wow! Thank you so much for posting that!

One of my favorite parts:

3. How could the early Christian community honor the Gospels as authoritative unless they knew who had written them? Even granting such a late date as some critics surmise, it is doubtful that the Gospels could have gotten anywhere unless they were certainly attributable to someone who was recognized as knowing what they were writing about. (On the other hand, I must say that some critics assume a high degree of gullibility in the first-century church!) To this end, Hengel [CarMoo.Int, 66] has argued that the Gospels must have received their titles immediately - not in the second century. For an anonymous author to have penned a Gospel, and have it accepted as from the hand of one of the Quartet or any authoritative person, would have required them to first produce the Gospel, then present it as the work of another; they would have to concoct some story as to how it came peculiarly to be in their possession ("My grandmother knew Matthew and he gave her a copy...I don't know why she never told our family about it!"); get around the problem of why a work by such a person disappeared or was previously unknown; then get the church at large, first in his area and then throughout the Roman Empire (and would not the claimed discovery of such a document cause a sensation, and controversy?), to accept this work as genuine! Can any critic explain how these logistic difficulties were overcome? I have noted that they do well in waving around generalities, but never get down to the specifics of how Joe Gentile could have managed to pull off such a shebang on the church as a whole. Is there any parallel to this in secular history, where an enormous group at large was bamboozled by (and continued to be bamboozled by) not just one forgery, but four, attributed in a couple of cases to members of an inner circle, in widely separated places and times?

[Elisha]

Nik's (Scientific Atheist) reply to JP

For some reason skeptics never seem to be able to justify this requirement. All three of these writers were not "contemporary" with events they otherwise record, yet I have yet to see any professional historian make some issue of the matter, as though Tacitus is not reliable until his work records what was in his own lifespan

I require this for a very simple reason. Since Tacitus did not see Jesus crucified and resurrected, I'd like to know how he knew it really happened.

That is why historians go to great lengths to name their sources, and their sources sources, etc etc. They also go to great lengths to analyse their sources, to find out if they are reliable or not, and if their testimony is convincing. After all, no historian actually saw history - because it was in the past - therefore they are forced to rely on source material.

Tacitus, as far as I know, did not name any of his sources in relation to Jesus' life, crucifixion and resurrection. Therefore, the question remains, how did he know it happened? Did he simply believe hearsay? Was he simply repeating the canonical account? We just don't know.

There is little here but evasion and non-answer. Vague claims of "a multitude of things" are an admission that the person has no answer and no explanation.

That simply isn't true. It is an admission that I havn't enough data (in fact, I havn't the slightest bit of reliable data) to tell you exactly what did happen to Jesus.

My comment: So "they" say? Who in the world is "they"? Acharya S? Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code? Some magazine SA read in the barbershop? What kind of sourcework is this for a "scientific" atheist?

Did I centre my argument around this? No. Did I give it a huge great deal of credence? No. Why? Because I've never thoroughly investigated the subject, nor can I name any academic sources or paperwork. It remains a possibility of course - and one that, if I were interested enough, I would thoroughly investigate - but I certainly did not base my argument around this.

The issue now turns to the question: Where did Tacitus get his information of Jesus? There is really no way to tell. Ancient historians generally felt no obligation to reveal their sources.

After a whole swathe of information about just how reliable and good a historian Tacitus was, we come across this. If Tacitus really was a skeptic and a great historian- then why on earth didn't he write down his source material, and perform a proper historigraphical analysis on it? All good modern historians do. Without source material, what Tacitus heard about Jesus is nothing more than hearsay - because even if we don't doubt the truthfulness of Tacitus, he never himself saw the person he refers to, and we cannot, through his omission, analyse his sources of information.

I have yet to see a historian make an issue over their inability to "cross examine" such people, or pretend that this means that history as recorded is subject to doubt.

Clearly Mr Holding is yet to have a conversation about epistemology with a serious historian, if he has never met one who thinks that the historical record is subject to greater doubt than modern accounts.

Of course, by contrasting Betty and Barney Hill's account with the biblical account - I was showing that even though I was able to cross examine these witnesses, and analyse their circumstances very carefully - I still didn't believe them, and therefore a fortiori I have no reason to believe the bible. Clearly Mr Holding is clearly as ignorant of a fortiori argument as he is of standard epistemology.

I do not know enough about the Hills to comment, but I very much doubt that, for example, the Hills would have been able to encourage people to be socially ostracized or killed for their story

No, they havn't.

(the Hills, I do know, got plenty of positive attention),

I wouldn't have called it positive myself.

or that they had physical evidence on the order of a missing body.

A missing body or person doesn't count as physical evidence of anything at all of course, other than that that person is not currently in the room with you. If I went to a neighbouring province of Judea 2 thousand years ago and challenged them to "show me my cult leader" - they probably wouldn't be able to, even if he was staying at great expense in a plush hotel in Cairo, and being attended to by several attractive maids - or buried in the desert just outside the town.

People are credulous, and religion makes credulous people do stupid things, like risk their lives.

We'd like to see SA justify his paranoia with some actual evidence. We are missing all but less than a dozen of the military pay slips issued by Rome, yet I don't see anyone claiming some conspiracy over it.

In this case, we are missing thousands of accounts of people who met Jesus, saw miracles, and converted to his cult. We are also missing the majority of the disciple's accounts.

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Me
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JP, I'm just keeping both of the discussions that you have separated into one thread at PW. If anyone replies directly to your article, I'll be sure to post it at the thread you have started up on it.

[Elisha]

Reply from Tarmac

Debating the validity of Tacitus as a source for the historical Jesus seems rather redundant here.

a) Tacitus is accepted by scholarship to be a perfectly trustworthy source on this issue - thus if SA wishes to deny this, the burden of proof rests on him to demonstrate such a notion.

b) Tacitus never mentions the resurrection, which is what this debate is all about, and so ultimately this debate about the historicity of Tacitus has no bearing on the topic at hand.

c) My advice would be to stick with the gospels and 1 Cor 15 and really deal with the issues at the heart of this discussion.

d) Comments about historical epistemology should be careful, unless one is prepared to cite the literature one has read and mastered on historical epistemology - especially with regards to ancient texts.

e) No one here doubts that there was a historical Jesus [correct me if I'm wrong], thus that has been established. The question at hand is, was Jesus of Nazareth raised from the dead? What can history tells us about such an event? WHich explanation suits the evidence better and for what reasons?

See The Target and the Arrows and Resurrection in History and Theology

E N J O Y

[jpholding]

All righty then,

I require this for a very simple reason. Since Tacitus did not see Jesus crucified and resurrected, I'd like to know how he knew it really happened.

Tacitus also did not see 99% of the events he records. Do you therefore throw out all he wrote? I can tell that your knowledge of the historians is not very good:

That is why historians go to great lengths to name their sources, and their sources sources, etc etc.

This is misdirected. Neither Tacitus nor any ancient historian went to "great lengths" to name their sources. In fact, ancient historians generally felt no obligation to reveal their sources. Dudley [Dud.Tac, 28] writes in this regard: "...an ancient historian was under no obligation to give his sources in detail, nor even to mention them at all," and Grant [Gran.Tac, 20] adds that "systematic, careful references are a modern invention."

If you throw out the NT on this basis, you throw out nearly all ancient history.

They also go to great lengths to analyse their sources, to find out if they are reliable or not, and if their testimony is convincing.

Such is what we maintain was done by the NT writers. Luke in his preface claims to have done this. Socially, Christianity would not have survived or grown unless it had had convincing testimony. (This is a side issue; for an analysis see http://www.tektonics.org/nowayjose.html)

Did he simply believe hearsay? Was he simply repeating the canonical account? We just don't know.

That is merely a contrivance. His quality as a historian -- shown by the cited Tacitean scholars -- makes it the burden of the doubter to explain why his information on Jesus should be questioned. Obviously SA is not able to provide this, which is why he must resort to vague retorts. (I also agree with Tarmac's assessment and thank him.)

That simply isn't true. It is an admission that I havn't enough data (in fact, I havn't the slightest bit of reliable data) to tell you exactly what did happen to Jesus.

Then one wonders why SA sees fit to make his presence known on forums discussing the issue. If he is not informed enough to say what happened, he is also not informed enough to spread doubts about what happened.


Did I centre my argument around this? No. Did I give it a huge great deal of credence? No.

In essence, SA admits he has no excuse nor any source for his comment on this point, and is again merely spreading around unsubstantiated misinformation and trying to sanitize his error/presumption by means of a gross minimalism. This seems quite inconsistent with the professed agnosticism regarding what happened to Jesus.


If Tacitus really was a skeptic and a great historian- then why on earth didn't he write down his source material, and perform a proper historigraphical analysis on it? All good modern historians do

Note the word MODERN. As noted above, this was not an ancient practice. Nor do modern Tacitean scholars run around like chickens with no head over the difference.

Without source material, what Tacitus heard about Jesus is nothing more than hearsay

A mere contrivance. His quality again speaks against that. Moreover, SA is spreading around a false implication about "hearay" as though it is unreliable, obviously copying Thomas Paine's unsubstantiated screeds against it. As a lawyer wrote for me:
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As a newly-minted attorney, I've bristled at several instances where skeptics battled by J.P. Holding (usually those from the "low rent district") have labeled parts of the Bible "hearsay" in an effort to summarily dismiss it. Since older lawyers tell me I know more law now than I ever will again, I figure now's the time to put this nonsensical charge to rest. (Note: The following discussion uses the Federal Rules of Evidence, which have also been adopted by the state where I practice.) Contrary to the misconception held by many lay-people, the legal definition of "hearsay" is not "secondhand information." Hearsay, when used to exclude evidence, is defined as "a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted."[Fed.R.Ev. 801(c)]. Every out of court statement offered to prove its truth is hearsay. Statements made during debates between atheists and Christians are hearsay. Your local DJ's listing of songs he or she just played is hearsay. The lecture where I learned this is hearsay. Such statements are generally inadmissible in court, although there are exceptions. The reason for this is that the law assumes that in-court statements have certain safeguards that out-of-court statements lack. These safeguards are: 1) cross-examination; 2) the oath; and 3) the opportunity to observe the declarant's demeanor.[Weissenberger's Federal Evidence 400-401]. (As an interesting aside, atheists were once incompetent to testify at trial, since the oath would have been meaningless to them!) Now, this should adequately show the silliness of using legal evidence standards in this context, because I doubt if skeptics and critics are willing to only use statements made in court, under oath, and subject to cross-examination in this debate.

But just for fun, would the Rules of Evidence exclude statements within the Bible as hearsay? The answer is no. One class of statements excluded from the hearsay are statements contained in an ancient document. Fed.R.Ev. 803(16) provides this exception for Statements contained in ancient documents. "The following are not excluded by the hearsay rule . . . Statements in a document in existence twenty years or more the authenticity of which is established." Rule 901(8) sets out the method for authenticating ancient documents. "Evidence that a document or data compilation, in any form (A) is in such condition as to create no suspicion concerning its authenticity, (B) was in a place where it, if authentic, would, likely be, and (C) has been in existence twenty years or more at the time it is offered." J.P. Holding has plenty of material on this page to show that the Bible meets all of these requirements for authentication. Until someone successfully takes the Chicken Challenge, the Bible could be authenticated, and the Rules of Evidence would not exclude Biblical testimony on hearsay grounds. (The same also applies to Tacitus.)
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In short, it is clear that SA's "historical method" is one that is contrived for no other purpose than to give him an excuse to reject Christianity. His "method" is not known to professional historians.


Clearly Mr Holding is yet to have a conversation about epistemology with a serious historian, if he has never met one who thinks that the historical record is subject to greater doubt than modern accounts.

This is an evasive non-answer. No one is speaking here of "greater" or lesser doubt, but of doubt compared to other secular ancient works. In the meantime I note that SA quotes no such historian to this effect.


I wouldn't have called it positive myself.

Being interviewed for television, getting star attention, being "cult figures", is not positive?

A missing body or person doesn't count as physical evidence of anything at all of course, other than that that person is not currently in the room with you.

A missing body requires an explanation. What is SA's explanation for Jesus' missing body?

If I went to a neighbouring province of Judea 2 thousand years ago and challenged them to "show me my cult leader" - they probably wouldn't be able to

They most assuredly would be able to. Why not?

People are credulous, and religion makes credulous people do stupid things, like risk their lives.

Once again, nothing but a vague non-answer that amounts to, "People are stupid."

In this case, we are missing thousands of accounts of people who met Jesus, saw miracles, and converted to his cult. We are also missing the majority of the disciple's accounts.

A rather anachronistic complaint, being that 95% of people in the ancient world were illterate, and over 99% of all ancient literature is lost to us. In the meantime I see no secular historian demanding "thousands" of documents for any given event. If anything we have exactly the amount of lit we would expect: 4 Gospels, several letters.

Obviously SA has never seriously studied the ancient world. No one who had done so would be ignorant of the 95% illiteracy rate.

[Elisha]

Scientific Atheist's reply to JP Holding:

Tacitus also did not see 99% of the events he records. Do you therefore throw out all he wrote?

No, and I'm not "throwing out" anything. I'm merely stating that since Tacitus did not name his sources in this particular case, and was not contemporary to these events - then we have no reason to take this as anything but hearsay. That is the very reason why ALL modern historians of worth name their sources and analyse them.

Neither Tacitus nor any ancient historian went to "great lengths" to name their sources.

Then we should doubt ancient historian's accounts more than those of modern historians, especially if their accounts are of non-contemporary.

If you throw out the NT on this basis, you throw out nearly all ancient history.

I'm not "throwing out" anything - I am giving reason to doubt, and proportioning that doubt appropriately based on the soundness of the evidence, and the sort of proposition that is being analysed.

Luke in his preface claims to have done this.

And I claim to have been to Mars. I have not of course.

Socially, Christianity would not have survived or grown unless it had had convincing testimony.

Convincing to who? The ignorant sheep herders of the time? lets face it, a culture whose literati and historians are not yet well versed enough in epistemology to recognise the importance of historiography isn't going to be *that* hard to convince are they?

That is merely a contrivance. His quality as a historian -- shown by the cited Tacitean scholars -- makes it the burden of the doubter to explain why his information on Jesus should be questioned.

Yet, any historian can make mistakes, or simply believe popularly believed myths - especially if they do not find them of particular importance. We can never know how thoroughly Tacitus examined any of the claims or rumours or testimony he heard of Jesus' life and times - or indeed whether he ever considered the possibility that is was all fable.

If he is not informed enough to say what happened, he is also not informed enough to spread doubts about what happened.

That is simply not true either. I am contesting that not enough evidence exists to make a positive assertion on what happened to Jesus - not that I am not well informed enough of that evidence.

In essence, SA admits he has no excuse nor any source for his comment on this point, and is again merely spreading around unsubstantiated misinformation and trying to sanitize his error/presumption by means of a gross minimalism.

hang on, you missed the fact that I didn't actually use that information as part of my main argument. I was merely stating the possibility that some contradicting testimony has been found and destroying by the church - but since this was, as you point out, unsubstantiated, I didn't make a big deal of it.

Note the word "modern". As noted above, this was not an ancient practice. Nor do modern Tacitean scholars run around like chickens with no head over the difference.

Which means that they cannot have been that good as being historians, nor can they have appreciated the finer points of epistemology and doubt, that have been thoroughly established in the post-humean era. And yes, this means that the testimony of an awful lot of ancient historians has to bear the weight of extra doubt that their modern counterparts do not.

Moreover, SA is spreading around a false implication about "hearay" as though it is unreliable, obviously copying Thomas Paine's unsubstantiated screeds against it.

Never read Mr Paine's "Screeds" against anything, I'm afraid.

Also, hearsay is clearly less reliable than well sourced, analysed history - and the sooner you realise this point, the better.

Hearsay, when used to exclude evidence, is defined as "a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted."[

It should be clear to any thinking person that this is not how I was defining "hearsay" when I used it.

In short, it is clear that SA's "historical method" is one that is contrived for no other purpose than to give him an excuse to reject Christianity. His "method" is not known to professional historians.

but, the example you gave above this was legal, not historical? How do you suppose to prove a statement concerning history by giving an example concerning law?

No one is speaking here of "greater" or lesser doubt, but of doubt compared to other secular ancient works. In the meantime I note that SA quotes no such historian to this effect.

You've never actually brought up the subject of secular ancient works before. This is rather a different subject, and one that I am happy to discuss. The reason that doubt in terms of modern vs historical events came up was my example of Betty Hill, UFOs etc, but now you seem to be changing the subject. Oh well.

As for my quoting no historians to this effect, I do not feel I need to actually search for such a quote - since the obvious veracity of my statements concerning doubt in historical and modern events can be seen by any thinking man, and I include historians in that category.

Being interviewed for television, getting star attention, being "cult figures", is not positive?

One could say the same of the disciples, or serial killers. They were "stars" for a day too, but I wouldn't call it positive attention. The Hills were and are ridiculed, apart from by a select group of UFO believing weirdos.

A missing body requires an explanation. What is SA's explanation for Jesus' missing body?

I don't know if there ever was a body, or when that body died, or where, or how, or at whose hand, or of what. So to say where it is, especially when these events occured 2000 years ago, is rather difficult.

Also, you are not addressing the key point - that it would have been very difficult for a sheep farmer 2000 years ago to account for Jesus' disappearance - even if Jesus was staying in the next region at great expense in a luxurious brothel.

Once again, nothing but a vague non-answer that amounts to, "People are stupid."

People are stupid, and credulous, and religion does make them do stupid things. For example, it made the early muslims, purely on Mohammed's say so and based solely on his veracity, go into several bloody wars where they were heavily outnumbered, and once defeated.

A rather anachronistic complaint, being that 95% of people in the ancient world were illterate, and over 99% of all ancient literature is lost to us.

I agree that most people would not have been able to write down their account - but the fact that we have accounts from several disciples (of which there were 12 surviving), and NONE at all from the thousands who supposedly witnessed Jesus' miracle, is quite strange, don't you think?

In the meantime I see no secular historian demanding "thousands" of documents for any given event.

There are two very good reasons for this. Firstly, secular history isn't that important. We don't *need* to be very sure of it. After all, what do I care if Caesar really did go to war in such and such a year - it isn't really important enough for me to care one way or the other, right? So if we have a couple of documents that says he did, and these are essentially independent and fairly lacking in bias in their nature, then that naturally becomes the best theory we have. Certainly it is subject to doubt, if new evidence arises we will quickly revise our accounts - because we never believed in them strongly in the first place (since they didn't have much evidence).

Secondly, a Caesar going to war isn't an extraordinary event. It happened rather a lot, it would seem, from the archaeological and source evidence. It also is perfectly within the bounds of human experience. Miracles and Messiahs are a different kettle of fish though.

If I told you I had bran flakes this morning, you might believe me based solely on my own veracity and good nature. Perhaps you may want some sort of witness to the event, if you really wanted to be sure. But if your life depended on it - if I told you that once you made your decision, if wrong, you would die, you'd probably demand a lot more evidence. Important decisions require more evidence, because we would like to be surer of them.

Similarly, if I told you I was abducted by aliens this morning and ate Bran Flakes on Mars with them and Elvis, you'd probably require a lot more evidence of this. That's because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Now imagine I combined a very extraordinary claim with a very important one. You would require the most evidence for this right? It wouldn't do being 50% sure and subject to constant revision, as we are with most historical events. And it wouldn't do having the same ammount of evidence you required to believe in my eating Bran Flakes this morning, because of the nature of the claim.

If this seems like a double standard, it is not, I assure you. Betty and Barney hill are subject to the same standards of epistemology - and that's why I don't believe them, because other than there own testimony, they cannot conjure a single piece of evidence for their claims.

Obviously SA has never seriously studied the ancient world. No one who had done so would be ignorant of the 95% illiteracy rate.

I am not, I am simply saying that, out of the thousands of people who saw Jesus, it is an extraordinary coincidence that the only testimonies we have of them are from the inner circle of disciples. You'd expect at least a few literate people to be astonished enough to write it down, other than the disciples. But no, we don't have anything at all. Whatsoever.

[jpholding]

Let's note first of all the ironic contradiction:

No, and I'm not "throwing out" anything. I'm merely stating that since Tacitus did not name his sources in this particular case, and was not contemporary to these events - then we have no reason to take this as anything but hearsay.

That is "throwing out" what he says, period -- based on an arbitrary standard ("hearsay") that has no basis, is not recognized by professional historians as a reason to simply throw things out (if that is not the point, what is? why is SA being vague about this?), and is at any rate based on a peculiarity of modern American jurisprudence.

Then we should doubt ancient historian's accounts more than those of modern historians,

"More than"? Once again, vagueness. More than by how much? 5%? 10%? 50%? SA wisely refuses to quantify, and it is easy to see why: His claim is utterly indefensible and against historiographical praxis.

I'm not "throwing out" anything - I am giving reason to doubt,

Why is it reason to doubt? This has yet to be explained and I wonder if it ever will be.

And I claim to have been to Mars. I have not of course.

Colin Hemer, a classical scholar, provided an entire book full of evidence showing that Luke's correspondence with history backs up his claim to have done hard research. Where is SA's red dirt?

Convincing to who? The ignorant sheep herders of the time?

Notice that SA now resorts to bigotry. Of course he is ignorant of the fact that Christianity as a movement was top-heavy in the social status area. Since 99% of the people were poor and/or wretched, of course any movement would take most of its people from that group, but Christianity had an unusual number of the rich and the powerful in its ranks for its size. As Witherington notes, quoting E. A. Judge (Paul Quest, 94):

...the Christians were dominated by a socially pretentious section of the population of big cities. Beyond that they seem to have drawn on a broad constituency, probably representing the household dependents of leading members.

lets face it, a culture whose literati and historians are not yet well versed enough in epistemology to recognise the importance of historiography isn't going to be *that* hard to convince are they?

And, SA resorts to calling ancient people stupid. This is the desperation of one without actual answers. There is no logical connection between sophistication of historiography and ease of being convinced.

Yet, any historian can make mistakes, or simply believe popularly believed myths - especially if they do not find them of particular importance. We can never know how thoroughly Tacitus examined any of the claims or rumours or testimony he heard of Jesus' life and times - or indeed whether he ever considered the possibility that is was all fable.

SA resorts naturally to the expedient, "Well, OK, so Tacitus was reliable, but we can never know if there was an exception in the case of Jesus!" This again is the desperate manuever of one without actual answers: No tangible evidence that Tacitus was unreliable here, and no reason to assume that "this time unlike others" he erred.


That is simply not true either. I am contesting that not enough evidence exists to make a positive assertion on what happened to Jesus - not that I am not well informed enough of that evidence.

This is six of one, half dozen of the other. Every assertion of theory is a positive one, including the assertion that we do not have enough evidence.


I was merely stating the possibility that some contradicting testimony has been found and destroying by the church

Then perhaps SA will be tolerant of someone who "merely states" the "possibility" that he has been found guilty of a heinous crime in a court of law, but refuses to provide a source and then says, "but I didn't make a big deal of it." The bottom line is that SA has been caught spreading around bad data for no purpose other than a polemical one.

Which means that they cannot have been that good as being historians, nor can they have appreciated the finer points of epistemology and doubt,

That is false. There is no correlation between practice and practical means of expression. The historians I quoted in my article find that Tacitus for example was well able to appreciate these things, and the basic question of "is it true" remains the same throughout history.

Also, hearsay is clearly less reliable than well sourced, analysed history - and the sooner you realise this point, the better.

Notice that SA merely asserts this and provides absolutely no evidence of this "clear" fact.

It should be clear to any thinking person that this is not how I was defining "hearsay" when I used it.

In other words, SA has been caught misusing a legal term and now wishes to backpedal. So how is "hearsay" being (arbitrarily) defined and why (for the third time now) is it "clearly" less reliable?

but, the example you gave above this was legal, not historical? How do you suppose to prove a statement concerning history by giving an example concerning law?

This is almost insane. The standards of evidence do not change over professions.

example of Betty Hill, UFOs etc, but now you seem to be changing the subject. Oh well.

There is no subject change. This is relevant to the basic questions of epistemic knowledge and history.

As for my quoting no historians to this effect, I do not feel I need to actually search for such a quote - since the obvious veracity of my statements concerning doubt in historical and modern events can be seen by any thinking man, and I include historians in that category.

In short, arrogance will substitute here for documentation, which is the best that can be done when no answers can be provided.

One could say the same of the disciples, or serial killers. They were "stars" for a day too, but I wouldn't call it positive attention.

The disciples were not "stars" for any amount of time.

I don't know if there ever was a body, or when that body died, or where, or how, or at whose hand, or of what. So to say where it is, especially when these events occured 2000 years ago, is rather difficult.

In other words, SA has no answers, but feels free to go around spreading around doubts based on non-information, and all he has left is insults to "sheep farmers" -- though of course, that fasehood is exposed above.

disappearance - even if Jesus was staying in the next region at great expense in a luxurious brothel.

Obviously SA is also uneducated in terms of ancient group accountability. In the ancient Mediterranean, people continually minded each others' business. There is no way that such a Jesus would have escaped the gossip network, unless he went to Mars -- which is likely the next theory SA will espouse!

things. For example, it made the early muslims, purely on Mohammed's say so and based solely on his veracity, go into several bloody wars where they were heavily outnumbered, and once defeated.

I see SA is also ignorant of the social background of Islam. In fact there were many social factors which caused the early Muslims to engage in war, as even Armstrong's popular work documents.

account - but the fact that we have accounts from several disciples (of which there were 12 surviving), and NONE at all from the thousands who supposedly witnessed Jesus' miracle, is quite strange, don't you think?

It is not in the least, given 95% illiteracy and the very low survival rate of ALL ancient documents. SA has not in the least answered this.

There are two very good reasons for this. Firstly, secular history isn't that important. We don't *need* to be very sure of it.

Another merely arbitrary dismissal. Secular history is important, very much so, and if historians take the word of one historian that X event happened, then even by this arbitrary standard, four testifying to Jesus doing miracles, and seven or eight testifying to having seen him alive after death, is overkill!

Secondly, a Caesar going to war isn't an extraordinary event.

Yet another arbitrary contrivance. The "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" argument has no basis in fact and is merely an excuse. To wit:

But if your life depended on it - if I told you that once you made your decision, if wrong, you would die, you'd probably demand a lot more evidence. Important decisions require more evidence, because we would like to be surer of them.

Of course, SA ignores that the situation here is reversed: One's life here depends not on acceptance of evidence, but rejection of it!

Similarly, if I told you I was abducted by aliens this morning and ate Bran Flakes on Mars with them and Elvis, you'd probably require a lot more evidence of this.

No, I'll take that at face value, especially given argument quality. Now tell me why it makes a difference. Be careful; this is a trap.


I am not, I am simply saying that, out of the thousands of people who saw Jesus, it is an extraordinary coincidence that the only testimonies we have of them are from the inner circle of disciples.

It is not in the least an extraordinary coincidence. SA is also uninformed of the fact that it was normal for an opposing writer to shame his opposition by refusing to mention them.

You'd expect at least a few literate people to be astonished enough to write it down, other than the disciples.

SA is hereby requested to name writers of the day whom he would have expected to write something down, and explain why. Merely, "it would have astonished them" is not an answer.

[Elisha]

Got a reply from Tarmac. He typed:

"Very interesting arguments... I wonder if Mr. Holding would elaborate on:

The "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" argument has no basis in fact and is merely an excuse.

The reason being, I see many skeptics using this all the time and his thoughts would be appreciated...

Thanks for the great dialogue...

ciao"

[jpholding]

The reason being, I see many skeptics using this all the time and his thoughts would be appreciated...

My pleasure.

This argument, which is indeed used all the time, I see as little more than a contrivance by skeptics to immediately dismiss all supernatural claims. It is too simple -- it ignores such matters as the reliability of the source, and completely bypasses tests for historicity. It also never seems to define what level of "evidence" is required, or sets the bar arbitrarily high without justification.

I would have to deal in a specific example to say more than this. One I can note is one used by someone who spoke of a mouse lifting a battleship. It was asked if I would believe this if 500 claimed to have seen it. That seems extraordinary, but my response in any case would be to ask questions such as:

1) Did they have a good view of the event?
2) What else has this mouse done?
3) Why did he lift the battleship?
4) Was it in the water?!?

Etc. -- which is no different than what I would do for ANY event: Ask questions.

[Elisha]

Scientific Atheist's Reply to JP Holding:

That is "throwing out" what he says, period

No, it is not. There is a huge difference between throwing out testimony as completely unreliable, and casting reasonable epistemological doubt upon it. I have never made the claim that Tacitus was completely unreliable - merely that he is considerably less reliable than he would have been had he performed proper historiography or named his sources.

based on an arbitrary standard ("hearsay") that has no basis,

Let me define what I mean by hearsay:

From the Collins English Dictionary:

Hearsay
n gossip or rumour.

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

Hearsay
n unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.

Essentially by "hearsay" I mean exactly what it says in the dictionary - unverified information heard or recieved from another (in this case, even worse, an unnamed other). You will of course forgive me for using the common definition of hearsay rather than the legal one.

Now, as for the reason why I do not proportion much trust on hearsay, that is, why I do not rate it as convincing evidence - it is simply because without verification or analysis of sources it is impossible to confidently proclaim trust in a source.

"More than"? Once again, vagueness. More than by how much? 5%? 10%? 50%? SA wisely refuses to quantify, and it is easy to see why: His claim is utterly indefensible and against historiographical praxis.

No, I do not quantify because there is no mathematical basis for quantification. Similarly, I am not 100% sure that evolution is true - however if asked to quanify exactly how sure I was based on the evidence, I would be unable to, because there is no, and never has been, any mathematical way to quantify evidence in this way. Therefore demanding that I ennumerate doubt in this way is both impractical and unreasonable.

Why is it reason to doubt? This has yet to be explained and I wonder if it ever will be.

If sources are not named and analysed, then there is doubt over the sources. This is perhaps the simplest single premise syllogism you might ever hope to come across, I do hope you successfully formulate and understand it this time.

Colin Hemer, a classical scholar, provided an entire book full of evidence showing that Luke's correspondence with history backs up his claim to have done hard research

What, the fact that Luke researched history means he really did witness miracles? Similarly, my knowledge of astronomy means that I really have been to Mars?

Notice that SA now resorts to bigotry.

It is not bigotry to say that the majority of the population of Judea 2000 years ago were largely uneducated by any reasonable or modern standard. It is plain fact.

Since 99% of the people were poor and/or wretched, of course any movement would take most of its people from that group,

And of course, your original claim was that Christianity convinced many people - therefore I am right in saying that most of these people will have been poor and uneducated.

but Christianity had an unusual number of the rich and the powerful in its ranks for its size.

And, SA resorts to calling ancient people stupid.

I'm not sure whether you quite understand the meaning of the word "stupid". I was not claiming that ancient people were any less intelligent that we are (although you never know, they may actually have been given their lack of early developmental education and poor diet). The claim I was making was that the people of the time were less advanced than we are, both in terms of education, and in terms of epistemology. This is no more bigotry or insult than claiming that Victorians were less technologically advanced than we are. That isn't to say that Victorians were stupid, now is it?

The fact that ancient historians (who were literate and educated for their tims) did not understand or value the concept of detailed sourcework shows clearly that they were less advanced epistemologically than we are today.

There is no logical connection between sophistication of historiography and ease of being convinced.

The fact that you cannot see the connection between a less sophisticated and advanced epistemological framework and ease of being convinced is astonishing. So much so in fact, that if I wasn't assured of your character by Tim, I would suspect that you are being disengenuous.

SA resorts naturally to the expedient, "Well, OK, so Tacitus was reliable, but we can never know if there was an exception in the case of Jesus!"

Firstly, I never admitted that Tacitus was reliable - although on many matters he may well have been. However, that is really the main problem with lack of sourcework isn't it - you can never tell in any particular instance just how reliable someone is being. He may at any time, with any of his claims, have trusted sources that he oughtn't have, and since he did not dain it necessary to illuminate future generations on who his sources were, it is very hard to make any sort of judgement as to whether he was reliable on any single claim.

his is six of one, half dozen of the other.

No, it is not. The claim that I am not well aquainted with the evidence is very different from the one that there is insufficient evidence on which to make a positive pronoucement. These two claims are not "six of one, and half a dozen of the other".

Then perhaps SA will be tolerant of someone who "merely states" the "possibility" that he has been found guilty of a heinous crime in a court of law, but refuses to provide a source and then says, "but I didn't make a big deal of it."

Sure. That's why I would expect people to perform a background check on me before giving me a position of responsibility - because it is possible that I have been found guilty of a heinous crime.

The historians I quoted in my article find that Tacitus for example was well able to appreciate these things, and the basic question of "is it true" remains the same throughout history.

If Tacitus were as advanced as we are in terms of epistemology, then why didn't he name and analyse his sources? Furthermore, how can modern historians know how credulous Tacitus (or any other ancient historian) was of extraordinary claims, such as the claims of the life of Jesus. Can we trust Tacitus to take into consideration the complexity of these claims on our behalf? I would trust very few people with this.

In other words, SA has been caught misusing a legal term and now wishes to backpedal. So how is "hearsay" being (arbitrarily) defined and why (for the third time now) is it "clearly" less reliable?

No, I was using the term in it's non-legal meaning, a meaning that far from being arbitrarily defined, is freely and publically available in most good dictionaries, online or in paper format. I'm afraid it is you who has been caught our in your ignorance of the common definition of the word "hearsay" - preferring the obscure legal definition.

This is almost insane. The standards of evidence do not change over professions.

I was talking of course, about the meaning of the word "hearsay" in a legal vs common context. And I would prefer it if you refrained from calling me insane, because I cannot think of a single statement or action I have made in your presence that would warrant such a label.

In short, arrogance will substitute here for documentation, which is the best that can be done when no answers can be provided.

There is no arrogance, merely very obvious epistemological statements. It should be obvious to any thinking man that there is an epistemological difference between modern claims that can be directly verified and investigated, and historical claims that rely on inferential evidence, and cannot be directly investigated or probed, outside the evidence that we are lucky enough to come upon.

Any thinking historian should be aware of this basic epistemological difference, and the fact that historical beliefs should naturally be subject to greater doubt than modern beliefs of similar evidence statures. I neither require documentation from historians or ot her philosophers to make this point stick.

I see SA is also ignorant of the social background of Islam. In fact there were many social factors which caused the early Muslims to engage in war, as even Armstrong's popular work documents.

No, I am not ignorant of the background of Islam. The early muslim's conversion was the root cause of both their expulsion from Mecca, and the subsequent wars they engaged in with the Pagan inhabitants.

It is not in the least, given 95% illiteracy and the very low survival rate of ALL ancient documents.

Yet one quarter of the disciple's accounts survive, and this is assuming that every disciple actually wrote down an account. And yet, out of the thousands that saw Jesus perform miracles, not one account survives. I would deem that suspicious.

Yet another arbitrary contrivance. The "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" argument has no basis in fact and is merely an excuse

Oh, right, so, presumably you require exactly the same level of evidence for my claims that I ate cornflakes on mars with elvis than that I ate cornflakes at home in front of the TV?

If you want to discuss skeptical humean epistemology, I would be happy to engage you.

Of course, SA ignores that the situation here is reversed: One's life here depends not on acceptance of evidence, but rejection of it!

Not at all. If I choose the wrong religion, I might be damned to hell by another God. If I choose a religion and God does not exist, I might be wasting my only fleeting chance at life on a mistruth. I would say that religion is a very important choice indeed.

No, I'll take that at face value, especially given argument quality. Now tell me why it makes a difference. Be careful; this is a trap.

No problem, I will be careful.

Claim 1: I ate branflakes this morning in front of the TV.
Claim 2: I was abducted by aliens this morning, transported to Mars, and ate Branflakes with Elvis on the surface of the red planet.

Firstly, Claim 2 requires the truth more things that we don't already know are true. It requires the existence of aliens. It requires the aliens to have a motive for abducting me and taking me to Mars to eat my breakfast. It requires that Elvis is still alive. It requires the existence of a breathable artificial atmosphere on a part of Mars. It requires space travel to be possible over extraordinary distances. Claim 1 however, only requires that I am hungry in the morning, that branflakes exist, and that I ate them (all of which we already know, and all of which is required by Claim 2 also). Therefore Claim 2 represents a massive multiplication of objects and complexity compared to Claim 1. This doesn't mean it isn't true of course, it simply means that it requires rather more convincing evidence for certitude.

Secondly, from repeated experience, we find that Claim 1 occurs more often than Claim 2. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, Claim 2 has never happened to me or anyone else that I have ever heard of. Repeated experience is how we calculate probability - and experiences that happen very rarely or never are less probable than those that happen often. Therefore to believe in Claim 2 a greater improbability will have to be overcome.

Lastly, there is evidence contradicting Claim 2. For example, we have the testimony of physicians claiming to have seen Elvis dead (of course, aliens could have raised him from the dead or created a substitute elvis to be buried, but this would add to the complexity explained in my first paragraph).

It is not in the least an extraordinary coincidence. SA is also uninformed of the fact that it was normal for an opposing writer to shame his opposition by refusing to mention them.

but I was not referrring to opposing writer, but to the many who saw Jesus' works and converted to Christianity, or at least were sufficiently impressed to write them down or chronicle them.

SA is hereby requested to name writers of the day whom he would have expected to write something down, and explain why.

I cannot name any writers of the day, for my knowledge of ancient Judean writers is lacking. What I can say with certitude however, is that there were writers - and that some will have seen the extraordinary things that Jesus did. Whilst most writers would be reticent about chronicaling every boring and hum-drum moment of their existences - I think they might make an exception for having witnessed miracles by someone who claimed to be the son of God.

Obviously SA is also uneducated in terms of ancient group accountability. In the ancient Mediterranean, people continually minded each others' business. There is no way that such a Jesus would have escaped the gossip network, unless he went to Mars

This is a bold claim, that Jesus would have "no way" to "have escaped the gossip network". Can JP Holding provide any substantial proof of this (absolute negative) claim? Or did he just invent to foolproof nature of the "mediterranean gossip network" to further his theistic claims?

[jpholding]

Yet more,

No, it is not. There is a huge difference between throwing out testimony as completely unreliable, and casting reasonable epistemological doubt upon it

The only "difference" between the two in context is a purposeful intent to be vague and not commit to a position so as not to be responsible to defend it when one is unprepared to do so.

I have never made the claim that Tacitus was completely unreliable - merely that he is considerably less reliable than he would have been had he performed proper historiography or named his sources.

And SA has refused, naturally, to quantify this difference or explain why or how it should affect us in particulars. The refuge in vagueness, for the purpose of maintaining personal subjective doubts and/or escalating them in others, is plainly manifest.

Essentially by "hearsay" I mean exactly what it says in the dictionary - unverified information heard or recieved from another

And by this definition, we believe "hearsay" every day (and it is not different at critical points than the legal one). So I ask again:

What makes "hearsay" unreliable?

This is not an answer:

it is simply because without verification or analysis of sources it is impossible to confidently proclaim trust in a source.

This is a wonderful insight into SA's personal psychology, but it still does not tell us why hearsay is actually unreliable or why it is causes a lack of confidence. I suppose we will never get an answer to this question but will merely be "answered" with re-statements of SA claiming it is not reliable.

No, I do not quantify because there is no mathematical basis for quantification.

Merely a dodge. Even if not expressed in numbers, the matter can be expressed in narrative which can then be converted to a numerical estimate.


If sources are not named and analysed, then there is doubt over the sources.

I ask yet again WHY. This is not a syllogism but a begged question.


What, the fact that Luke researched history means he really did witness miracles?

No, it places the burden on SA to explain why Luke is to be doubted in these points. Personal incredulity is not a satisfactory or reasonable reply; the comparison to Mars trips begs the question.

It is not bigotry to say that the majority of the population of Judea 2000 years ago were largely uneducated by any reasonable or modern standard.

It is indeed bigotry, as if these people were so dumb stupid as to not realize the dead men do not ordinarily rise from death, etc.

And of course, your original claim was that Christianity convinced many people - therefore I am right in saying that most of these people will have been poor and uneducated.

Which is irrelevant, given the point that it took an unusual number from those NOT poor and uneducated.

that the people of the time were less advanced than we are, both in terms of education, and in terms of epistemology.

And again, one does not mean much education of epistemology to realize that dead people stay dead, and that an explanation is required, and that there are only so many possible explanations. Of course SA does not wish to discuss particulars on this point, for to do so would mean a level of critical scrutiny that he cannot deal with.

tims) did not understand or value the concept of detailed sourcework shows clearly that they were less advanced epistemologically than we are today.

It shows no such thing. There is a vast difference between NAMING sources and USING sources. The latter is what they did and shows the same level of epistemological sophistication as we have.


The fact that you cannot see the connection between a less sophisticated and advanced epistemological framework and ease of being convinced is astonishing.

The fact that SA cannot actually justify this connection and resorts to vague "duh huh" remarks like this, speaks for itself.

Firstly, I never admitted that Tacitus was reliable - although on many matters he may well have been. However, that is really the main problem with lack of sourcework isn't it - you can never tell in any particular instance just how reliable someone is being.

Note that this stands firmly against the reported consensus of Tacitean historians. Again SA stands against scholarship and would like for us to believe him in his vague porfessions of "no way to know" rather than those who have been trained in the field who are confident that we are reasonably indeed able to know.

These two claims are not "six of one, and half a dozen of the other".

They are indeed, in effect and purpose.

Sure. That's why I would expect people to perform a background check on me before giving me a position of responsibility - because it is possible that I have been found guilty of a heinous crime.

What of just in everyday usage, not for a position of responsibility?

If Tacitus were as advanced as we are in terms of epistemology, then why didn't he name and analyse his sources?

The same begged question, arbitrary requirement, and confusion of use vs naming of sources. SA has simply set his demand for naming of sources as a requirement arbitrarily.

Furthermore, how can modern historians know how credulous Tacitus (or any other ancient historian) was of extraordinary claims, such as the claims of the life of Jesus.

By examining his work and his reactions, as to the healings performed by Vespasian.

Can we trust Tacitus to take into consideration the complexity of these claims on our behalf? I would trust very few people with this.

To which one can only reply, that such a comment bespeaks tremendous arrogance.

There is no arrogance, merely very obvious epistemological statements.

Let that and the comments following, act as their own self-verification of the matter. Note again that SA has yet to provide any scholarly source as a backup, and in fact has patently refused to provide such under the pretense that "it is obvious that I am right and that I speak for any thinking historian."

No, I am not ignorant of the background of Islam. The early muslim's conversion was the root cause of both their expulsion from Mecca, and the subsequent wars they engaged in with the Pagan inhabitants.

A non-answer. What of the social background data, the root cause of their search for identity as a people, for example?


Yet one quarter of the disciple's accounts survive, and this is assuming that every disciple actually wrote down an account.

What a tremendous bungle this is! SA obviously means APOSTLES, not "disciples," and it not even aware that Mark and Luke are not regarded as apostles!

And yet, out of the thousands that saw Jesus perform miracles, not one account survives. I would deem that suspicious.

Another non-answer to the point of illteracy and the loss of ancient docs as a whole, to which SA obviously has no answer.

Oh, right, so, presumably you require exactly the same level of evidence for my claims that I ate cornflakes on mars with elvis than that I ate cornflakes at home in front of the TV?

That is so. Now explain why not.

Not at all. If I choose the wrong religion, I might be damned to hell by another God.

Not until and unless you provide candidates for evaluation.

If I choose a religion and God does not exist, I might be wasting my only fleeting chance at life on a mistruth

In such cases one's life is objectively a waste anyway, but I digress.

Firstly, Claim 2 requires the truth more things that we don't already know are true. It requires the existence of aliens. It requires the aliens to have a motive for abducting me and taking me to Mars to eat my breakfast. It requires that Elvis is still alive.

And so on. All of this does not tell us a word about requiring "extraordinary evidence" to believe this. It tells us that "extraordinary" conditions must be met for what happened to be possible, but this does not in any way affect the truth of the matter, as SA even admits:

This doesn't mean it isn't true of course, it simply means that it requires rather more convincing evidence for certitude.

"More convincing"? The data is not "more convincing", it is simply"more". Period.

In fact, to the best of my knowledge, Claim 2 has never happened to me or anyone else that I have ever heard of.

Which proves nothing at all, and in fact would mean that for example no one should have believed NASA when they claimed they had a man on the moon, and if they so desired could simply pull an SA and declare that all the evidence is faked, and that the claim is so extraordinary that it requires the "extraordinary evidence" of NASA taking them personally to the moon.

Lastly, there is evidence contradicting Claim 2. For example, we have the testimony of physicians claiming to have seen Elvis dead

Of course, there is simpler answer: Elvis impersonators by the truckload exist today.


but I was not referrring to opposing writer, but to the many who saw Jesus' works and converted to Christianity, or at least were sufficiently impressed to write them down or chronicle them.

This has already been answered then, by the factors of illiteracy and usual loss of ancient works.


I cannot name any writers of the day, for my knowledge of ancient Judean writers is lacking. What I can say with certitude however, is that there were writers - and that some will have seen the extraordinary things that Jesus did.

As noted, this cannot be said with any certitude, given the illiteracy rate, etc. What about an answer to this aside from, "There must have been?"

This is a bold claim, that Jesus would have "no way" to "have escaped the gossip network". Can JP Holding provide any substantial proof of this (absolute negative) claim?

I would suggest SA read works like Portraits of Paul by Malina and Neyrey, or take a gander into communal life in the ancient (and present day) Middle East. If he thinks he has nosy neighbors now, he hasn't seen anything yet.

[skepticbud]

Jp says, if somebody told him that 500 people saw a mouse lift a battleship, he wouldn't immediately dismiss it but would ask the following questions:

The reason being, I see many skeptics using this all the time and his thoughts would be appreciated...






My pleasure.

This argument, which is indeed used all the time, I see as little more than a contrivance by skeptics to immediately dismiss all supernatural claims. It is too simple -- it ignores such matters as the reliability of the source, and completely bypasses tests for historicity. It also never seems to define what level of "evidence" is required, or sets the bar arbitrarily high without justification.

I would have to deal in a specific example to say more than this. One I can note is one used by someone who spoke of a mouse lifting a battleship. It was asked if I would believe this if 500 claimed to have seen it. That seems extraordinary, but my response in any case would be to ask questions such as:

1) Did they have a good view of the event?
2) What else has this mouse done?
3) Why did he lift the battleship?
4) Was it in the water?!?

I couldn't stop laughing for about 30 seconds after I read that. How sad that so-called apologists are so dependent upon "eyewitness testimony" that they won't use their past experience of what is possible and what isn't, and instead subject their common sense to "eyewitness testimony", in their quest to learn whether an event happened.

If Holding were to immediately dismiss this claim of a mouse lifting a ship, a foothold would be gained by skeptics who talk with him...why doubt it? Uniformity of past experience is sufficient to expel the testimony of 500, eh? And that would lead to his ultimate demise. So, no, he cannot afford to reveal his true doubts (and I seriously doubt holding would ask questions about a mouse lifting a ship instead of laughing it off as a bad joke) without giving the appearence that he is prejudiced toward the gospel miracles. But he is between a rock and a hard place, because if doesn't immediately become skeptical, his only other option is to, ah, "remain open and ask questions..." about this incredibly absurd scenario.

[jpholding]

I couldn't stop laughing for about 30 seconds after I read that.

Yes, that is the typical experience of the ignorant. I take it the gin and vodka ran out and your girls left for a few months to take the needed bath.

How sad that so-called apologists are so dependent upon "eyewitness testimony" that they won't use their past experience of what is possible and what isn't,

How sad that so-called skeptics are so dependent upon "egotism" and "naturalism" that they will use their presuppositions and lack of experience to judge what has happened and what hasn't, then baptize it arbitarily with the words "common sense" without so much as a single actual argument.

So, no, he cannot afford to reveal his true doubts (and I seriously doubt holding would ask questions about a mouse lifting a ship instead of laughing it off as a bad joke)

Hmm. Bud has little if any prior experience with me personally, especially on such claims; yet he also claims to know what I'm really doing. Yet he also says that prior experience is the be all and tell all of what is possible.

Seems that blatant self-contradiction doesn't bother you when you're under the toilet tank cover.

Anyways, did you bring back any actual arguments, or are you just going to blow your nose for a few weeks, and then disappear into Beer City, as usual?

[notnecessarily]

I don't understand how anyone can fault the logic of the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" principle. Everybody -- Christians, atheists, whoever -- applies this principle all the time in their daily lives.

Simple example - a magician performs a trick for you... makes a rabbit appear from nowhere say. He claims it's magic. No matter how hard you try, you can't work out for the life of you how he could have done it.

Do you believe it's magic though? Of course you don't, because your prior belief was that there's almost no probability that he's a "real" magician. You might adjust your prior a little bit, but even afterwards, you're still almost certain he pulled a fast one on you. You'll need a truly enormous, overwhelming amount of evidence to shift your convictions to any noticeable degree. This is essentially just a restatement of Bayes Rule: P(a|b) = P (a) P(b|a) / P(b)!!!

Look... I'm not necessarily claiming Jesus wasn't the Son of God. But to claim that the standard of proof for believing the Bible should be no different than for believing what's on Fox News at night (ok.. bad example, ummm... BBC World Service) is logically not right.

So, given that, I guess my real question is as follows: if God really wants us to believe that the events in the New Testament are historical fact (to maximize the chance that we'll decide to embrace Christianity), why doesn't he (she?) do more to convince us of that? Write messages in the sky.... that kind of thing. Why make us rely soley on the purported veracity of a document from 2000 years ago??

cheers!

[Trout]

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