***QUOTE***
JON CURRY SAID:
So let me see if I can summarize your answers.
To the question of why the event was so private you would answer that it was in fact more public than the gospels indicate, but we just have no evidence to substantiate this claim.
***END-QUOTE***
We do have evidence. It’s not a case of the event being more public than the gospels indicate.
Based on comparative analysis of 1 Cor 15 and the Gospels, we can see that the witness list varies from one writer to another.
So the writers are selective rather than exhaustive in whom they mention.
***QUOTE***
To the question of why you would accept the testimony of anonymous unknown authors you respond that they are not anonymous and unknown.
***END-QUOTE***
i) There are occasions in which it is perfectly reasonable to accept anonymous testimony.
ii) But that’s not an accurate classification of the Gospels.
iii) And there are certainly advantages to knowing something about the author.
***QUOTE***
To the question of visions you say in fact vivid and powerful visions and communications with God do in fact continue to occur. You don't really address the issue of why these happen to pagans as well.
***END-QUOTE***
There may be a semantic confusion here. To begin with, I used the word “analogous.”
In addition, Carrier didn’t limit himself to visions from God, but included numinous apparitions generally (gods, angels).
In should also be clear from the bibliography I cited that I was casting a wider net, including a variety of apparitions, viz. angels, ghosts, incubi, doppelgängers, &c.
For example, paganism and necromancy go together.
“And of course you do believe Matthew's account of the rising of the corpses and the earthquake.”
I affirm the earthquake.
“Corpse” is your word, not mine. What rose from the grave were glorified saints.
***QUOTE***
You say that if the resurrection were reported by Tacitus, Suetonius, etc we probably wouldn't believe them anyway. That's beside the point, but I would grant it as true.
***END-QUOTE***
Beside whose point? Carrier’s? He’s the one who raised the (alleged) privacy of the Resurrection as a reason to disbelieve the report.
So it is relevant to his point—and that’s what I was responding to.
***QUOTE***
If they did report this event, I think at that point you'd be approaching what one might call "ordinary" evidence. Extraordinary evidence is necessary to demonstrate a miraculous claim. If credible historians reported these things, it would be good evidence, but not enough to overcome the initial implausibility of the claim, or to overcome other evidential problems.
***END-QUOTE***
So you say. But, of course, I’ve been over the same ground with you and your brother on several occasions now. All you do is to repeat your oft-refuted objections.
Speaking of which…
***QUOTE***
But what we really have is not just a lack of ordinary evidence. We have the worst sort of evidence a person could ask for. Private appearances to biased, committed followers.
***END-QUOTE***
You keep perfuming and repacking the same rotten, maggoty meat. Its shelf-life expired years ago.
The question is not whether the NT writers who bear witness to the Resurrection had a bias.
Rather, the question is the source of the bias. What experience led them to become committed followers in the first place?
The witnesses to the Resurrection did, indeed, have a bias—a bias to disbelieve. What event overcame their sceptical bias?
But you would rather rehash the same oft-refuted objections since oft-refuted objections are the only objections you have left.
***QUOTE***
I'm sure you'll respond with questions about the appearance to the 500, or to James, or to Paul.
***END-QUOTE***
Actually, that’s not how I was planning to respond—although there’s nothing wrong with such a response.
***QUOTE***
As to Paul, he clearly uses the word "appear" elsewhere in the sense of a visionary appearance, not a physical appearance, so it is not at all clear the appearances to him or the 500 involve a physically resurrected person.
***END-QUOTE***
I’ve been over that ground in my review of TET.
***QUOTE***
As to James, I don't recall that the gospels indicate that Jesus appeared to him.
***END-QUOTE***
Which is a red-herring.
***QUOTE***
Paul's earlier accounts do. So it could very easily be that the gospels negative portrayal of Jesus' siblings is a later slur against Jesus' blood relatives, just as the Sunni's and the Shi-ites battle about whether it is important to be a blood relative of Mohammed or if blood relations are unimportant and fidelity to the teachings is everything.
***END-QUOTE***
The comparison with the Sunni and Shia undercuts your thesis. Indeed, many religious are conspicuous for their vicious battles over succession.
What’s conspicuous about the NT is the low level of rivalry on display.
***QUOTE***
As to the authors of Scripture, the evidence for the claim that they are known is quite threadbare, relying on such unreliable witnesses as Papias and Polycarp. I don't find that at all compelling, though I suppose you do.
***END-QUOTE***
You’ve grossly understated the evidence. Jason has been over this ground with you many times before.
Likewise, if you consult standard reference works by conservative scholars, they will go over the internal, text-critical, and patristic evidence.
***QUOTE***
But even if we did know who these people were, how would we be able to determine if they were credible?
***END-QUOTE***
You’re asking questions I’ve repeatedly answered in the past.
***QUOTE***
As to visions, do you have any reliable illustrations you can point me to of people experiencing this from God? I'm aware of many experiences of this type of thing from Christians that I know personally and I also have good reasons to think they are phony.
***END-QUOTE***
I already referred the reader to a bibliography, and I cite many more titles along the same lines in my review of TET.
***QUOTE***
With regards to Matthew's account of the dead coming out of their graves and the earthquake, I wonder if you can see how hard this is for reasonable person to accept. It's just the sort of story you'd expect to hear from someone prone acceptance of fabulous false tails, and it's just the sort of thing that would have been widely reported had it actually happened. Do you see why reasonable people would have a hard time with this?
***END-QUOTE***
They are only as reasonable as the unreasonable reasons they’re giving me for their disbelief.
Whew....your words make my head just spin around. But you do make some good points, Steve.
ReplyDeleteOne person's reasons may not be adequate for another person.
That's where FAITH comes in, my friend!
Beside whose point? Carrier’s? He’s the one who raised the (alleged) privacy of the Resurrection as a reason to disbelieve the report.
ReplyDeleteSo it is relevant to his point—and that’s what I was responding to.
It is irrelevant to his point. He wants to understand the way you think. He's not describing how he thinks. If you want to change the subject to how he thinks, that's fine, but just recognize that you're changing the subject. He wonders if a Christian thinks it is odd that the evidence was revealed in such a private matter, since of course if you want to persuade many people of something with evidence then you'd want lots of people to see the evidence. And evidence of miraculous claims revealed only to private, committed followers is just the sort of evidence that is not to be trusted.
What it would take for him to believe is completely beside the point. Perhaps he wouldn't believe if the whole world reported the event, but this changes nothing about how it is odd that Christ's appearances were relatively private and could very easily have been so much more public, which would have made the evidence of much higher quality.
So you say. But, of course, I’ve been over the same ground with you and your brother on several occasions now. All you do is to repeat your oft-refuted objections.
I think Touchstone is right. The more a person brags about how he's refuted all of his opponents the more he demonstrates that he really doesn't understand what he's talking about. You are locked in a world where everyone is answered. Everyone is stupid but you. Not just skeptics, but even old earth Christians, Arminians, theistic evolutionists, and pre-millenialists. You simply do not internalize and truly comprehend the views of your opponents.
And again:
You keep perfuming and repacking the same rotten, maggoty meat. Its shelf-life expired years ago.
Yes, just slinging the same old hash that has long ago been debunked. I must simply be rebellious and hateful towards God, right? What is my problem? It can't be intellectual, because you can't see any merit to anything I say. I don't want to believe in Jesus, and that is the end of it. This is what you think isn't it? You know how I know? Because I understand how Christians think. I internalize their beliefs and their arguments. That is something that I don't think you are capable of doing.
The question is not whether the NT writers who bear witness to the Resurrection had a bias.
Rather, the question is the source of the bias. What experience led them to become committed followers in the first place?
The witnesses to the Resurrection did, indeed, have a bias—a bias to disbelieve. What event overcame their sceptical bias?
Every appearance of Christ that is clearly physical is to a follower that was already committed to Jesus before the crucifixion occurred. And you want to believe that's a bias to disbelieve after Christ had predicted his own death and resurrection? Why do you say this? The issue of bias is clearly relevant to the value of the evidence. When Clinton tells you that Monica and Linda Tripp are liars, that's evidence that they are liars. It's certainly not extraordinary evidence. It's not even ordinary evidence. It's the worst sort of evidence that you could ask for. When the 3 Mormon witnesses tell you that they saw the golden plates, that's evidence. At least these people aren't anonymous. We know who they are. But they are biased. This is the worst sort of evidence you could ask for. Don't you think it's odd that only committed followers were allowed to see the golden plates? Don't you think it would have made a lot more sense if perhaps the POTUS saw them, or other public people?
But you would rather rehash the same oft-refuted objections since oft-refuted objections are the only objections you have left.
Yes, Steve. Oft-refuted.
The comparison with the Sunni and Shia undercuts your thesis. Indeed, many religious are conspicuous for their vicious battles over succession.
My point is not that Christians had vicious battles about succession or that Christians are exactly like the Sunni and Shia. Your failure to grasp the point is indicative of your inability to appreciate and do justice to the arguments of your opponents.
I already referred the reader to a bibliography, and I cite many more titles along the same lines in my review of TET.
We live in an age of television and internet and the only evidence you can offer is a claim that if I hunt down and buy several books I might find that your claims are credible? You could do better than that if in fact divine visions and dreams were credible and widespread.
I might offer a suggestion on the issue of why the evidence isn't better. You could just answer that God doesn't want the evidence to be better because if it was, perhaps more people would believe, and God only has a select few that he wants to see believe because that glorifies him more in some way. Isn't this what you really think?
ReplyDeleteJon Curry writes:
ReplyDelete"Every appearance of Christ that is clearly physical is to a follower that was already committed to Jesus before the crucifixion occurred."
Notice how Jon frames the issue in such a way as to arrive at his desired conclusion. He's repeatedly ignored documentation that Paul and the other earliest Christians believed in a physical resurrection. When he and I discussed the subject in another forum last year, I wrote a response to him that was up for months, and he never replied to it. He's also ignored other material on the subject that I've mentioned in our discussions on this blog. Now he suggests that it's not sufficient for belief in a physical resurrection to be probable, but instead it must be "clear". Apparently, we're supposed to think that the resurrection belief that Paul shared with the rest of the early church leadership (1 Corinthians 15:11) involved something non-physical, then there was a shift to belief in a physical resurrection after Paul died. He gets ideas like these from sources such as Wikipedia, Google searches, and Richard Carrier. When somebody like Steve Hays does more research and provides more documentation, Jon responds with comments like:
"We live in an age of television and internet and the only evidence you can offer is a claim that if I hunt down and buy several books I might find that your claims are credible? You could do better than that if in fact divine visions and dreams were credible and widespread."
First of all, notice that Jon is replying to a comment Steve made about information in his online book on the resurrection, a book that we've discussed and linked to many times on this blog. That book doesn't just list offline sources, but also cites some online sources and discusses some of the relevant issues. Jon is responding to a citation of an online source by complaining that Steve isn't citing online sources.
Secondly, why should we think that citing books is inappropriate in "an age of television and internet"? Advances in technology haven't made it inappropriate to cite books. And since Jon rarely cites sources of any type, online or offline, what position is he in to issue such a complaint? Jon has suggested in the past that he isn't going to spend much money on books, and he doesn't seem to make much of an effort to do research in libraries. Whose problem is that? Jon keeps telling us that he doesn't have much time to respond to our posts, and he keeps complaining when we cite offline sources in support of our arguments, yet he keeps participating in these discussions. If you don't have time for these discussions, and you aren't willing to do much to research the issues, why would you keep involving yourself in these exchanges?
Notice how Jon acts as if too much is being asked of him if he has to "hunt down and buy several books". Aside from the fact that books are often available online or in libraries without cost, why would it be asking too much even if Jon did have to buy some books? Even when he's given online sources, he frequently ignores them.
What Jason doesn't realize is that in the course of the few months that his argument about Paul's view of the resurrection was online I was in the process of moving out of state, so when I returned to the forum to look back at his argument and respond to it it was unavailable. If Jason would like to provide me his argument I would be happy to respond, but I don't think that reference to a now unavailable argument really constitutes a refutation.
ReplyDeleteBut the facts still remain. Scholars disagree about whether Paul viewed the resurrection as physical, which at a minumum means it is unlear that he thought it was physical. But even if he did, this wouldn't demonstrate that the appearances of 1 Cor 15 were physical as well. People could experience Christ in a non-physical way even if they thought he raised physically. The author of Acts sees the resurrection as a physical event, but he portrays Paul as experiencing Christ in a non-physical way. So Jason's unavailable phantom argument from a forum long ago is moot anyway. If he's wrong about that, then he's certainly wrong about the appearances to Paul. But if he's right, this doesn't make him right about the appearances to Paul.
As far as whether or not I should be obligated to buy books that refute my positions, I think it's pretty obvious that I am not. I've been sent to look for arguments through long web pages by Jason and found that in fact the arguments weren't even there. I'm certainly not going to spend money on books knowing that I very well may have a similar experience, and I don't expect that Steve would give me my money back.
Jason says that Steve has online resources for the information I was looking for. But the bibliography he referred to in his post was all books, and he referred to "titles" in his review of TET, which I assumed was also books. I'm happy to look at links if they are available. But I think Jason's goal is to make it appear he's caught me in a blunder, so rather than actually provide links with the information I'm looking for he's instead talked about how I should have known Steve was talking about links. This allows him to think he's caught me in what I call a "gotcha" which is a slip that he thinks makes me look bad but has nothing to do really with the conversation.
Jason also asserts that I don't make much effort to look for books in libraries. But this is false. I've informed Jason that I've looked for books in libraries that he's referred to. When I was unable to find them I asked Jason to scan a section from his book and email it to me, but he refused.
My belief is that Jason and Steve like to give the impression that they have answers by referring to past refutations that are no longer available, or (in Steve's case) by using philosophical language in an effort to obscure what is being stated. The goal here is to pacify the concerns of onlookers rather than engage in an actual conversation with someone. So there is no point in sending information to me, because that would only help me and I am simply an obstacle to be overcome for the benefit of other readers.
This also explains why Jason refers to his opponents in the third person instead of actually participating in a conversation.
JON CURRY SAID:
ReplyDelete“It is irrelevant to his point. He wants to understand the way you think. He's not describing how he thinks. If you want to change the subject to how he thinks, that's fine, but just recognize that you're changing the subject. He wonders if a Christian thinks it is odd that the evidence was revealed in such a private matter, since of course if you want to persuade many people of something with evidence then you'd want lots of people to see the evidence. And evidence of miraculous claims revealed only to private, committed followers is just the sort of evidence that is not to be trusted.”
If that’s what you think, then you must be pretty gullible. Sorry if I don’t share your credulity.
Carrier is not merely posing some innocent questions to solicit information. No, he is asking questions which he happens to think pose problems for the Christian faith.
“What it would take for him to believe is completely beside the point. Perhaps he wouldn't believe if the whole world reported the event, but this changes nothing about how it is odd that Christ's appearances were relatively private and could very easily have been so much more public, which would have made the evidence of much higher quality.”
Which is why it’s not beside the point. Both you and he treat the evidence as suspect because it’s private.
Assuming that this is a sincere objection on your part, then presumably you would not regard the evidence as suspect if it were more public.
If, in fact, you would regard the evidence as equally suspect or insufficient regardless of its privacy or publicity, then the question is insincere since you really don’t care about the answer one way or the other.
“I think Touchstone is right. The more a person brags about how he's refuted all of his opponents the more he demonstrates that he really doesn't understand what he's talking about.”
Nice attempt on your part to disregard the context.
This is how the process goes. You and your brother get into a debate with Jason and me.
You raise objections to our position. We respond to your objections. At that point you either repeat your original objections, as if nothing was said by way of reply, or you simple drop out of the debate.
You then pop up a few weeks later and raise the same objections which we responded to before.
So, yes, when you raise an objection, and we respond to your objection, and your reaction is unresponsive, then your position stands refuted unless and until you do something to move the ball forward.
“Everyone is stupid but you. Not just skeptics, but even old earth Christians, Arminians, theistic evolutionists, and pre-millenialists.”
Now, to illustrate the weakness of your own position, you indulge in a silly caricature.
“Every appearance of Christ that is clearly physical is to a follower that was already committed to Jesus before the crucifixion occurred. And you want to believe that's a bias to disbelieve after Christ had predicted his own death and resurrection? Why do you say this?”
I say this because they were not expecting him to rise from the dead. That’s clear from all the Gospels.
If you reject the Gospels, then you also reject any documentary evidence for their bias.
“The issue of bias is clearly relevant to the value of the evidence.”
And what is equally relevant is the origin of the bias. This distinction has been drawn to your attention on numerous occasions.
You consistently fail to engage the argument because it would undermine your objection if you had to acknowledge the distinction.
“My point is not that Christians had vicious battles about succession or that Christians are exactly like the Sunni and Shia. Your failure to grasp the point is indicative of your inability to appreciate and do justice to the arguments of your opponents.”
I do justice to bad arguments. It was your comparison, not mine.
“We live in an age of television and internet and the only evidence you can offer is a claim that if I hunt down and buy several books I might find that your claims are credible? You could do better than that if in fact divine visions and dreams were credible and widespread.”
i) To begin with, one doesn’t have to hunt down or buy books. Just about anyone with a public library card can get most titles via the interlibrary loan service.
ii) There are some online resources for parapsychological research.
iii) More to the point, you’re the one who is making the demands. You demand documentation from me. So I refer you to the appropriate resources.
I’m not demanding anything from you. I didn’t say you were under any obligation to read this stuff. You initiated the demand, not me.
Now, either your request is a serious and sincere request or it’s not. If it is, then, yes, you may actually have to read some books from major scholars by major publishing houses instead of getting your information from Sesame Street.
It’s really quite simple, Jon. If you’re going to level intellectual objections to the faith, then you need to operate at the level of an intellectual.
If, on the other hand, you’re going to play the anti-intellectual card every time Jason and I call your bluff, then you’d rather be intellectually frivolous.
The fact is that many apostates follow a common pattern. They grew up in, or were converted to, an anti-intellectual church or denomination.
When they lose their faith, they lose their faith in their anti-intellectual version of the faith.
Neither in their apostate phase or their nominally Christian phase to they acquaint themselves with the best of moderate-to-conservative scholarship. In many cases they don’t even acquaint themselves with the best of liberal scholarship (e.g. Robin Fox, Ray Brown, John Meier, G. B. Caird, J. A. T. Robinson).
So they exhibit self-reinforcing ignorance from start to finish.
“I might offer a suggestion on the issue of why the evidence isn't better. You could just answer that God doesn't want the evidence to be better because if it was, perhaps more people would believe…”
Of course, this is a trick question since it’s predicated on the tendentious assumption that the evidence we have isn’t good enough.
Jon Curry wrote:
ReplyDelete"What Jason doesn't realize is that in the course of the few months that his argument about Paul's view of the resurrection was online I was in the process of moving out of state, so when I returned to the forum to look back at his argument and respond to it it was unavailable."
You kept posting in that forum for weeks after I wrote the post we're discussing. If you didn't have time to write a response later, because you were moving, that doesn't explain your failure to respond earlier, and it doesn't explain your repeated failure to interact with the arguments I presented in later discussions on the subject.
You write:
"If Jason would like to provide me his argument I would be happy to respond, but I don't think that reference to a now unavailable argument really constitutes a refutation."
This blog's archives contain dozens of threads in which you've left discussions with me, with Steve, with Gene, and with other people. Some of what we've told you we've had to repeat frequently before you've even attempted any interaction, and you often don't attempt any response at all. Now you tell me that you'd be "happy" to interact with my material on a subject I've posted on repeatedly in our previous discussions.
You write:
"But the facts still remain. Scholars disagree about whether Paul viewed the resurrection as physical, which at a minumum means it is unlear that he thought it was physical."
How does the existence of scholarly disagreement prove that something isn't sufficiently clear? It doesn't. Scholars are fallible, and they can have a wide range of motives. If some scholars argue that the United States government arranged the events of September 11, or a scholar in a Communist nation denies the misdeeds of a Communist government, it would be ridiculous to conclude that the evidence must therefore be unclear. And even if it was unclear, one position could still make better sense of the evidence than another.
You write:
"But even if he did, this wouldn't demonstrate that the appearances of 1 Cor 15 were physical as well. People could experience Christ in a non-physical way even if they thought he raised physically."
If you want to argue that what occurred in the events mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 were naturalistic experiences, then you need to explain why. You also need to interact with the many problems with that view, such as what I outlined in an earlier thread that you participated in (without interacting with my arguments on this subject):
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/09/does-vague-appeal-to-visions-overcome.html
1 Corinthians 15 isn't the only relevant passage. As I've explained before, we have good reason to include the empty tomb account and the gospel accounts, for example, among the beliefs of the earliest Christians.
And since you claim to now be "happy" to interact with my material on Paul's view of the resurrection, even though you weren't happy to do so in previous discussions, you can begin by interacting with Chris Price's article that I've been referring you to for a long time:
http://www.christianorigins.com/resbody.html
Then you can explain to us why you think it's historically probable that the physical view of the resurrection we see in other early documents, including documents attributed to associates of Paul (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Clement of Rome, etc.), isn't Paul's view. You can also explain why we're supposed to think that Pauline churches across a wide geographical spectrum (Antioch, Rome, Ephesus, etc.) misunderstood Paul or all changed their view in the same way around the same time, without leaving the sort of historical traces that we would expect such a shift in belief to produce. If Paul's view is "unclear", as you claim, yet Paul's associates and his churches across a wide spectrum are in agreement about the physical nature of the resurrection shortly after they were in contact with Paul, then wouldn't that widespread agreement among those who were recently in contact with Paul favor the conclusion that Paul himself held the physical view? If Paul comes from a Jewish background in which resurrection was viewed as physical (http://www.tektonics.org/lp/physrez.html), he repeatedly uses the language of physical resurrection in his writings (Romans 8:11, 1 Corinthians 15:53, etc.), and his associates and churches are in widespread agreement about the physical nature of the resurrection, then why are we supposed to think that Paul and the other earliest Christians held to a non-physical view?
You write:
"As far as whether or not I should be obligated to buy books that refute my positions, I think it's pretty obvious that I am not."
Where did I say that you're "obligated to buy books that refute your positions"? Participation in a forum like this is voluntary. Any "obligations" that would be involved would be obligations in the sense of what's proper. It is proper for somebody making the sort of claims you're making, in forums like this one, to make more of an effort to research the issues and document his claims. As I explained to you before, many resources are available online, in libraries, or in other contexts that involve little or no cost. And if some resources would cost you something you're unwilling to pay, then that's your problem. You keep wanting to participate in these discussions without doing the sort of research and documentation you'd need to do to support your assertions.
You write:
"I've been sent to look for arguments through long web pages by Jason and found that in fact the arguments weren't even there."
Give some examples.
You write:
"Jason says that Steve has online resources for the information I was looking for. But the bibliography he referred to in his post was all books, and he referred to 'titles' in his review of TET, which I assumed was also books."
No, Steve has a larger bibliography in the online book itself, and that bibliography includes online resources. He also mentions online resources outside of the bibliography. One of the online sources he mentions is a series of articles by Michael Sabom, which I also referenced for you in our discussions last year. Did you read that material last year? No. Did you read it after Steve referenced it? Of course not. Did Steve need to cite any online sources to sufficiently support his arguments? No. Your unwillingness to do research isn't Steve's problem. You rarely document your own claims, yet you tell Steve that his citation of multiple books and his reference to a larger bibliography that includes online resources isn't enough.
You write:
"I'm happy to look at links if they are available."
Whether you're "happy" with the documentation we give or not, it is documentation. If Steve is much better informed on a subject than you are, and he cites multiple books and a larger bibliography to support his conclusions, then the next logical step would be for you to do more research. Complaining that he didn't post some online material for you to read isn't a sufficient response.
You write:
"Jason also asserts that I don't make much effort to look for books in libraries. But this is false. I've informed Jason that I've looked for books in libraries that he's referred to. When I was unable to find them I asked Jason to scan a section from his book and email it to me, but he refused."
I'm aware of our exchange regarding the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, but what else are you referring to? With regard to the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, I gave you representative quotes from all three of the relevant sections (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The quotes I provided were sufficient to make my point, and I didn't type out more. You eventually asked me to send you my copy of the book, based on a distortion of Matthew 5:42 (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/taking-jesus-out-of-context.html), and I declined. Is your failed attempt to find the New Jerome Biblical Commentary in a local library supposed to represent your willingness to do research? If you're willing, then why don't you research the books Steve cited?
You write:
"My belief is that Jason and Steve like to give the impression that they have answers by referring to past refutations that are no longer available"
Why isn't the article I mentioned still available? Because I posted it more than a year ago, and the forum in question doesn't maintain posts for that length of time. You could have interacted with the post earlier, but you didn't. You ignored it for months, and now that it's offline, you're complaining that I've cited an article that's unavailable. When it was available, you ignored it. And now that it's unavailable, you either don't remember or are ignoring the arguments contained in it.
There are dozens of threads in the archives of this blog, threads that are still accessible, in which you either didn't respond to our replies to you or you left the discussion after some initial responses. And when you do initially respond, the quality of your material is consistently poor.
You write:
"The goal here is to pacify the concerns of onlookers rather than engage in an actual conversation with someone."
Yes, Steve's book on the resurrection, which is hundreds of pages long, is just "pacifying" without interacting. The same is true of the dozens of pages he spent reviewing Richard Dawkins' book, John Loftus' book, etc. And the hundreds of pages of material I've written are just "pacifying" without interacting. In contrast, your posts are reasonable and well documented, and you interact with other people rather than ignoring their posts or leaving threads in the middle of a discussion.
You kept posting in that forum for weeks after I wrote the post we're discussing. If you didn't have time to write a response later, because you were moving, that doesn't explain your failure to respond earlier, and it doesn't explain your repeated failure to interact with the arguments I presented in later discussions on the subject.
ReplyDeleteWe were discussing several subjects and I replied to your argument that I thought you had made some good points and I would need to study more and get back to you. However, I didn't want this to prevent us from discussing the other subjects. So for weeks we continued to discuss the other subjects, and then I moved and I pretty much stopped having discussions. Then I went back to look for the argument and it was gone.
This blog's archives contain dozens of threads in which you've left discussions with me, with Steve, with Gene, and with other people. Some of what we've told you we've had to repeat frequently before you've even attempted any interaction, and you often don't attempt any response at all. Now you tell me that you'd be "happy" to interact with my material on a subject I've posted on repeatedly in our previous discussions.
As I've explained to you before my belief is that many of your arguments miss the point of what I'm saying or repeat claims I've already dealt with, and while you continue to post some verbiage in response I find it isn't always worth my time to continue. But I also explained before that I thought this topic was one that was worth continuing. But the argument is gone. You keep bringing this one up as if it's your crown jewel of an argument that I haven't replied to, but I can't reply to it if it is unavailable.
How does the existence of scholarly disagreement prove that something isn't sufficiently clear? It doesn't.
Nothing can be proved with mathematical certainty. But when large swaths of scholarship (I can't say "majority" because I haven't done a survey, but I suspect it is a majority) deny that Paul believed that Christ's resurrection was physical, I think it's fair to at least say it isn't crystal clear that he did. And I'm not just talking about skeptics. Such men as Murray Harris, who I believe was a tenured professor at Trinity Evangalical Seminary, believe that Christ's resurrected body was essentially immaterial and non-physical.
Notice that I didn't say "Paul denied the physicality of the resurrected body." I said it is unclear that Paul's references to the appearances involved a physically resurrected Jesus. That's a truism. The fact that you can't acknowledge it as a possibility demonstrates the circularity and lack of open mindedness that is going on in your mind, and also explains your confident statements about how all of my arguments have been "answered" and I simply leave conversations because I can't deal with your arguments.
If you want to argue that what occurred in the events mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 were naturalistic experiences, then you need to explain why.
Not necessarily. It depends on what the point is that I'm trying to make. Not every post can be a 30 page thesis of every argument relating to every subject. I made a very modest claim. It is unclear that Paul is talking about a physical appearance when he talks about the 500 brethren. I provided a brief couple of reasons for that. I think what I've provided is enough to establish my modest claim, and I think my claim is simply obviously true. Your claim that it cannot be anything other than a physical appearance is a very bold claim that requires a lot more proof than you've provided. As I've already explained, even if you showed that Paul's view of Jesus' resurrected body was physical, this wouldn't show that the appearance to the 500 was also physical. Sorry, but the burden of proof is not on me. My claim is modest.
You also need to interact with the many problems with that view, such as what I outlined in an earlier thread that you participated in (without interacting with my arguments on this subject):
Yes, Jason, well that post of yours comes out to 55 pages as pasted in to Word for me. I'm sure there can only be one reason in your mind why I didn't reply. The fact is I didn't read it all. I read a part of it, hit something that I thought was worth replying to, and did so. Trumpeting your 55 page document to your concerned readers and saying that everyone is afraid to reply to you may pacify them though. Might just pacify you as well.
It is proper for somebody making the sort of claims you're making, in forums like this one, to make more of an effort to research the issues and document his claims.
I don't think so. Like I said, my claims are modest, so I think the evidence I've provided for them is sufficient. And I think that if you and Steve are going to claim that miracles are happening all around us and God is really talking to people through dreams and visions, then the burden shifts to you to provide accessible evidence. If these events are common, as Steve claims, then he should be able to do better than to suggest to me that I go read 6 or 7 books.
Give some examples.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/10/jon-currys-treatment-of-eusebius.html
Jon-Jason says that Steve has online resources for the information I was looking for. But the bibliography he referred to in his post was all books, and he referred to 'titles' in his review of TET, which I assumed was also books."
Jason-No, Steve has a larger bibliography in the online book itself, and that bibliography includes online resources.
What are you saying "no" to? Are you saying "no" to the fact that the online resources he referred to were books, or are you saying "no" to the fact that he referred me to "titles" in his review of TET? Either way you are wrong. He did refer to all books and he did refer to "titles" which would give a reasonable person the impression that he's referring to all books.
One of the online sources he mentions is a series of articles by Michael Sabom, which I also referenced for you in our discussions last year. Did you read that material last year? No. Did you read it after Steve referenced it? Of course not.
You referred me to dozens of long web pages and dozens of books. Often these involve off topic issues. I wonder if this is another example. I see Sabom has articles on near death experiences. Since this isn't what we're talking about, I wonder if you are again referring to irrelavancies. If you have evidence of people having vivid and powerful visions and dreams that occur in a manner similar to those that occur in the book of Acts, why don't you just provide links instead of dancing around the issue. Put them right here. Do you have online resources or don't you? If you do, post them, instead of playing these games in an effort to get me in another "gotcha." We're drifting far from the subject of Carrier's questions and Steve's answers. Get the evidence down and stop trying to turn this into bickering between me and you.
The quotes I provided were sufficient to make my point, and I didn't type out more.
Sufficient to make your point? Well, I wanted to get their thoughts on another point. If you are interested in having a conversation with me, rather than pacifying the onlookers, then provide me the information so that I can grow in knowledge. If your goal is to win arguments or to simply allay the concerns of lurkers and not to further the pursuit of truth, then I will expect that you will not provide me what I ask for.
Is your failed attempt to find the New Jerome Biblical Commentary in a local library supposed to represent your willingness to do research?
Your ad-hominem attacks on my character relating to failure to look for things in libraries is false. That's what it's intended to demonstrate. I should just ignore such attacks and encourage you to stop engaging in fallacies. If you think that the evidence for commonplace visions and dreams from God should be containted only in books and material that requires extra effort to find, then make your case. If you think there are online resources, provide them. Personal attacks on my character really don't change anything.
Jon Curry said:
ReplyDelete"We were discussing several subjects and I replied to your argument that I thought you had made some good points and I would need to study more and get back to you. However, I didn't want this to prevent us from discussing the other subjects. So for weeks we continued to discuss the other subjects, and then I moved and I pretty much stopped having discussions. Then I went back to look for the argument and it was gone."
You weren't well prepared to discuss the subject when you first brought it up, so you didn't respond to what I posted. More than a year later, after you had time to "study more", you didn't even remember what I had said, so you asked me to repost my arguments. Shouldn't you have been doing this sort of research before you left Christianity?
You write:
"But when large swaths of scholarship (I can't say 'majority' because I haven't done a survey, but I suspect it is a majority) deny that Paul believed that Christ's resurrection was physical, I think it's fair to at least say it isn't crystal clear that he did. And I'm not just talking about skeptics. Such men as Murray Harris, who I believe was a tenured professor at Trinity Evangalical Seminary, believe that Christ's resurrected body was essentially immaterial and non-physical."
You're in no position to make a reliable judgment about a scholarly majority on the issue. If you had much familiarity with scholarship, I doubt that you'd so frequently fail to document your assertions, so frequently make false historical claims, and so frequently rely on sources like Wikipedia when you do rarely cite a source. If you want to assert that there's a majority, then tell us why. In an article I linked to earlier, Chris Price takes the opposite position, and he knows the scholarship better than you do. Gary Habermas, who probably knows the recent scholarly trends better than anybody else, suggests that the bodily resurrection view has become the majority position (in Robert Stewart, ed., The Resurrection Of Jesus [Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2006], pp. 78-92 and http://garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005.htm). But, as I've said before, modern scholarship is largely opposed to Christianity, much as modern universities are largely liberal on political and social issues. Even if a majority of modern scholars would interpret Paul's writings as referring to a non-physical resurrection or would remain agnostic on the subject, for example, it wouldn't therefore follow that we should consider the evidence on the subject unclear (or clear in support of a non-physical view). This is a subject that has major implications for many aspects of life. People can reach their conclusions for reasons that aren't directly related to the evidence.
I've only read a small amount about the controversy surrounding Murray Harris. I doubt that you know much about it either. Whatever his views are, I can name liberal scholars, like John Crossan, who acknowledge that Paul held the physical view. Mentioning Murray Harris doesn't accomplish much.
You write:
"The fact that you can't acknowledge it as a possibility demonstrates the circularity and lack of open mindedness that is going on in your mind, and also explains your confident statements about how all of my arguments have been 'answered' and I simply leave conversations because I can't deal with your arguments."
Where did I suggest that I "can't acknowledge it as a possibility"? The issue isn't what's possible. The issue is what's probable. I've explained why I consider it probable that Paul believed in a physical resurrection, and you've given us no reason to reject my conclusion.
You write:
"As I've already explained, even if you showed that Paul's view of Jesus' resurrected body was physical, this wouldn't show that the appearance to the 500 was also physical."
If Paul's concept of resurrection involved a physical body, and he includes the appearance to the more than 500 along with the appearance to him in the context of the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, then why should we conclude that Paul is discussing a non-physical appearance? Paul knew of ongoing visions of Jesus (2 Corinthians 12:1-7). He wasn't discussing those. He was discussing resurrection appearances, which were physical and limited to the past (http://www.tektonics.org/guest/wildvis.html#diff).
You write:
"Trumpeting your 55 page document to your concerned readers and saying that everyone is afraid to reply to you may pacify them though."
Where did I say that "everyone is afraid to reply to me"?
You write:
"And I think that if you and Steve are going to claim that miracles are happening all around us and God is really talking to people through dreams and visions, then the burden shifts to you to provide accessible evidence. If these events are common, as Steve claims, then he should be able to do better than to suggest to me that I go read 6 or 7 books."
You're distorting what Steve said. In response to Richard Carrier, Steve commented that "contemporary reports of analogous phenomena are commonplace". You've taken a comment Steve made about reports and have distorted it into a comment about how "miracles are happening all around us and God is really talking to people through dreams and visions".
You write:
"http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/10/jon-currys-treatment-of-eusebius.html"
Citing one of our previous discussions doesn't tell me what it is within that discussion that supposedly supports your claim. You need to be more specific.
You write:
"You referred me to dozens of long web pages and dozens of books. Often these involve off topic issues. I wonder if this is another example. I see Sabom has articles on near death experiences. Since this isn't what we're talking about, I wonder if you are again referring to irrelavancies. If you have evidence of people having vivid and powerful visions and dreams that occur in a manner similar to those that occur in the book of Acts, why don't you just provide links instead of dancing around the issue. Put them right here. Do you have online resources or don't you? If you do, post them, instead of playing these games in an effort to get me in another 'gotcha.'"
Near-death research includes purported encounters with angels, demons, and God. Steve's sources included some material on near-death research, and you asked him for online sources rather than books. You initially objected to the format of Steve's sources. Now you're claiming that the subject matter is unacceptable as well. And I'm the one "playing games"? Steve has produced a bibliography consisting of books and online sources, and you aren't consulting either.
You've already been given documentation. There's no need for me to provide more. Your unwillingness to consult the sources provided is your problem, not ours. But to further demonstrate your carelessness, let me make some suggestions that you could have figured out on your own. You could read portions of some of the books Steve cited at amazon.com and books.google.com, for example. You could do a Google search on the authors Steve mentioned. You could do a Google search on a phrase like "parapsychological research" or "near-death research". You could also consult other people's responses to Richard Carrier, such as David Wood's (http://www.answeringinfidels.com/answering-skeptics/answering-richard-carrier/resurrection-dodgeball-a-critical-review-of-the-habermas-licona-carrier-exchange.html). How difficult is it to figure these things out?
In addition to not consulting Steve's sources or the sources I cited in my discussion with you last year, you aren't interacting with most of what I said about Paul's view of the resurrection in my last post.
You weren't well prepared to discuss the subject when you first brought it up, so you didn't respond to what I posted. More than a year later, after you had time to "study more", you didn't even remember what I had said, so you asked me to repost my arguments. Shouldn't you have been doing this sort of research before you left Christianity?
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like you are abandoning your criticism that I do not have an adequate reason for not responding and are now simply going to throw out some red herrings and a few more ad hominems. Since you have not responded to what I’ve said, I’ll take that to mean that you agree that my reasons for leaving the conversation were adequate.
In answer to your red herring, I would say that it's not unreasonable to forget the details of these arguments over a year after the fact when I've seen probably over a thousand pages of argument from you over the course of that time. In answer to whether or not I should have studied these things before leaving Christianity, I would say that that is not at all necessary since my reasons for leaving had nothing to do with Paul's view of the resurrection.
If you had much familiarity with scholarship, I doubt that you'd so frequently fail to document your assertions, so frequently make false historical claims, and so frequently rely on sources like Wikipedia when you do rarely cite a source.
Most of what I post is philosophical in nature. I make fewer evidential claims that are all that controversial, so most of what I cite doesn't require documentation. For instance, I talk about how the case for the resurrection starts with a strong presumption against it, since it is an extraordinary, miraculous claim. I talk about how the accounts of Mary Magdelene in Mt and Jn contradict one another. I talk about other biblical contradictions. I also spend a lot of time simply responding to points either you or Steve make where I think your conclusions just aren't logical. If there is a claim I've made that you think needs to be documented you should just point it out, rather than making vague reference to supposed claims I've made that I've failed to document. As far as Wikipedia, you keep talking about it like it is exceptionally unreliable. Probably because you don't like what is said about Papias and Polycarp. But I regard Wikipedia as far more reliable than tektonics. You complain that one article I've cited from Wikipedia has portions that are disputed, but any article submitted by Turkel from tektonics would be regarded as disputed by Wikipedia. At least Wikipedia has some checks and balances. Which probably explains why your own fellow bloggers cite Wikipedia approvingly occassionally.
If you want to assert that there's a majority, then tell us why.
But I didn't assert that there is a majority. You should read what I write more carefully.
I've only read a small amount about the controversy surrounding Murray Harris. I doubt that you know much about it either. Whatever his views are, I can name liberal scholars, like John Crossan, who acknowledge that Paul held the physical view. Mentioning Murray Harris doesn't accomplish much.
Murray Harris faced tremendous pressure to abandon his views on the resurrected body. John Crossan will face no such pressure. He won't be called on to be fired. Norman Geisler ran a campaign to ensure that Harris was denied tenure and caused a huge stink at the school. Now, why would Harris cause such a ruckus if the teaching from Paul is so clearly opposed to Harris' view? This must be very confusing in your world. What a waste of time for him. He must have some sort of character flaw in your mind. Maybe he likes to cause controversy and force himself into an early retirement. He probably goes home and punches himself in the face every night.
In my world this is very easily explained. It is not clear that the appearance to the 500 brethren is physical in nature. Murray Harris is a principled man and simply does not see things the way Geisler does. He took a stand and caused stress in his life because he thought it was the right thing to do. You say that the example of Harris doesn't accomplish much, but I think it does. His behavior is very consistent with my view that Paul's statement is unclear and very inconsistent with your views on the clarity of Paul's statements.
I'm surprised to hear you say that Crossan believes Paul accepted that the resurrection was physical. In his debate with William Lane Craig he says this with regards to I Cor 15:
"When Paul is pushed to say what type of a body he says it is a spiritual body. Now, I do not have a clue what that means. I know what a physical body is, I know what a spirit is like, but I don't know what a spiritual body is."
He follows that by saying that Paul's point is that it is the "same" Jesus, just in a different mode of existence.
Craig takes Crossan's statement to mean that Crossan regards the body as immaterial, and non-physical and replies as such. Crossan does not suggest that Craig's characterization of his view is incorrect. Can you document your claim that Crossan does think Paul believes the resurrection was a physical event?
Where did I suggest that I "can't acknowledge it as a possibility"? The issue isn't what's possible. The issue is what's probable. I've explained why I consider it probable that Paul believed in a physical resurrection, and you've given us no reason to reject my conclusion.
This is just semantic confusion. If you are merely saying that the physical view is more probable, then I wouldn't take that to be in conflict with my claim that the evidence is unclear. Something can have a 51% likelihood of being true and yet still be unclear. You are saying that Paul's view is physical and the evidence is clear and unambiguous. I take that to mean for all practical purposes the opposite view isn't actually possible. Logically possible maybe, but not actually possible. Regardless, my point is this. Scholarship is divided on this issue. Committed Christians disagree with you regarding Paul's view. With that in mind I think my even more modest claim that the appearance to the 500 may not have been intended as physical should be acknowledged by you as at least reasonable. Not necessarily probable, but at least reasonable. Your assertions that I'm clearly wrong and it can't be anything other than physical suggests you couldn't acknowledge my position as even reasonable. I take that as a demonstration that you are just not open minded and are locked in circular reasoning. I think my claim is modest and obviously true.
If Paul's concept of resurrection involved a physical body, and he includes the appearance to the more than 500 along with the appearance to him in the context of the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, then why should we conclude that Paul is discussing a non-physical appearance?
Well, for one, Christ's appearance to Paul as described in Acts isn't physical. So if he lumps his appearance in with that of the 500 it is only rational to assume that the appearance to the 500 was similar in nature. If you want to accept Acts that is. Now if you don't want to accept Acts, as I wouldn't, then I would have to say we just don't know what the appearance to Paul was like, because it wasn't described in detail. So it could have been physical or it could have been spiritual. We don't know. So it is unclear that the appearance to the 500 was physical.
Where did I say that "everyone is afraid to reply to me"?
You're doing what you always do. That is, majoring in the minors. The fundamental point is that you shouldn't act like it is unreasonable of me to not respond to every 55 page post that you offer.
You're distorting what Steve said. In response to Richard Carrier, Steve commented that "contemporary reports of analogous phenomena are commonplace". You've taken a comment Steve made about reports and have distorted it into a comment about how "miracles are happening all around us and God is really talking to people through dreams and visions".
Ok then. So Steve has failed to answer Richard's question. Richard points out that powerful dreams and visions are portrayed as occuring on a regular basis in the Bible. So why aren't these things happening now? In response Steve offers books and other "titles" (which apparently means websites as well as books) which discuss odd events that are unlike what Richard is describing. The follow up question from Richard would I guess be to repeat his question. Why aren't the events described in the Bible happening now, and why did they also occur with pagans in the past?
Good thing I didn't buy those book, eh? What a waste of money. Descriptions of events that have little to do with the question being asked. Based upon what I know right now I wouldn't deny that people who come close to death come back with weird stories of what they experience, but what I'd like to know is, why don't the things described in the Bible occur anymore when they were portrayed as commonplace in Scripture, and why did pagans have similar experiences back in that time.
Citing one of our previous discussions doesn't tell me what it is within that discussion that supposedly supports your claim. You need to be more specific.
80% of my comments in that post have to do with the claims you made about how an argument was contained at a website but in fact there was no such argument.
Now you're claiming that the subject matter is unacceptable as well. And I'm the one "playing games"?
Yes to both questions. When you offer tons of books with information regarding questions that weren't asked, and criticise people for not spending lots of time and money aquiring such irrelevant books, that is unacceptable. And yes, you are playing games. I ask for evidence and you want to talk about how I've failed to document something somewhere, how Wikipedia is a bad source, and how I've failed to respond to several of your 55 page posts. Why don't you just provide your evidence and stop wasting your time. Is it because you don't have any evidence? I haven't seen any yet.
In addition to not consulting Steve's sources or the sources I cited in my discussion with you last year, you aren't interacting with most of what I said about Paul's view of the resurrection in my last post.
Paul's overall view of whether the resurrection was physical is simply beyond the scope of this thread. It is irrelevant to the point I've made here about the 500 brethren as I've already shown. Let me try and get you to focus on the issue at hand, rather than turn this into another one of those threads where you post 55 pages in response, then run around talking about how everybody always leaves the discussions you're involved in.
Jesus could have appeared to more than just his committed followers. He could have appeared to powerful and well known enemies. Those appearances would have greatly improved the quality of evidence that we, living 2000 years later, have available to us. Even if I were to grant that he did appear physically to Paul and James, and that both Paul and James were enemies before hand, had he appeared around the world such that other cultures had recorded the appearance, or had he appeared to Pilate or Caiphas or Herod or any number of other people, the evidence would have been much better. Rather we are stuck with evidence that for the most part is the most highly suspicious sort of evidence that we could ask for. Why do you think that is? Why did he do that, according to you?
Jon Curry said:
ReplyDelete"Looks to me like you are abandoning your criticism that I do not have an adequate reason for not responding and are now simply going to throw out some red herrings and a few more ad hominems. Since you have not responded to what I’ve said, I’ll take that to mean that you agree that my reasons for leaving the conversation were adequate."
I said that you had more than a year to interact with the evidence I presented, that you failed to do so, and that you should have done the relevant research long ago. How do you arrive at your conclusion above from what I said? I never denied that you would give reasons for not doing what you should have done earlier: you wanted to discuss other issues, you had to move, etc. No, I don't consider those reasons "adequate". You've made time to post on issues related to the resurrection when you've thought that you could effectively argue against the Christian view, but when you're asked to interact with evidence that's contrary to your position, you frequently leave the discussion or claim that you don't have time.
You write:
"But I didn't assert that there is a majority. You should read what I write more carefully."
You said that you suspect that a majority of scholars deny that Paul believed in a physical resurrection. If you're saying that you didn't make an assertion, since you added the "I suspect" qualifier, then tell us why you suspect what you suspect on the subject.
You write:
"You complain that one article I've cited from Wikipedia has portions that are disputed, but any article submitted by Turkel from tektonics would be regarded as disputed by Wikipedia."
The article you cited from Wikipedia wasn't just disputed. It contained many errors, including ones documented in the article's own comments section. I cited some examples of the article's inaccuracies in a post you never responded to:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/11/horus-jesus-and-jon-curry.html
You write:
"Can you document your claim that Crossan does think Paul believes the resurrection was a physical event?"
Crossan's views seem to have developed over time, and he's sometimes difficult to interpret. Gary Habermas discusses the issue in an article that I cited in my last response in this thread. For example:
"Neither Crossan nor Wright espouse naturalistic theories specifically regarding the resurrection appearances. Wright is much more outspoken in his opposition to these alternatives hypotheses, referring to them as 'false trails.' Crossan has also recently agreed that the disciples, in some sense, experienced the risen Jesus and that natural substitutes are unconvincing....Perhaps most surprisingly, both Wright and Crossan embrace the claim that the earliest Christian teachings taught that Jesus appeared in a bodily manner. This is the case for several reasons, such as this being the predominant Jewish view at the time. Most of all, this was the clear meaning of the terms....On all three occasions when Wright and Crossan have dialogued concerning the resurrection, Crossan has noted his essential agreement with Wright’s major thesis regarding the meaning of bodily resurrection. In fact, Crossan notes that he 'was already thinking along these same lines.' Crossan even agrees with Wright that Paul thought that Jesus’ appearance to him was also bodily in nature. Crossan and Reed explain that, 'To take seriously Paul’s claim to have seen the risen Jesus, we suggest that his inaugural vision was of Jesus’ body simultaneously wounded and glorified.'...The emerging agreement [between John Crossan and N.T. Wright] concerning the essential nature of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, especially for Paul and the New Testament authors, is a recent twist that would have been rather difficult to predict just a few years ago....For Crossan, at a very early date, the resurrection appearances were held by Paul and the disciples to be actual, bodily events. Though he personally rejects that view, Crossan accepts Jesus’ resurrection as a metaphor. Perhaps shedding some further light on his position, Crossan has affirmed what appears to be a crucial distinction. He rejects the literal resurrection of Jesus at least partially because he does not believe in an afterlife, so he has no literal category into which the resurrection may be placed." (http://garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005.htm)
In a book published earlier this year, Michael Licona recounts a discussion he had with Crossan in late 2004. Crossan told him that he "would not be at all surprised to learn that there was an empty tomb where Jesus had been laid and that Paul believed in an empty tomb" (Paul Meets Muhammad [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2006], n. 11 on p. 166).
You write:
"You are saying that Paul's view is physical and the evidence is clear and unambiguous. I take that to mean for all practical purposes the opposite view isn't actually possible. Logically possible maybe, but not actually possible."
You're adding the qualifier "for all practical purposes" in an attempt to defend your error. I didn't deny that my position could be false, and saying that I did so "for all practical purposes" doesn't justify your mischaracterization.
You write:
"So Steve has failed to answer Richard's question. Richard points out that powerful dreams and visions are portrayed as occuring on a regular basis in the Bible. So why aren't these things happening now? In response Steve offers books and other 'titles' (which apparently means websites as well as books) which discuss odd events that are unlike what Richard is describing. The follow up question from Richard would I guess be to repeat his question. Why aren't the events described in the Bible happening now, and why did they also occur with pagans in the past?"
Carrier didn't just mention Biblical events. He also referred to events among Jews and Gentiles outside of scripture. No Christian must, as a Christian, accept all claims of supernatural dreams and visions and such from non-Christian sources. Carrier was referring to reports of such events, not a Christian belief that all such events did occur. He also used the phrase "similar experiences". Later in his discussion with Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, which is where he initially posed these questions, he referred to "people clearly believing that God is talking to them, that angels and gods and so forth are appearing to them—pagans, Jews, and Christians—this is happening all the time" (http://www.answeringinfidels.com/answering-skeptics/answering-richard-carrier/resurrection-dodgeball-a-critical-review-of-the-habermas-licona-carrier-exchange.html). A phrase like "God talking" or "appearing to them" is broad and can't be limited in the way you're trying to limit it. Carrier didn't limit himself to dreams and visions in the manner in which you're trying to limit the discussion. Even if he did suggest such a limit, visions can be defined broadly, as we see in 2 Corinthians 12:1-7, for example. How do you know that something like a near-death experience is to be excluded? Do you want us to believe that if a first century person claims to hear from God while dreaming, whereas a twenty-first century person claims to hear from God in a near-death experience, then some difference exists between the two that's sufficient to sustain your position?
As a Christian, I believe that some supernatural claims in the ancient world were true and that some were false. I believe that the same is true in today's world. But even if there were no supernatural phenomena today, there are plausible reasons for God to so operate. There were supernatural events surrounding Jesus' life and the lives of the apostles that were meant to confirm their claims (Hebrews 2:3-4). We wouldn't expect the activities of an age of public revelation to continue into an age in which no public revelation is being given. If we have reliable evidence for a past public revelation, then God doesn't need to keep giving us supernatural phenomena on an ongoing basis.
You tell us that Steve's sources "discuss odd events that are unlike what Richard is describing". If you haven't read Steve's sources, then how do you know that they don't discuss anything relevant? Even if none of Steve's sources had been relevant, I've given you other sources, such as David Wood's article, which do discuss the sort of events Richard mentions.
You write:
"80% of my comments in that post have to do with the claims you made about how an argument was contained at a website but in fact there was no such argument."
No, you're mistaken. In the thread you linked to, I documented that Roger Pearse did address the arguments I said he addressed. You never refuted what I said, and it was another of the many discussions that you left without interacting with my last response.
You had told me that you didn't read Pearse's article. Apparently, you just looked at some portions of it. Yet, now you're claiming to know that his article didn't contain what I said it contained. And, above, you claim to know what Steve's sources contain, even though you haven't read those sources.
You write:
"Well, for one, Christ's appearance to Paul as described in Acts isn't physical."
You offer no documentation. Even if Acts didn't say that the appearance was physical, it wouldn't follow that the appearance therefore wasn't physical. If Acts was neutral on the issue, we could still conclude that the appearance was physical from the evidence for Paul's physical view of the resurrection elsewhere.
But is Acts neutral on the issue? No. The appearance to Paul is described as experienced by other people, not just Paul, and it involves physical light and hearing with physical ears (Acts 22:9, 22:11, 26:13). Paul identifies his view of resurrection with that of the Pharisees, which is a physical view (Acts 23:6).
You write:
"So if he [Paul] lumps his appearance in with that of the 500 it is only rational to assume that the appearance to the 500 was similar in nature."
Yet, later in the same post, you comment:
"Paul's overall view of whether the resurrection was physical is simply beyond the scope of this thread. It is irrelevant to the point I've made here about the 500 brethren as I've already shown."
Which is it?
In addition to your inconsistency, your claim that Paul's view is "simply beyond the scope of this thread" is ridiculous. Paul's experience of the resurrection was one of the subjects mentioned in Steve's initial post. Why should I let you frame the discussion in such a way that Paul's view isn't included? Not only have you repeatedly failed to interact with most of the evidence I cited regarding Paul's view of the resurrection, but now you're even trying to exclude discussion of the subject from the thread. I doubt that you'd behave in this manner if you knew of a way to refute what I presented. Since you don't have a refutation, you're trying to avoid discussing the subject.
You write:
"Jesus could have appeared to more than just his committed followers. He could have appeared to powerful and well known enemies. Those appearances would have greatly improved the quality of evidence that we, living 2000 years later, have available to us. Even if I were to grant that he did appear physically to Paul and James, and that both Paul and James were enemies before hand, had he appeared around the world such that other cultures had recorded the appearance, or had he appeared to Pilate or Caiphas or Herod or any number of other people, the evidence would have been much better. Rather we are stuck with evidence that for the most part is the most highly suspicious sort of evidence that we could ask for. Why do you think that is? Why did he do that, according to you?"
I addressed issues like those in an earlier thread in which somebody asked about some of Richard Carrier's arguments. See the comments section at:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/11/distinct-impressions.html
You claim that the evidence "for the most part is the most highly suspicious sort". Then why do critics propose widespread hallucinations, repeatedly argue that universally accepted document attributions were wrong, and propose other highly speculative theories in an attempt to dismiss what was reported by contemporaries and eyewitnesses of the events? When you have to argue that hundreds of people in 1 Corinthians 15, individuals and groups, including some who had been enemies of Christianity, were all mistaken in thinking that they saw Christ, some of them repeatedly, you aren't giving an easy explanation. You're giving a highly difficult explanation, one that the most educated of critical scholars have struggled with for centuries, the sort of explanation that even they acknowledge to be unsatisfactory. The sort of scholarly views of the resurrection that Gary Habermas has documented (see my references above) wouldn't exist if the evidence "for the most part is the most highly suspicious sort".
I've been discussing the resurrection with you for over a year now. You've repeatedly ignored large amounts of evidence, have misrepresented the issues involved, and have left many of the most significant questions unanswered. Your suggestion that the evidence is mostly "the most highly suspicious sort" rings hollow in light of your own behavior.
I should add something to my last post. I want to repeat a point I made earlier, which Jon seems to keep overlooking.
ReplyDeleteIf he wants to argue that Paul's view of the resurrection is unclear from Paul's writings, then he needs to address the other evidence I cited earlier in this thread. Paul was a Jew, and the mainstream Jewish view of resurrection was physical. Paul had been a Pharisee, and the Pharisees held a physical view of the resurrection. The physical view of the resurrection was widespread among Paul's companions and his churches. If Paul's Jewish context and his Pharisaic context suggest that he would have held a physical view of the resurrection, and we know of widespread acceptance of the physical view among his companions and his churches, then it's more likely that he held a physical view than it is that he held a non-physical view. In other words, if Jon wants us to avoid the conclusion that Paul probably held a physical view of the resurrection, then he needs to do more than argue that what Paul writes on the subject is unclear. Not only has Jon repeatedly failed to interact with what I've documented from Paul's writings, but he's also failed to sufficiently address the context surrounding Paul, such as his Jewish background, his Pharisaic background, and the beliefs of his companions and churches.
How do you arrive at your conclusion above from what I said?
ReplyDeleteWhy would you respond with so many fallacies and ignore my reasons if you could offer some sort of response to my reasons?
You've made time to post on issues related to the resurrection when you've thought that you could effectively argue against the Christian view, but when you're asked to interact with evidence that's contrary to your position, you frequently leave the discussion or claim that you don't have time.
What does any of this have to do with my reasons for not yet replying to your arguments about Paul’s view of the resurrection? Again, if you had some sort of reasonable response, I’d expect you to offer it. Since you don’t I have to assume you have no response.
Speaking of leaving discussions, that’s not always a bad thing. I’ve explained why I leave discussions. You don’t interact with my explanations. You just repeat the same mantra that I “frequently leave the discussion.” You should interact with my reasons for leaving discussions instead of just repeating what I’ve already responded to.
It forces me to just repeat what I’ve already explained. Let me copy and paste my explanation for why I left the discussion regarding Paul’s view of the resurrection. Here is what I had said:
We were discussing several subjects and I replied to your argument that I thought you had made some good points and I would need to study more and get back to you. However, I didn't want this to prevent us from discussing the other subjects. So for weeks we continued to discuss the other subjects, and then I moved and I pretty much stopped having discussions. Then I went back to look for the argument and it was gone.
If you think this is an inadequate reason tell me why. Don’t just reply by saying that I’ve “frequently” left discussions on other subjects, and so for some reason that makes my reasons on this subject inadequate.
What about ignoring arguments? Does that count as “leaving the discussion”? You raised a couple of red herrings and engaged in some ad hominem fallacies which I replied to. I said that after 1000 pages of text from you and over a year it is understandable that I would not remember the details of your argument. You never replied. You criticized me for not studying Paul’s view of the resurrection in depth before rejecting Christianity, but I explained that my rejection of Christianity wasn’t based on this issue, so it is not unreasonable for me to have not studied this in depth before rejecting Christianity. You never replied. Did you “leave the discussion”?
You continue to assert that I fail to document my claims. I’ve suggested to you that instead of making vague reference to places where I’ve supposedly failed to document claims, why don’t you actually show me those claims which I’ve failed to document. Why don’t you explain what documentation from me you are still waiting for? You haven’t replied. Did you “leave the discussion”?
You’ve asserted that my example of Murray Harris doesn’t accomplish much, but I explained why it did. You’ve said nothing in response. Did you “leave the discussion”?
You asserted I was wrong when I said Steve referred to books in a bibliography and “titles” in his review of TET, but when called on it you said nothing in response. Did you “leave the discussion”?
If you're saying that you didn't make an assertion, since you added the "I suspect" qualifier, then tell us why you suspect what you suspect on the subject.
My suspicion is based upon the articles I’ve read and debates I’ve heard on this issue.
The article you cited from Wikipedia wasn't just disputed. It contained many errors, including ones documented in the article's own comments section.
You did find one error, and I accept your correction. This doesn’t make Wikipedia less reliable than tektonics. At least Wikipedia has a comments section where claims can be disputed. What does tektonics have? The facts remain, and you haven’t addressed them. Wikipedia is more reliable than tektonics, which is why even triabloggers cite it.
Sounds like Crossan is quite flaky. You even say that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there was an empty tomb, despite the fact that he has repeatedly asserted that Jesus’ body was probably thrown in a common grave and eaten by dogs. I don’t think he makes for a good example of a skeptic that believes Paul believed in a physical resurrection. But as I keep saying, even if Paul did believe in a physical resurrection, this wouldn’t make the appearance to the 500 physical. Pentecostals believe Christ appears to them in a non physical way, and they do believe that Jesus was raised physically.
Carrier didn't just mention Biblical events. He also referred to events among Jews and Gentiles outside of scripture.
Let’s just post his question:
"In the Book of Acts the Apostles are having vivid and powerful visions and dream communications from God all the time. We hear of similar experiences reported in that era from Jews and pagans, who were also having vivid and powerful visions and dream communications from a variety of gods and angels. Why isn't this happening now? And why was that happening back then, even to pagans and Jews, who weren't seeing or hearing what the Christians were seeing and hearing?"
The point is clear. Certain things were happening back then (both amongst Christians as described in their writings, Jews, and pagans) that aren’t happening now. Why do you think that is? Are you admitting then that dreams and visions as occur in the book of Acts don’t happen anymore, but perhaps a variation on them does (NDE’s)? My follow up question would be, why don’t dreams and visions as described in the book of Acts occur anymore in your view? I see you have provided an answer and that is fine, but I’m not interested in studying NDE’s at this time.
If you haven't read Steve's sources, then how do you know that they don't discuss anything relevant?
I suppose you think I should go out and take all the time to read all those books and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find something relevant. Sorry, but time is money. I’m not going to waste all that time on a long shot hope of learning something useful.
In the thread you linked to, I documented that Roger Pearse did address the arguments I said he addressed. You never refuted what I said, and it was another of the many discussions that you left without interacting with my last response.
No, it was another one the many discussions where you ignored and talked around what I said. You never showed that Pearse addressed the specific argument I was referring to from Carrier.
You had told me that you didn't read Pearse's article. Apparently, you just looked at some portions of it. Yet, now you're claiming to know that his article didn't contain what I said it contained.
At one point I hadn’t read all of it and at a later point I had. So yes, I know it didn’t contain what you said it contained. My repeated requests to have you post the supposed response went unheeded.
You offer no documentation.
I assumed you are familiar with Paul’s conversion story in Acts 9 and in Acts 22. Is this what you mean when you say I fail to document? Here are the quotes. At Acts 9 we have:
"the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man."
In Acts 22 we have:
"And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake unto me."
So we have a bright light, no man is seen and a voice is maybe heard, maybe not. This just doesn’t sound like a physical bodily appearance.
The appearance to Paul is described as experienced by other people, not just Paul, and it involves physical light and hearing with physical ears
How do you know it involved physical light and physical ears? How do you know that the companions heard anything when the text says they didn’t (though it also says they did)? Even if we accept the Acts 9 version, how do you know the sound involved physical sound waves and eardrums? Can’t God cause you to hear a sound without such physical devices? Did Stephen physically see the heavens open and Jesus at the right hand of the father? Why only him and not the others?
You quote me and comment:
"So if he [Paul] lumps his appearance in with that of the 500 it is only rational to assume that the appearance to the 500 was similar in nature."
Yet, later in the same post, you comment:
"Paul's overall view of whether the resurrection was physical is simply beyond the scope of this thread. It is irrelevant to the point I've made here about the 500 brethren as I've already shown."
Which is it?
I don’t understand why you see these statements as if they are in conflict. With the first statement you can go ahead and assume Paul’s belief that the resurrection was a physical event with a physical body. That doesn’t show that the specific appearance to the 500 was physical. With the second statement I just repeat that same point. What is the problem?
In addition to your inconsistency, your claim that Paul's view is "simply beyond the scope of this thread" is ridiculous.
I don’t know how many times I’m going to need to say it. Again, even granting that Paul thought the physical tomb was empty, that Christ physically rose, and that we would all also rise in our physical bodies, this wouldn’t prove that the appearance to Paul or to the 500 was physical. A physical Christ could still appear in a vision to Paul or to 500 people or to everybody in the whole world. And Paul would still find that point to be significant and worth putting in a creed. I would be delighted if you would like to address this argument from me rather than just repeating over and over that my argument doesn’t work, and we do need to debate Paul’s view of the resurrection. But if you are going to do nothing but continue to assert the same old line, then I can do nothing but repeat what I’ve already said, and ultimately “leave the conversation” so you can talk about how I’ve failed somehow.
Then why do critics propose widespread hallucinations, repeatedly argue that universally accepted document attributions were wrong, and propose other highly speculative theories in an attempt to dismiss what was reported by contemporaries and eyewitnesses of the events?
Because even speculative theories are preferred to theories that invoke real magic, demons, talking animals, divination, necromancy, and (supposed) visions. This has all been explained to you many times, but you just keep repeating the same old tired lines. Ignoring arguments is truly “leaving the conversation.”
You follow this with an additional post:
If he wants to argue that Paul's view of the resurrection is unclear from Paul's writings, then he needs to address the other evidence I cited earlier in this thread.
Again, stop ignoring what I say. I’ve repeatedly pointed out that Paul’s view of the resurrection is irrelevant to my point that the appearance to the 500 is not clearly physical. My point in this discussion is not that Paul’s overall belief in the resurrection as physical is unclear (though I think it is, and Murray Harris is good evidence of that). My point is that the appearance to the 500 as being physical is unclear. You need to address that point before turning this into another one of your 55 page posts about a different subject that I “never responded to.”
Again, if Paul thinks the resurrection is not a physical event, then certainly the appearance to the 500 is not a physical event. But if he thinks the resurrection is a physical event, this doesn’t show that the appearance to the 500 is physical. If you can show that the appearance to the 500 must be physical IF Paul views the resurrection as a physical event, then I will agree that the question of Paul’s view becomes relevant. Until such time as you argue for that point Paul’s view is irrelevant. I’ll even grant it. Don’t bother arguing for it. I’ll give it to you for the sake of argument. What of the 500? Deal with the issue and stop ignoring it.
Jon Curry wrote:
ReplyDelete"I suppose you think I should go out and take all the time to read all those books and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find something relevant. Sorry, but time is money. I’m not going to waste all that time on a long shot hope of learning something useful....But if you are going to do nothing but continue to assert the same old line, then I can do nothing but repeat what I’ve already said, and ultimately 'leave the conversation' so you can talk about how I’ve failed somehow."
Since you keep ignoring so much of what I'm writing and since you don't want to take the time to consult the sources you're given, I'm not going to take the time to answer each of your questions and claims. I'm primarily posting for the benefit of other people, not you. I will respond to some comments you made that some other readers might be interested in:
"So we have a bright light, no man is seen and a voice is maybe heard, maybe not. This just doesn’t sound like a physical bodily appearance....How do you know it involved physical light and physical ears? How do you know that the companions heard anything when the text says they didn’t (though it also says they did)? Even if we accept the Acts 9 version, how do you know the sound involved physical sound waves and eardrums? Can’t God cause you to hear a sound without such physical devices? Did Stephen physically see the heavens open and Jesus at the right hand of the father? Why only him and not the others?"
Apparently, you didn't give much thought to the passages I cited or the other relevant data. Acts tells us, in 9:27 and 22:14, that Paul saw Jesus (as does Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:1), so your claim that "no man is seen" in Acts is fallacious. Acts 22:11 associates Paul's lack of sight with the light he had seen, which suggests physical light. The people with Paul hear and see and fall, but without understanding what they're experiencing. Since nothing in the text or context would suggest that we should take the experiences of the people with Paul in a non-physical sense, then a physical reading is preferable. God communicates with Paul, not the people with him. They aren't the object of God's communication, so why would God put non-physical experiences they didn't understand in their minds? Paul affirms his belief in a physical resurrection in Acts (13:34-37, 23:6), as he does in his own writings, as I've documented. Acts opens with references to the physical nature of the resurrection (2:29-31) and the eyewitness status of the apostles (1:22, 2:32). The witnessing in question involves physical experiences (Acts 1:21-22), not a series of non-physical visions. When Paul is called as a witness later, after seeing the risen Jesus in order to become an apostle, the same sort of experience probably is in view.
Your citation of Stephen supports my position rather than yours. The people with Stephen aren't described as sharing in his experience, Acts 7:56 suggests that Stephen knew that he had to tell the other people what he was seeing, and there's nothing like a loss of physical eyesight after seeing a light.
As I said before, even if Acts were neutral on the issue of whether the appearance to Paul was physical, it wouldn't follow that the appearance was non-physical. We would look to other data to see what conclusion is supported by that other information. As I've explained, the larger context in which Paul lives makes it far more likely that he would have believed in a physical than a non-physical resurrection.