Monday, July 14, 2008
Take A Look At The Thinking Behind The Latest Edition Of John Loftus' Book
John Loftus keeps telling us about the latest edition of his book against Christianity. He did much the same with the earlier edition that Steve Hays reviewed (here, here, and here), a review John hasn't interacted with much. If you want some idea of the mindset behind the latest edition of John's book, I suggest reading the thread here. Notice how bad his reasoning is, how he repeats bad arguments that have been refuted in his presence many times, and how he misrepresents the beliefs of those he disagrees with. How much has John's reasoning and argumentation improved since the last edition of his book? If there's been a sufficient improvement, why isn't that improvement reflected in his posts?
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I think you are remiss in not giving an actual review. To just say "It hasn't imporeved" and link to past reviews is not enough. You need to give examples of what thinking you find inadequate and show why.
ReplyDeletewhy don't you do your own review? I have not gotten to read the book. John wont send me a review copy, which is common curtsy since I was a journal publisher.
He probably wont send it for the same reason I wont buy it, I got no bread!If you want me to review it I will. But, you have to send me a copy.
But the first edition was reviewed, and the link shows that the arguments haven't improved. If you read the first review, and then John's latest comments, which haven't moved past the initial objections, why do you have to read and review the new edition? I suggest the new edition isn't substantially better and it was probably written for the same reason you won't buy it, he needed money.
ReplyDeleteYou guys seem to be on the warpath against me. This comes and goes.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I don't have any extra copies of my self-published book to hand out, and it has been discontinued. The only remaining copies are the ones amazon (and others) now have in their warehouses. When it comes to the PB edition, it is a thoroughly and extensively revised work which supercedes the previous ones. It now sits at 428 pages, whereas the previous one was 280 pages (some material was even cut out, about 80 pages from the previous one). Several people who have read it like it very much! If you disagree without reading it then you disagree with these people without any evidence. That's okay if you are in the habit of believing in things without any evidence, I guess. Ohhh, but wait, that's what some of you do...sorry, I forgot. ;-)
And I did read Steve's hatchet job of a review of a book that has not been on the market for over a year now, since I revised it abou the time he reviewed it. Besides, anyone who reads it will know that he is not being fair with my book at all. If he was fair it would strengthen his case, but since he is obviously not, then it weakens his case. And if you weren't observant Steve did not deal with my argument about the problem of evil...he simply skipped it.
If anyone can make the case to PB that they are worthy of receiving a free review copy, then have at it.
Cheers.
John, you can't even account for evil in your worldview, so why do you have a problem with it?
ReplyDeleteJonah, I've addressed your comment here.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
And as for evidence, let me ask you this: Do you believe that Plato existed?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have any original writings of his. So who's to say that the "copies" we have reflect reality and are not something someone made up? Even if we had "originals", there's no way to prove they're not fakes. Besides, they all sound silly anyway, anyone with a modern understanding of philosophy can grasp how pedestrian this "Plato" person was. Isn't it more likely that this was some medieval student's idea of a joke?
I'm sorry John, but you calling an argument "asinine" doesn't make it so.
ReplyDeleteWhat you're saying is that evil obviously exists. Yes, it does. But the concept is borrowed from the Christian worldview.
And I don't have time to read a bunch of links to arguments raised by other people. Why don't you just answer me? Is it because you can't?
Jonah, usually the question is whether or not Socrates existed, not Plato. But nonetheless, even if you are quite a bit more skeptical than I about histocial evidence, you have made my point for me. Thanks. Historical evidence is unreliable evidence.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jonah, that must be the ONLY conclusion you can come to. I can't answer you. Sheesh. With thinking skills like that no wonder you believe.
ReplyDelete"Historical evidence is unreliable evidence."
ReplyDeleteSo, if it didn't happen to you, then it didn't happen?
Well, I guess we can go back to the Myth of Roger Bannister then.
You can't live in your world, and the fact that you continue to try is evidence of the complete darkening of your mind.
You're right Jason. No improvement.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, enjoyed those book reviews.
ReplyDeleteI gathered that John Loftus is/was an adulterer...I never knew that.
I know from experience one argument against Christianity is all the sexual escapades of preachers...so I take it John's personal sexual problems proved to him there is no God...after all, a real Christian can't possibly cheat on his wife...if he does, this proves there is no God. Further, if a Christian cheats on his wife and is restored by repentance and church discipline, this shows Christians really think adultery is a-okay...so forgiveness would also prove there is no God.
Further proof there is no God: Nobody showed grace to John when he committed adultery. Had he been shown grace, that would prove Christians are nice...but also, it proves that there is no God (not that we didn't know that already...after all, John committed adultery, and that already proved there is no God).
As is, John's logic proves Christians are meanies, and there is no God.
Had John not committed adultery, it would prove he was sexually repressed and brain washed by the intolerance of Christian theism...so by not committing adultery, he would have still proven there is no God...albeit, it would have been unintentional...but the evidence is there!
John Loftus,
ReplyDeleteThe article you linked to misses the fact that, as you've been informed time and time again, the Christian worldview accounts for evil as part of God's plan, none of it is meaningless b/c God is directing it all for His glory. That's the answer to the internal critique.
If an external critique, please provide for us your basis for knowing what good and evil are.
The article is asinine. Or maybe pitiful. Either way.
Antipelagian, I have warned people a number of times to be careful how they treat my adultery, but to no avail. I'll not belabor the point here but there are Christians who read this blog who are having affairs. They feel guilty for doing so but they also think God will forgive them. After all, this is not going to send them to hell. No sin will send them to hell, they believe. God is gracious and will forgive...has already forgiven. That is, unless you think one cannot sin and still be a Christian. So they wonder how they will be treated by other Christians if they confess. If you treat my sin in demeaning ways they will know never to come clean with theirs. Most of the people who belittle my sin are young people who condemn outward acts of sin but instead have a cesspool of sin in their minds, or they regularly visit pornography sites. Do you? Such hypocricy. The only difference is that I have come clean. So, throw stones only if you are clean. I was a believer when it happened, about 18 years ago as of now. By condemning me you show your true colors. You are a condemning lot. Good luck with that, until you find yourself in a compromising situation of some sort or a public sin of some sort. Then you'll want grace, like I did, and you won't get it. Then Christians as in my case, like yours, will ask for evidence in keeping with repentance, but you know what?...if they don't want to see it they can always find a reason not to find it.
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest you show some grace here? You may need it in the future and wished you had set the standard.
In the meantime please tell us all about your sins. I'm sure people will be interested. Would you be embarrassed about them?
Antipelegian:
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! With your permission, I plan on copying to my files.
Loftus,
ReplyDeleteYou've been answered on THAT issue many times on this blog as well.
Have you used any new arguments in the last 3 years?
JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
ReplyDelete"And if you weren't observant Steve did not deal with my argument about the problem of evil...he simply skipped it."
I explained in my review why I skipped his argument from evil. Loftus runs through a number of theodices. But he doesn't address my (supralapsarian) theodicy.
And, needlessly to say, I've often addressed the argument of evil, including the many failed attempts by Loftus.
Loftus kept challenging me to read his precious book. When I took him up on the challenge, he fell strangely silent.
john w. loftus said...
ReplyDelete"Good luck with that, until you find yourself in a compromising situation of some sort or a public sin of some sort. Then you'll want grace, like I did, and you won't get it. Then Christians as in my case, like yours, will ask for evidence in keeping with repentance, but you know what?...if they don't want to see it they can always find a reason not to find it."
So Loftus was looking for grace from human beings. No wonder he didn't find it. If you want grace, look to God, not your fellow man. Man doesn't dispense grace, God does.
y don't you that print on demand thing? then you could just have it printed up whenever anyone orders copy?
ReplyDeleteso, no one wants to send me a copy?
cheap sckates!
John Loftus....
ReplyDeleteI didn't demean your sin or make light of it. Your comment was a self-righteous attempt at guilt manipulation and I'm not buying it.
I merely pointed out a common thread found among atheists' excuses and why they claim they repudiate Christianity.
Have you noticed that you always portray yourself as if you smell like roses through all of this?
Poor John...he was manipulated...it was that "Jezebel" that made him do it...it was also his ex wife's fault...and "Damn those unforgiving Christians too!"
No John...you don't smell like roses. You were not a disinterested weakling who was being acted upon by outside forces.
James 1:14 ...each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
John, what you want isn't "grace"...you want to weasel yourself out of being guilty...and you are trying to bypass Jesus Christ. Your greatest sin is not adultery...it is cursing the Son and blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
Sorry John...you're tune isn't Amazing Grace...it is a self-righteous attempt at exhonerating yourself and using guilt manipulation anytime someone says "boo".
I take it from the ensuing discussion that a major motivation in John's defection from the faith was that he wasn't shown compassion by the Church when he sinned?
ReplyDeleteOf course that doesn't prove anything about the truth claims of Christianity. Unfortunately it does prove something, which I think we all really know already, about the sorry state of the church.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteI have my doubts about Loftus's portrayal of the church. Of course we are only given his word to go buy. None of us can question the "other side" and verify John's claims. I don't believe any of John's "testimony" as I think it is "cooked up" as a justification for his apostasy.
And nothing is wrong with my incredulity. I simply want to be able to do an honest, scientific analysis. Question all sides. It certainly wouldn't be epistemically responsible of me to take John's side of the story, especially given his observed dubious and questionable behavior over the years.
J.L. Hinman said:
ReplyDelete"I think you are remiss in not giving an actual review."
My understanding is that the latest edition, which is the one I was primarily addressing, isn't out yet. And I don't see any problem with commenting on what a person's online posts suggest about a book he's been working on. For example, what if an author were to admit, in an online post, that he lied about some things in an upcoming book? Would you refrain from commenting on the subject until the book came out and you could include a review of it along with your comments about the lying?
You write:
"To just say 'It hasn't imporeved' and link to past reviews is not enough."
I agree. But that's not what I did. Rather, I said that his arguments haven't improved sufficiently, and I linked to a recent thread to support my claim.
You write:
"You need to give examples of what thinking you find inadequate and show why."
I did.
Jonah, from deep within the belly of a fish asks:
ReplyDeleteAnd as for evidence, let me ask you this: Do you believe that Plato existed?
First, this is a category mistake. The writings of Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, or any other authorial voice carry cogency to the modern era precisely because of the texts they created, regardless of who they were as persons. By contrast, much of the Bible, and specifically stories about Jesus, recede into meaninglessness if they are not actual histories.
Does it matter if Shakespeare existed when you are reading "The Tempest" and trying to understand what it means? Nope. The same goes for "Euthyphro". The argument stands or falls based on what the argument says, there is no need for the author to have been any person to address the literary style or the arguments within.
Yet Jesus is irrelevant if he didn't do pretty much exactly what the Greek gospels say he did.
That's a much bigger claim that Christians ask of their book and not one that any ancient historian (even Polybius) can really stand up to.
Suffice it to say that if Plato didn't exist, his arguments would destroy Christian presuppositionalism as effectively. His existence or lack thereof is to a degree irrelevant, and textual analysis can place his writings within a given place/time and allow historical analysis of the author's intent regardless of his historicity or lack thereof.
Can you say the same for Jesus?
Oh. One more thing.
We have sculpture of Plato.
Looking for an ancient sculpture of Jesus ... lemme see one.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteHow do you know that's Plato? Just because someone says it is?
And you didn't address my argument. I posited that the evidence that Plato really existed was suspect. You replied by saying it doesn't matter whether he was a real person or not. However, if he was not a real person, why should I take the statements attributed to him seriously? Because someone tells me to?
You are correct that Jesus' life and teachings are more significant than Plato's, at least to the Christian. However, that's not the issue. The issue is whether two historical personages actually existed and said what they are purported to have said. If so, we have warrant to place importance on them. If not, we don't. The fact that you prefer the comments of one over the comments of the other is irrelevant to whether they really said what they said.
I'm simply saying that it is irrational to believe that Plato existed and Jesus of Nazareth did not simply based on the extant evidence. And it is likewise irrational to maintain that Plato's attributed words are reliable and Jesus' are not, for the same reason. Now, we can argue about the significance of the respective words, and which philosophies or worldviews are superior, but only if we agree with historians that both personages are real historical figures. If not, all we are doing is mental gymnastics.
"By contrast, much of the Bible, and specifically stories about Jesus, recede into meaninglessness if they are not actual histories."
ReplyDeleteAlso, Evan, this is tangential to the above argument, but I would like to see your justification for the above quoted statement. If that's what you think, then you really don't have a firm grasp of the foundations of Western culture.
First, this is a category mistake. The writings of Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, or any other authorial voice carry cogency to the modern era precisely because of the texts they created, regardless of who they were as persons.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not a category mistake.
The writing attributed to a particular person can be taken, unless there is contrary evidence, to be testimonies to the existence of said authors.
By contrast, much of the Bible, and specifically stories about Jesus, recede into meaninglessness if they are not actual histories.
Notice the question-begging nature of the assertion. How do you know that these stories are not actual histories?
And our liberal Christian friends would disagree with that assertion.
Does it matter if Shakespeare existed when you are reading "The Tempest" and trying to understand what it means? Nope. The same goes for "Euthyphro". The argument stands or falls based on what the argument says, there is no need for the author to have been any person to address the literary style or the arguments within.
Yet Jesus is irrelevant if he didn't do pretty much exactly what the Greek gospels say he did.
At most, this applies to non-liberal Christianity, but the more liberal traditions would say that what is important is His teachings.
Suffice it to say that if Plato didn't exist, his arguments would destroy Christian presuppositionalism as effectively.
So, how does Euphrythro overturn "Christian presuppositionalism?" Are you referring to the Dilemma? If so, we've answered that a number of times on this blog. Try again.
Triablogue has "refuted" Loftus's book?
ReplyDeleteIt's a book featuring questions. You don't "refute" questions. All the questions are plainly visible and remain so until kingdom come (if or when it ever does), while attempts to come up with answers to all the plainest questions in the world is what requires creativity and faith that one's creativity in supplying such answers "proves" something.
By the way, Loftus isn't the only one with a book, I edited one myself, LEAVING THE FOLD: TESTIMONIES OF FORMER FUNDAMENTALISTS, nearly three dozen first-person stories, including conservative born again Christians who became either moderates, liberals, adherents of other faiths, agnostics or atheists. I think my book demonstrates that people are people, and such moderating and liberalizing changes happen, not just individually, but even within conservative Christian seminaries as a whole.
There's another collection of such testimonies recently published by a university professor in Canada, titled LEAVING FUNDAMENTALISM.
I was thinking of editing a second collection, LEAVING YOUNG-EARTH CREATIONISM.
Evan said:
ReplyDeleteJonah, from deep within the belly of a fish asks:
And as for evidence, let me ask you this: Do you believe that Plato existed?
First, this is a category mistake. The writings of Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, or any other authorial voice carry cogency to the modern era precisely because of the texts they created, regardless of who they were as persons. By contrast, much of the Bible, and specifically stories about Jesus, recede into meaninglessness if they are not actual histories.
wrong, they do not. That is not the reason to assume Jesus was a real man in history, just because if he wasn't the stories would be meaningless, whereas they are just great stories if you assume he was real, that's a poor argument.
Bible does have cogency for the modern world, obviously more so if Jesus was real; if not, still has it.
Does it matter if Shakespeare existed when you are reading "The Tempest" and trying to understand what it means? Nope. The same goes for "Euthyphro". The argument stands or falls based on what the argument says, there is no need for the author to have been any person to address the literary style or the arguments within.
you miss the boat. That's true that Socrates would still come off even if he wasn't real, because what he says comes off. But the point is no one things he didn't exist just because we don't have the kind of documentation on him that we have on JF Kennedy or whomever.
Yet Jesus is irrelevant if he didn't do pretty much exactly what the Greek gospels say he did.
what he said is not irrelivant whoever he was.
That's a much bigger claim that Christians ask of their book and not one that any ancient historian (even Polybius) can really stand up to.
the evidence that Jesus lived is over kill. for and away more than we need to safely assert that he did.
Suffice it to say that if Plato didn't exist, his arguments would destroy Christian presuppositionalism as effectively.
poppy cock
His existence or lack thereof is to a degree irrelevant, and textual analysis can place his writings within a given place/time and allow historical analysis of the author's intent regardless of his historicity or lack thereof.
Can you say the same for Jesus?
Yes, well the writings of his early circle.
Oh. One more thing.
We have sculpture of Plato.
I have a photo of Jesus. It's on a piece of cloth.
Looking for an ancient sculpture of Jesus ... lemme see one.
Matthew is an ancient scripture
7/14/2008 7:13 PM
The Jesus myther goat tripe is so idiotic. Every time we give some evidence they doubt it, their reason for doubting it is because it violates their theory. It can't be true that some guy named Papias really new eye witnesses to Jesus, because that would mean the Jesus myth thing is bunk, as it is, so therefore, there was no Papias either. He's made up and his stuff is bunk and that's obvious because it disproves my theory.
ReplyDeleteCelsus proves Jesus existed. He proves it because he says the Jews game him the historical info on Jesus to show that Christians are wrong, that because he didn't exist, he confirms that, but because he was bad a guy and so forth.the swill that he quotes is clearly propaganda. But the point is he says the Jesus told him it was historically true. in other words, Jesus had to have been real guy.
the things he uses that he says came from the Jesus are exactly waht is in the Talmud.
Jonah, still in the fish says:
ReplyDeleteHow do you know that's Plato? Just because someone says it is?
Socrates who is mentioned as a real historical figure by authors other than Plato taught Plato. Plato taught Aristotle who wrote about him and criticized him. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great (who we have multiple coins, cities, and artifacts from). Plato also interacted with Athenian society and is mentioned by contemporaneous writers. During and after the reign of Alexander, sculptures of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were diffused widely through the Hellenistic world. Therefore, while we cannot be sure the sculpture is accurate, we have multiple people with multiple lines of evidence showing their historicity and we have physical artifacts that are contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous attesting to them.
And you didn't address my argument. I posited that the evidence that Plato really existed was suspect. You replied by saying it doesn't matter whether he was a real person or not. However, if he was not a real person, why should I take the statements attributed to him seriously? Because someone tells me to?
Because it is ignorant to ignore a powerful argument because of its source. If you are in a building and a five-year old child tells you he smells smoke and it's hot behind a door ... you can choose to ignore it if you like, but a good argument built around a good set of facts stands on its own.
You may choose to live your life only listening to arguments from approved sources (perhaps this is exactly what you do), but that is an impoverished way of thinking and to suggest that credentials are critical to an argument is to suggest that we should ignore much of Twain, Orwell and Eliot because they were written pseudonymously.
How odd then, that you can respect the Bible, with its numerous anonymous authors ... how can they be capable of valid statements under your above criteria?
You are correct that Jesus' life and teachings are more significant than Plato's, at least to the Christian. However, that's not the issue. The issue is whether two historical personages actually existed and said what they are purported to have said. If so, we have warrant to place importance on them. If not, we don't. The fact that you prefer the comments of one over the comments of the other is irrelevant to whether they really said what they said.
Personally I think Plato and Jesus were about equally correct and misguided. I agree with some of the statements attributed to both of them and disagree strongly with some of the statements attributed to both. So thanks for putting words into my mouth there.
But the denotative content of the statements attributed to either is irrelevant from the point of view of a Christian. If Jesus were simply the son of God and he died as a human sacrifice, Christians would follow him even if he never uttered a word that had been written down.
Much of what is written about him is at best nonsensical (cursing a fig tree cuz it has no figs for example). This in no way detracts from his son-of-Godness and the value of his human sacrifice for the Christian. So if you don't accept the human sacrifice of son-of-God Jesus, you aren't really a Christian (if I get the drift of your blog correctly), regardless of what you think of the beatitudes. Whereas, if you think the beatitudes are a latter interpolation but you think Jesus was God's human sacrifice for your sins, you are a Christian.
This is far different from what it means to be a "Platonist". One could easily be a "Platonist" and not believe that a man, Plato, ever existed. The school comes from the ideas of the man, not his historical reality.
I'm simply saying that it is irrational to believe that Plato existed and Jesus of Nazareth did not simply based on the extant evidence. And it is likewise irrational to maintain that Plato's attributed words are reliable and Jesus' are not, for the same reason. Now, we can argue about the significance of the respective words, and which philosophies or worldviews are superior, but only if we agree with historians that both personages are real historical figures. If not, all we are doing is mental gymnastics.
Sorry but you're just wrong. One can understand Platonic metaphysics even if one is never told a word about the life of Plato, or even knows that the ideas come from him. One can understand the parable of the Good Samaritan without knowing that people report that Jesus told it or even that it comes from the Greek gospels.
Also, Evan, this is tangential to the above argument, but I would like to see your justification for the above quoted statement. If that's what you think, then you really don't have a firm grasp of the foundations of Western culture.
The firmness of my grasp is attested to by women in many nations. I am not sure how western it is though.
The simple argument, to answer your question seriously though, is that Christians believe Jesus was God's son and human sacrifice. If they don't believe that, he's certainly less important than David, or Isaiah. If you don't believe Jesus was God's son and human sacrifice, you aren't a Christian.
So therefore, Christians ask the history they accept to bear a factorially greater burden than that of any other historical figure, and on flimsy evidence. Yet if they are wrong, if Jesus isn't God's son and human sacrifice, they are on the wrong path and their soteriology is bankrupt.
This is not an atheist position by the way. It's the position of most monotheists and all non-Christians, including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Animists, Pagans, Wiccans, followers of Asatru ... I could go on.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but I seem to have mistaken your exact position from your earlier posts.
You appear to hold that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person and that Plato was a historical person. Your analysis of the importance Christians place on Jesus' historical life is likewise accurate, if a bit simplistic. I also applaud you for stating clearly what many Christians will not: that so-called "liberal" Christianity, which divorces Jesus' words from the man himself, is no Christianity at all.
How odd then, that you can respect the Bible, with its numerous anonymous authors ... how can they be capable of valid statements under your above criteria?
You didn't get the irony in my statement. I was turning your disregard for the Bible back on you by showing that you were inconsistent with your own criteria.
So therefore, Christians ask the history they accept to bear a factorially greater burden than that of any other historical figure, and on flimsy evidence.
I disagree that the evidence is "flimsy". It's much less flimsy than the evidence for Plato. The manuscript evidence alone is far greater, and far closer in time to Jesus' actual life. Let me challenge you to read Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, by Richard Bauckham, for a thorough treatement of the relibility of the evidence. Because if the Gospel accounts are accurate eyewitness testimony (and they are), then you have some personal re-evaluation to do.
You also appear to be asserting (without benefit of argument) that a particular philosophy or worldview is more acceptable if the historicity of its founder is suspect, i.e., because Christians place ultimate importance on Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a historical event, that makes our worldview less acceptable or rational. Such an assertion is baseless.
BTW, I certainly do think Plato was a real person just like all the others you mentioned. I have no reason to doubt the history of ancient Greece as it has been handed down to us; in fact, it is this very history which God used to propagate the Gospel in the First Century A.D. The spread of Hellenistic culture allowed the texts of what we now call the New Testament to be circulated throughout the known world.
I also respect Plato's place in philosophy, even though I (as you) find points of major disagreement. However, these points of disagreement have been used to illustrate the truth of Christ (viz. Gospel of John). Try looking at Christianity, specifically John's writings, as a working out of what Plato was trying to get at. He was on the right track, he had part of the truth, but he wasn't in the right time or place.
You haven't mistaken a thing. My position is quite consistent. The evidence for Jesus is flimsy. The statements attributed to him by the Greek gospels stand or fall on the merits of the arguments within them and we can interact with those arguments whether the Jesus of Nazareth with the career described in the Greek gospels existed or not (I believe he did not).
ReplyDeleteI am very careful to state that I am talking about things attributed to one historical personage or another.
However the irony of your position should now be quite clear. You've accepted that I have good basis for believing in Plato because there is a consistent chain of documentary AND physical evidence that ties him down to a place/time in history.
In contradistinction to Plato, the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth is entirely documentary and there is a suspicious lack of contemporaneous documentation of what should have been quite remarkable events.
But let me have my arguments with you somewhere else. Come on over to DC some time, the water's fine.
As for the existence or lack thereof of Plato, it really doesn't affect the arguments in John Loftus' book from what I have seen (admittedly I have not yet read the new book and have only a single copy of the old one).
I also don't believe someone should call themselves a Christian if they don't believe Jesus was a human sacrifice because I do think that was a defining credal statement for the various forms of Christianity for the bulk of its history, but it's a free internet and people will call themselves what they will regardless of my approval or lack thereof.
Apparently publication has been delayed, again, by Prometheus.
ReplyDeleteWhat is amusing about Loftus is that he keeps claiming to be an "honest doubter" when he has said repeatedly on his blog that even if Christianity were admitted to be true, he WOULD NOT follow it.
And yet he keeps up this refrain about his "honest" doubt.
Thou protesteth too much, John.
You haven't mistaken a thing. My position is quite consistent. The evidence for Jesus is flimsy. The statements attributed to him by the Greek gospels stand or fall on the merits of the arguments within them and we can interact with those arguments whether the Jesus of Nazareth with the career described in the Greek gospels existed or not (I believe he did not).
ReplyDeleteHistory says he did. My committee chair in doctoral work, who is an atheist himself, said "why are you wasting your time arguing with idiots" when I told him about the Jesus mythers. almost no historians take it seriously and I don't think you know is good evidence and what is not.
I am very careful to state that I am talking about things attributed to one historical personage or another.
However the irony of your position should now be quite clear. You've accepted that I have good basis for believing in Plato because there is a consistent chain of documentary AND physical evidence that ties him down to a place/time in history.
In contradistinction to Plato, the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth is entirely documentary and there is a suspicious lack of contemporaneous documentation of what should have been quite remarkable events.
that's silly. You don't have a basis for saying what is "suspicious lack" because there is a "suspicious" lack of anything form the first century. We don't have the corroboration about the Cesar that you want to think we do. we don't have anything form the first century except a tiny handful of stuff that is horrible absent any personal documents.
I said we have the same reasons for valuing the teachings of Jesus that we do PLato.
But let me have my arguments with you somewhere else. Come on over to DC some time, the water's fine.
who? I am not going back there.
As for the existence or lack thereof of Plato, it really doesn't affect the arguments in John Loftus' book from what I have seen (admittedly I have not yet read the new book and have only a single copy of the old one).
I also don't believe someone should call themselves a Christian if they don't believe Jesus was a human sacrifice because I do think that was a defining credal statement for the various forms of Christianity for the bulk of its history, but it's a free internet and people will call themselves what they will regardless of my approval or lack thereof.
7/15/2008 9:14 AM
see now here's another example of the games atheists play. You ahve no right to who is a christian or what christianity is about. You dont know theology, you didn't go to seminary you are totally unqualified to make statmetns like this.You don't know the difference in atonement and sacrafice, or in Jesus' atonement or a human sacrafice so you can't possibly say if it's a qualifiation for Christiantiy or not. you set up the old athiest straw man argument that you construct what you want Chrsitianity to say so ti will stupid and easy to figure out and you can answer it.
Hey Triblogue guys, I will write a long response to the Jesus myth thing and the arguments being made here if you will post it as a guest commentary. interested?
ReplyDeleteyou didn't answer the Papias argument or the Celsus stuff.
ReplyDeleteEvan: You haven't mistaken a thing. My position is quite consistent. The evidence for Jesus is flimsy. The statements attributed to him by the Greek gospels stand or fall on the merits of the arguments within them and we can interact with those arguments whether the Jesus of Nazareth with the career described in the Greek gospels existed or not (I believe he did not).
ReplyDeleteThen you are being irrational, and you have not proven your assertions. We're back to the evidence again. The evidence that Plato existed is just as reliable (or just as unreliable) as that which shows Jesus existed. You are maintaining an historically untenable position. If, however, like Loftus, you believe that historical evidence is unreliable, then you are, like him, reduced to your own personal experience (or your own personal ideas) as a measure of truth, which then reduces to global skepticism, which is irrational and self-refuting.
I cannot imagine a more arrogant or irrational worldview.
In contradistinction to Plato, the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth is entirely documentary and there is a suspicious lack of contemporaneous documentation of what should have been quite remarkable events.
What level of "documentation" do you consider sufficient? What type of "non-documentary" evidence should there be? You have not argued for either of those.
Read the Bauckham book with an open mind. At least it will show you the soundness of the opposition to your arguments.
I hat4 to harp on this...but the book is not out yet.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the REAL reason?
It was supposed to be out in February, then today.
Amazon just told me they don't know when they will send it.
This is very odd.
I cannot imagine a more arrogant or irrational worldview.
ReplyDeleteTry this one on for size and see if you think it's arrogant or irrational.
1. I know there is a God because he talks to me.
2. I know Jesus was his son because it's written in a book God wrote.
3. I know the mind of the God of the universe because I have read a book he wrote and my interpretation is better than that of other people who read the same book and come to different conclusions.
4. I know that other people are going to burn in hell eternally because I know the mind of God and they don't.
If you think that's logical, humble and reasoned then good for you. I don't, but even if you do you can surely suppose that someone who suggests we can't know those things is at best only equally arrogant and irrational, and possibly much more rational and humble than you, yes?
Eavn,
ReplyDeleteI have a serious question: Do you think setting up a position in the weakest possible light (sometimes even presenting the other position in an untrue light), and then "refutting" it, is a firm foundation on which to set up your denial of that position on?
Try this one on for size and see if you think it's arrogant or irrational.
ReplyDelete1. I know there is a God because he talks to me.
I never stated that God spoke directly to me.
2. I know Jesus was his son because it's written in a book God wrote.
No, it's written in many books that God inspired. They were written by humans who were eyewitnesses.
3. I know the mind of the God of the universe because I have read a book he wrote and my interpretation is better than that of other people who read the same book and come to different conclusions.
I do not "know God's mind" exhaustively, or in the same way He knows Himself. I do, however, know what He has revealed about Himself, both through the natural world and His Word.
In the second part of your statement, I'm not sure if you're addressing Christians as opposed to non-Christians, or the difference between denominations. If the former, then the non-Christian must argue convincingly, evidentially, and logically that the events related in the Bible are not what they purport to be. If the latter, then even if my interpretations happen to be wrong, it does not follow that there is no correct interpretation.
4. I know that other people are going to burn in hell eternally because I know the mind of God and they don't.
If someone ends up in Hell it's because of their own sin, not anything I have done or could do. What I know about Hell is what God has revealed in His Word.
If you think that's logical, humble and reasoned then good for you. I don't, but even if you do you can surely suppose that someone who suggests we can't know those things is at best only equally arrogant and irrational, and possibly much more rational and humble than you, yes?
Well, seeing as how you grossly mischaracterize, twist, and caricature actual Christian doctrine, your statement has no validity, as it is a straw man argument. And your assertion that we can't know such things must be proven. You have not done so.
I maintain that you assert that we can't know such things because the possibility that we can know makes you uncomfortable. You'd rather maintain your ignorance and avoid personal accountability. You are like Wile E. Coyote pulling the windowshade down in the face of the oncoming train. Your faith in non-belief is far less rational, and much more self-centered, than my faith in God.
So I took up your challenge to read Bauckham and read what little I could of his text online. It's interesting but seems to have already been answered fairly thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteUsing the referral method of refutation I could stop there but I'll do a bit more and give you a taste of the criticism.
Re: Papias Vridar says:
Eusebius clearly thought Papias was a bit of a twit (or more gracefully, “a man of very little intelligence”). Bauckham says there is no reason that we today should share Eusebius’s prejudice against Papias, which he puts down to disagreements over doctrine and gospel origins. Bauckham is surely guilty of a most inexcusable omission here which for me hung like unbreathable smog over the remainder of his discussion in this chapter. Not once does this chapter breathe a word of Papias’s most gullible and outlandish “reports”. Not a word of his report (from Philip Side) about Judas swelling up wider than a chariot, urinating worms, his eyes sinking into his skull, his testicles growing to enormous size, his stench . . . . but enough, I planned to eat soon. Bauckham fails to address Papias’s reputation as a teller of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” type tall tales (including stories of surviving snake poison, of one resurrected from the dead surviving till the time of Hadrian) and consequently fails to persuade me not to share Eusebius’s judgment.
Here's Vridar on Simon of Cyrene:
Crossan and others have shown that when a Roman crucifixion of a criminal took place it was most commonly a brutal quick business with no opportunities given to allow followers to line up and act as witnesses. Other scholars (e.g. T.E.Schmidt) have demonstrated the similarities between Mark’s crucifixion account with what is known about Roman Triumphal processions, providing plausible evidence that he ironically structured his story about Jesus around that event. If so, this makes far more sense of the Roman dragooning of Simon from the countryside to carry the execution instrument to the scene of the crucifixion. A feature of the Roman triumphal processions was a country person carrying the sacrificial weapon in the procession that took the victim to the place of sacrifice. (A country person was selected presumably over a city person because the former were more likely well practiced in slaughtering animals.) Why look any further for the reason for this person’s inclusion in the narrative? He is a theological character with a theological meaning, not a historical one. That was not the way Romans did executions on criminals.
Bauckham says Mark named Simon of Cyrene because readers would have wondered who was Mark’s information source for this part of Jesus’ life. But all scholarly works of Mark that I have read treat it as a gospel written for believers or neophytes — not for outsiders. Why would believers be wondering “who was your source for that chapter and verse?” Mark is too brief, cryptic, ironic, esoteric, to be for the purpose of persuading pagans who have never heard of Jesus.
Seems like Bauckham has some problems with his eyewitnesses.
But the problem goes a lot deeper than that.
Who are the eyewitnesses to Mary's virginity?
Who are the eyewitnesses to the multiple visions and dreams in the NT?
Who are the eyewitnesses to scenes when Jesus is alone, such as the temptation, or the Garden of Gethsemane?
Who is the eyewitness to the dream of Pilate's wife?
Beyond that, you have modern studies on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.
So I'm sorry but I find that Bauckham's statements may call into question the validity of other ancient historians who relied primarily on eyewitnesses but they do nothing to solidify the gospels as historical documents.
Well, seeing as how you grossly mischaracterize, twist, and caricature actual Christian doctrine, your statement has no validity, as it is a straw man argument. And your assertion that we can't know such things must be proven. You have not done so.
ReplyDeletePlease, then, give me actual Christian doctrine so that I may see how humble and reasonable it is.
If I was wrong I apologize.
For statement one, I relied on a song I heard many times as a child.
It went, "And he walks with me and he talks with me ..." Seemed pretty clear cut then. Perhaps Christians no longer sing it, or they tell children it's a fantasy when they start learning the song.
Please, if Jesus doesn't walk with you and talk with you, get Christians to stop playing that awful footprints in the sand crap. I'm eager to have the triabloggers go on the rampage against that. It's annoying as all get-out.
For statement 2 I relied on another song I sang as a child. It's refrain was "God said it, I believe it ..."
Again, I assume none of you attend churches where this song is sung because you see it as a terrible affront to your theology, nay, a gross caricature.
I of course am in no position to remove it from the songbooks but you guys can.
The third statement relies on the multiplicity of readings of the texts of Christianity and I think is indisputably accurate for any Christian denomination. Elsewise why so many denominations? Most certainly it is accurate when a Christian is arguing with a Jew or Muslim. Therefore I defy you to show me how it misrepresents Christian views.
The fourth statement simply follows from your screed published on these pages in the last few weeks about the foolishness of universalism.
So please, show me where my statements are factually wrong as they pertain to your beliefs. And then show me how your beliefs are humble and reasoned.
I'm eager to see how you do that. Remember, my beliefs are the MOST arrogant and irrational beliefs you can possibly imagine. They can't just be equally arrogant and irrational, they have to be MORE arrogant and irrational than yours.
Yet my beliefs are thus: We don't know a lot of stuff. We should err on the side of caution before we state something with absolute certainty and evidence should be given primacy over opinion or imagination.
How is that arrogant or irrational?
Hmmm,
ReplyDeleteLet's see:
Not once does this chapter breathe a word of Papias’s most gullible and outlandish “reports”. Not a word of his report (from Philip Side) about Judas swelling up wider than a chariot, urinating worms, his eyes sinking into his skull, his testicles growing to enormous size, his stench . . . . but enough, I planned to eat soon. Bauckham fails to address Papias’s reputation as a teller of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” type tall tales (including stories of surviving snake poison, of one resurrected from the dead surviving till the time of Hadrian) and consequently fails to persuade me not to share Eusebius’s judgment.
1. It's not necessary for Papias to be accurate about "tall tales" in order for him to be accurate about the authorship of a Gospel.
2. How does a story about the surviving of snake poison invalidate what Papias says about something else? Notice that Tillman doesn't tell us.
3. Indeed, Tillman simply dismisses these other stories out of hand. But why? Parasites can be passed via urine, testicles can swell. The Bible itself reports people surviving snake poison my miraculous means, and we know they survive by naturalistic means as well. The Bible reports the raising of the dead into the Apostolic era, so the survival of a person raised in the late Apostolic Church or the Early Subapostolic Church would be possible. So, all you've done for us, yet again, Evan, is provide a comment from a person who is begging the question...indeed he advertising his naturalism on the headline of his blog.
Crossan and others have shown that when a Roman crucifixion of a criminal took place it was most commonly a brutal quick business with no opportunities given to allow followers to line up and act as witnesses.
So what? You're generalizing from a "typical" Roman crucifixion to this specific event. Is it your contention that this crucifixion was "typical?" If so, where's the supporting argument?
Other scholars (e.g. T.E.Schmidt) have demonstrated the similarities between Mark’s crucifixion account with what is known about Roman Triumphal processions, providing plausible evidence that he ironically structured his story about Jesus around that event. If so, this makes far more sense of the Roman dragooning of Simon from the countryside to carry the execution instrument to the scene of the crucifixion. A feature of the Roman triumphal processions was a country person carrying the sacrificial weapon in the procession that took the victim to the place of sacrifice. (A country person was selected presumably over a city person because the former were more likely well practiced in slaughtering animals.) Why look any further for the reason for this person’s inclusion in the narrative?
Okay, let's, for the sake of argument, stipulate to this.
Why look any further for the reason for this person’s inclusion in the narrative? He is a theological character with a theological meaning, not a historical one. That was not the way Romans did executions on criminals.
1. How would that fit in with Mark's style? We're not told. Mark includes many details, like names, the other Gospels do not. But Mark is generally considered to the most primitive and written first. In an earlier thread, Evan, you claimed that such details would be the result of accretion over time. That would mean Mark would need to be redated to a later time - later than the other Synoptics. Speaking for myself, I have no problem with Matthean priority. Is that your position too? Doubtful.
Bauckum's point is that Mark is including such names because the recipients knew them as eyewitnesses or they were part of the original receptor (or from a more liberal perspective, authorial) community.
2. Tillman's conclusion is an obvious nonsequitur. If it was Roman practice to include such persons in these events, then he doesn't have a "theological" meaning at all. The inclusion of Simon proves the historicity of the event, since it fits the pattern reported.
3. And Crossan, et.al., take the position that the lens through which we should view these events is SubApostolic Gnosticism, not 2nd Temple Judaism. Please name the "theological purpose" from that viewpoint that is served. Please provide the supporting argument. You're citing Tillman, so perhaps between the 2 of you, you can come up with something.
And one more thing, we don't just cite what we've written, we tell you why we're citing it. So, in the future, when you quote from a source, please tell us why you find that a convincing argument.
Who are the eyewitnesses to Mary's virginity?
The report carries the force of self-report. So I take it you wish to impugn her character. Where's the supporting argument? Which critics of the Virgin Birth in the Subapostolic period claim she wasn't a virgin, and what was the response? For once, try to do some rudimentary research.
Who are the eyewitnesses to the multiple visions and dreams in the NT?
Those persons. Why should we doubt them? Where's the supporting argument?
Who are the eyewitnesses to scenes when Jesus is alone, such as the temptation, or the Garden of Gethsemane?
1. John Mark, who was lurking nearby.
2. John the Apostle, who provides a report. Do you think the text is saying He went off alone and out of eyesight. It takes me many hours to get to sleep? Do you live in a magic realm where Mr. Sandman comes by and puts you to sleep in an instant?
Who is the eyewitness to the dream of Pilate's wife?
It's a fact of history that the Apostolic and Subapostolic Church both included household servants of such officials, so it's likely s/he reported what she stated to Pilate.
Beyond that, you have modern studies on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.
Yep, modern studies on people living in the modern period. What's the problem with that, Evan? Can you figure it out?
Jason has addressed that subject several times. You may want to read the comment thread. Tell us what you find problematic. Do craft an actual argument.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/09/eyewitnesses-and-servants-of-word.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/07/significance-of-eyewitness-testimony.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/02/eyewitness-memory.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/02/eyewitness-testimony-in-ancient-sources.html
Genembridges you are a gift really.
ReplyDeleteThanks for confirming everything I could possibly hope for from a commenter on this blog.
Your response to the eyewitness question regarding Mary's hymen is simply the best I've ever heard.
Let me run one by you.
Your 15 year old sister gets pregnant and swears to you she has never had sex with a man.
You will take her word for it right? She could not have any possible reason to lie, right?
I mean, there's no way that a girl who was pregnant before she was married would ever make up a story right?
It's impossible.
Evan writes:
ReplyDelete"Yet my beliefs are thus: We don't know a lot of stuff. We should err on the side of caution before we state something with absolute certainty and evidence should be given primacy over opinion or imagination."
This is the same Evan who claimed that the Gabriel Revelation tablet is "compelling evidence that the 'Jesus' of history is a manufactured cult that grew out of the failure of the Jews to win independence from the Romans". For a discussion of some of the problems with such a conclusion about the tablet, see here.
This is the same Evan who claimed that Celsus was a Christian. Then he claimed that Celsus was a Jew.
This is the same Evan who argued that Paul and Josephus may have been referring to some Jesus other than Jesus of Nazareth.
Etc.
Read the threads linked above and other recent threads here for many more examples of Evan's "erring on the side of caution" and concern for "giving evidence primacy".
He writes:
"Socrates who is mentioned as a real historical figure by authors other than Plato taught Plato. Plato taught Aristotle who wrote about him and criticized him. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great (who we have multiple coins, cities, and artifacts from). Plato also interacted with Athenian society and is mentioned by contemporaneous writers. During and after the reign of Alexander, sculptures of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were diffused widely through the Hellenistic world. Therefore, while we cannot be sure the sculpture is accurate, we have multiple people with multiple lines of evidence showing their historicity and we have physical artifacts that are contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous attesting to them."
Evan is now willing to accept "near-contemporaries"? And he cites artifacts related to Alexander the Great in the process of discussing Plato's historicity. Did he apply such standards when discussing the evidence relevant to Jesus? No. Notice some of his objections to Christianity in previous discussions:
"There is no reference in any source to Jesus of Nazareth in any language in any text contemporaneous with his existence." (source)
"Contemporaries who wrote at the earliest , 35 years after his death?" (source)
"There simply is no linkage between Jesus of Nazareth and the Jesus Christ of Paul in the commonly accepted Pauline canon." (source)
"The texts of Josephus on which Christians hang so much historical veracity are acknowledged by most Christian scholars to be later interpolations, but even if accepted at face value, they are again merely late first century statements that could easily be validating a pre-existing myth or legend." (source)
"His story shows up in the midst of all these pre-existing beliefs of both Jews and pagans and begins to win over poor people, slaves and women, but not until at least 40 years after his purported death which at the time would have left almost no eyewitnesses to the events alive, and almost certainly NONE in Asia Minor, Italy and Egypt where the cult began to flourish." (source)
Note that Evan implies that documents written 35 years after Jesus' death would be dubious. And he states that documents written around the end of the first century, at the time of Josephus, "could easily be validating a pre-existing myth or legend". Notice his use of the term "easily". And he tries to cast doubt on documents written "not until at least 40 years after his purported death". Does Evan apply the same standards to Plato? No.
He writes:
"In contradistinction to Plato, the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth is entirely documentary and there is a suspicious lack of contemporaneous documentation of what should have been quite remarkable events."
Given your shifting standards, it's anybody's guess what you mean by "contemporaneous". Whether a particular non-Christian source should have mentioned Jesus or something He's reported to have done would depend on the context. Judgments have to be made case-by-case. Much of the extant literature was meant to discuss Roman history, military leaders, agriculture, or some other subject that didn't have much relevance to Jesus. (For a discussion of whether the sources in question should be expected to have mentioned Jesus, see here.) And non-Christian sources had motives for not wanting to acknowledge information favorable to their enemies. As Craig Keener notes:
"Without immediate political repercussions, it is not surprising that the earliest Jesus movement does not spring quickly into the purview of Rome’s historians; even Herod the Great finds little space in Dio Cassius (49.22.6; 54.9.3). Josephus happily compares Herodotus’s neglect of Judea (Apion 1.60-65) with his neglect of Rome (Apion 1.66).” (A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 64, n. 205)
The early Jewish opponents of Christianity referred to Jesus as a sorcerer and magician and acknowledged that His tomb was empty, for example, but what motive would they have for preserving accounts of the supernatural elements of Jesus' life? Evan's suggestion that anything "quite remarkable" should be recorded in our extant sources is simplistic. If the remarkable event has negative implications for a particular group, that group might not want to mention it for that reason or might only mention it briefly while attempting to give it their own interpretation (Jesus was empowered by Satan, the disciples stole His body from the grave, etc.). And the sources extant to us today aren't the only sources that existed at the time. For example, as I discuss in the empty tomb thread linked above, Justin Martyr seems to have had access to Jewish sources in his day who acknowledged the empty tomb, including a Jewish document he seems to cite. Yet, those sources apparently aren't extant today, except as far as they're preserved in sources like Justin.
We've discussed issues concerning Jesus in the early non-Christian sources many times. See, for example, the links included in my reply to Stan in the thread here. Not only is there more than enough data in such sources to justify a conclusion that Jesus existed, but there's also data there to support some elements of Jesus' life that critics of Christianity often deny. Again, see the links above for some examples.
Evan, quoting another source, writes:
"Eusebius clearly thought Papias was a bit of a twit (or more gracefully, 'a man of very little intelligence'). Bauckham says there is no reason that we today should share Eusebius’s prejudice against Papias, which he puts down to disagreements over doctrine and gospel origins. Bauckham is surely guilty of a most inexcusable omission here which for me hung like unbreathable smog over the remainder of his discussion in this chapter. Not once does this chapter breathe a word of Papias’s most gullible and outlandish 'reports'. Not a word of his report (from Philip Side) about Judas swelling up wider than a chariot, urinating worms, his eyes sinking into his skull, his testicles growing to enormous size, his stench . . . . but enough, I planned to eat soon. Bauckham fails to address Papias’s reputation as a teller of 'Ripley’s Believe It Or Not' type tall tales (including stories of surviving snake poison, of one resurrected from the dead surviving till the time of Hadrian) and consequently fails to persuade me not to share Eusebius’s judgment."
Whether all of these passages come from Papias and whether he himself believed every report he recorded is debateable. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that he wrote and believed every account attributed to him above. Though he doesn't address the issue in his book, Bauckham did comment on the Judas passage in Papias in an interview in 2006:
"Doubtless the tradition about the death of Judas is legendary. I expect most oral history includes some legendary material along with good reminiscences. I’ve no problem with this....To say that Papias thought of himself as a historian and knew what good historical practice was supposed to be, is not necessarily to say he was particularly good at implementing such practice. I do not claim he was and it’s not the point I was interested in. We have far too little of his work to be able to judge the matter, I think, given that the quotations we have from him are likely (for reasons stated above) to be unrepresentative of his work as a whole. But there were plenty of historians in the ancient world who knew what good historical practice was supposed to be but didn’t practise it very well"
In other words, historical sources vary in their degrees of credibility, as they vary in other categories. Papias isn't cited by Bauckham (or me or most other people I'm aware of) as the best of our early sources or as entirely reliable. Rather, he's cited as somebody in a good position to relay some reliable information, though he has to be judged against the other data available to us, as with other historical sources.
I've discussed Papias at length in the archives of this blog. You can turn up many relevant threads, including lengthy discussions of why his comments on the gospel of Mark are credible, for example, by searching the archives (with Google, for instance). In some of the previous threads, I've discussed the Judas passage and how Papias could be reliable on other issues, despite errors on Judas or other subjects. Just as people accept some of what Papias reported while rejecting other things he reported, we commonly do the same with Josephus, Tacitus, and other sources. The all-or-nothing approach doesn't make sense and is rejected by historians.
Evan writes:
"Who are the eyewitnesses to Mary's virginity?"
Mary herself was available to the early Christians, as I've discussed elsewhere. But we don't need eyewitnesses to Mary's virginity in order for the eyewitnesses of other facts to have evidential significance. The argument isn't that we have eyewitness testimony for every portion of the New Testament. Rather, the argument is that we do have some eyewitness testimony there, with varying degrees of significance.
Evan writes:
"Beyond that, you have modern studies on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony."
And Bauckham interacts with such studies. The article you linked to opens with an illustration involving a woman who was raped. But early Christianity involved events spanning years of time. Jesus' public ministry, for example, lasted a few years, much longer than a rape. And the people who witnessed Jesus' life weren't under the trauma of being raped. And there were many people involved in early Christianity, so people weren't relying on just one person's memory. Etc. Bauckham discusses, in his book, the faulty nature of comparisons between memories of the events of the gospels and memories of something like a rape or a mugging. Bauckham also discusses one of the sources your article cites, A. Baddeley, and he includes some comments of Baddeley that are more supportive of the reliability of human memory than what your article suggests. I've discussed memory, including Bauckham's treatment of it, in previous threads. See, for example, here.
And if you're willing to accept the testimony of "near-contemporaries" with regard to Plato, why would you be trying to cast doubt on the testimony of eyewitnesses with regard to Jesus? I think most readers, if not all of them, can figure out why by now.
Good grief, Evan, do I really need to spell out the fundamentals of poetry and metaphor to you? Did you take English lit. in school?
ReplyDeleteI've addressed all your statements and objections in my previous post. Go back and read it again.
Your statements about what we don't know sound all humble and (dare I say) pious, but there's a demon lurking in the shadows. You again mention evidence. The Christian worldview gives primacy to evidence over opinion and imagination as well. You simply discard that evidence because it is distasteful to you.
The arrogance of your position is this: You hold that man is the measure of all things. What's worse, you hold that you are the measure of all things. Your position is not merely "we don't know", it's that "we can't know". There's a difference. The logic of your position is that either a) you deny God's existence, or b) you assert that He is incapable of revealing Himself to his creation, or that He is unwilling to do so. Either way you make a statment about God that you can't possibly know, all the while relying on Him whom you deny as the very source for your own knowledge!
"We can't know" is a direct affront to the Almighty. That's what makes it the height of arrogance.
Evan:Your 15 year old sister gets pregnant and swears to you she has never had sex with a man.
ReplyDeleteYou will take her word for it right? She could not have any possible reason to lie, right?
I mean, there's no way that a girl who was pregnant before she was married would ever make up a story right?
You've just disproven your own point. If it was a lie it was a poor one, just like it would be today. Mary's fiancee Joseph didn't even believe her and was preparing to separate from her...but he didn't. He had a complete change of heart. Angelic annunciations will do that for you. We focus so much on what happened to Mary that we forget that something happened to Joseph as well.
Nobody else in her family or community believed Mary either. But, since they lacked the evidence (i.e., the putative "real father"), they couldn't stone her. And Joseph married her anyway, so. BTW if she were going to lie, why not just say that Joseph was the father? The point is that Mary's story was so unbelievable that she had to be telling the truth.
In order to prove your point, you'd also have to argue that an extremely devout Jewish woman of the first century, whose (allegedly illegitimate) son was crucified like a common criminal, would maintain the lie into her old age and never admit to anyone, not even the Apostle John her surrogate son, that it was all a lie to begin with. Especially when people that she knew and loved, even another of her own sons (James the Just) went on to suffer martyrdom. Would Mary have allowed this lie to do so much violence to her family? Not according to her character, as recorded in the Gospels, and not according to common sense.
Talk about far-fetched.
Thanks for confirming everything I could possibly hope for from a commenter on this blog.
ReplyDeleteYour response to the eyewitness question regarding Mary's hymen is simply the best I've ever heard.
Let me run one by you.
Your 15 year old sister gets pregnant and swears to you she has never had sex with a man.
You will take her word for it right? She could not have any possible reason to lie, right?
I mean, there's no way that a girl who was pregnant before she was married would ever make up a story right?
It's impossible.
1. Mary is not my sister, and, for the record, I have no sisters.
2. You're the one who talks about "evidence." What evidence can you present that Mary was lying?
Notice now that you're backing away from the question you asked. You asked "Who was the witness to Mary's virginity?" Now you're accusing her of lying. What evidence can you present that was the case?
3. And, while we're at it, you just glossed right over the rest of what I wrote. Who, during the SubApostolic period argued as you do? How were they answered? If you think she was lying, then, by all means show us the supporting argument.
Such a lie would be easy to disprove, right? So, why lie about such a thing? Why maintain the lie until after the child died?
Here's your logic:
1. Assume naturalism.
2. Exclude virgin birth.
3. Therefore Mary lied.
or
People lie.
Mary lied.
What a convincing set of arguments these are. How, oh how, will we ever answer you?!
And one can't help but notice that now you've moved from the account being taken from mythology to it being a lie? Which position are you now taking, Evan?
I haven't changed a bit. You are saying the gospels have eyewitness testimony. I'm saying they don't and can't for significant portions of the story.
ReplyDeleteThe stories make much more sense as legends and indeed contain virtually every component of a legend. Yet you all treat them as verified by eyewitnesses ... who lived 35 years after the events ... and yet were so accurate that it took another 300 years for the church to figure out exactly who Christ was theologically.
I can most certainly argue with a position by adopting the premises of that position and arguing against its conclusions without initially accepting the premise as a fact.
For example, you can imagine what it's like to have a 15 year-old sister and yet you don't have one. See how easy it is?
I think any reasonable person reading these comments can determine whether he thinks it's reasonable to take the authors of the Greek gospels at face value when it comes to the hymen of a Hebrew woman who gave birth at least 70 years before they wrote.
Yet if you deny the hymen, you are denying a significant theological fact. Most Christians believe Jesus could NOT have been born of a union of human sperm and egg because he had to be infused with god-ness.
So you have to accept elements of legend at face value.
I haven't read Mr. Bauckham but I'm curious what he makes of the virgin birth, the temptation of Jesus, the dead coming back to life in Matthew, Pilate's wife's dream and other such elements of the gospels.
As it stands though, you guys are really a lot of fun and I am grateful you have such a cool site for me to come and chat with you.
I'm still waiting to be told why assuming the present is the key to the past is the MOST irrational and arrogant thing you can possibly believe while assuming that the God of the universe inspired a book in Hebrew and Greek is very humble but I guess I can wait.
Evan, I think that your inadvertent admission that you are here to have fun explains a lot.
ReplyDeleteLoftus has said that even if Christianity were admitted to be true, he would not follow it...that is why my opinion is that his claims to be an "honest doubter" lack integrity.
Do you agree with that position?
That is, do you agree that even if all your questions were answered you still would not be a Christian?
Andrew is a stalking blog terrorist who has been banned from DC. It's said that the more famous a person is then the more stalkers he has. Well, I have one!
ReplyDeleteIn any case, this is what I said:
Someone asked me: "John, you say we must follow the evidence, but haven't you said elsewhere that even if you were to admit that Christianity were proved to your satisfaction that you would not follow it? Could you explain how that is following the evidence." Gladly. The belief system that the initial evidence supports is to be considered part of the evidence itself, and as such, it should be included when examining the whole case. If, for instance, the evidence supported accepting militant Islam, where I am called upon to kill people who don't believe, then I must make a choice between the initial evidence that led me to believe and that belief system itself. And such a belief system, even if the evidence initially supported it, renders that evidence null and void. I would have to conclude that I misjudged the initial evidence, or that I'm being misled, or something else. In other words, a rejection of such a belief system like militant Islam trumps the evidence, for I cannot conceive of believing it unless the evidence is completely overwhelming, and there is no such thing as overwhelming evidence when it comes to these issues.
Notice that Evan has been corrected dozens of times, by many people, yet continues to behave so irresponsibly. He ignores most of the refutations of his arguments and goes on to post more bad arguments.
ReplyDeleteFor the benefit of other readers, I want to respond to some of Evan's latest claims. He writes:
"The stories make much more sense as legends and indeed contain virtually every component of a legend. Yet you all treat them as verified by eyewitnesses ... who lived 35 years after the events ... and yet were so accurate that it took another 300 years for the church to figure out exactly who Christ was theologically."
Evan's claim of "35 years after the events" has been disputed. He hasn't responded to the evidence we cited against his claim. And notice that he tries to shift our attention from historical facts such as whether Jesus existed and the nature of His public ministry to "who Christ was theologically".
If he has the ecumenical councils of the Nicene and post-Nicene eras in mind or the consensus of opinion surrounding those councils, those councils and the consensus surrounding them can reflect earlier thought. We don't date a theological concept or its widespread recognition to the time when a council now recognized as ecumenical taught that concept or the time when the consensus that produced that council was most visible. If the concept of Christ's deity is present in a New Testament document or ante-Nicene church father, for example, or in many such sources, then what's the significance of the lateness of an ecumenical council that taught the concept? Ecumenical councils can be held for a variety of reasons. The fact that a theological concept is first taught by an ecumenical council at a particular date doesn't lead us to the conclusion that "the church couldn't figure out that theological concept" prior to that time. Even if a particular theological concept wasn't agreed upon widely until later in church history, why are we supposed to believe that the gospels and other relevant sources weren't "accurate" enough? How does Evan know that the "accuracy" of the gospels or other such sources was the problem? Where is Evan getting his standard for what level of "accuracy" is needed?
Evan writes:
"I think any reasonable person reading these comments can determine whether he thinks it's reasonable to take the authors of the Greek gospels at face value when it comes to the hymen of a Hebrew woman who gave birth at least 70 years before they wrote. Yet if you deny the hymen, you are denying a significant theological fact."
Once again, Evan assumes his dating of the gospels without interacting with the contrary arguments already cited. And if by "taking the authors of the Greek gospels at face value" Evan is referring to acceptance of the gospels without reason to accept them, who suggested that we do so?
Evan:I haven't read Mr. Bauckham but I'm curious what he makes of the virgin birth, the temptation of Jesus, the dead coming back to life in Matthew, Pilate's wife's dream and other such elements of the gospels.
ReplyDeleteWell if you're curious, get the book. The residual you'll be putting in Prof. Bauckham's pocket won't be *that* much. :)
Let me be clear on this, though. "JatE" is not a commentary. It's a treatise on historiography and oral tradition in the First Century, showing that the Gospels follow the conventions of how people wrote and related events in that time, ergo they are as reliable as any other document from that era. Whether you agree with all his conclusions or not (and I have one major point of disagreement with him), it's a very well researched and well written book.
But let's take your issues in turn:
1. Virgin birth (already argued above)
2. temptation of Jesus: easy, Jesus told Mary, or the disciples what happened.
3. dead coming back to life in Matthew: obviously there would be many eyewitnesses to this event, so your question instead must be why the other three Gospel writers don't mention this event. There have been disagreements among commentators as to the significance of this fact. I will grant you that there is no firm consensus at the moment. But that does not imply that such a miraculous event did not occur, unless you have a presupposition against the supernatural.
4. Pilate's wife's dream: as alluded to above, either Procula herself related the dream to the Apostles, or more likely one of the house servants did.
Reading this site I wonder if I'm a victim of Poe's law.
ReplyDeleteFirst I argue that Christians believe Jesus talks to them.
Then I'm told that's an evil caricature of their beliefs and is only to be taken metaphorically.
Then I read the top post for today:
Although it is our gracious Lord who either allows or brings about our trial, it is also our gracious Lord who is with us in the midst of it. ...
If Christ is with us, then it is well with our souls — come what may. ...
For our Maker is our husband, and he loves us with such an unimaginable, indescribable, unquenchable love, a love that the best, most perfect husband’s love for his wife is but a pale reflection. ...
... our Beloved’s promise is precisely that he is ours, and we are his, and he is with us, and he loves us, and he will always be with us, and he will always love us!
You guys need to get on the same page.
How the heck do you know that your Beloved (homoerotic imagery duly noted) is with you if he doesn't talk?
Is he like Harvey?
It's all well and good for you guys to make sport of me when I say something arrogant or irrational. But when I said that you believed that God talks to you, you acted like I had been deceitful and was putting words in your mouths.
Guess not so much. Remember all I suggested was that you think God talks to you.
To remind you all of what you said, let's go over it.
"I" said:
I have a serious question: Do you think setting up a position in the weakest possible light (sometimes even presenting the other position in an untrue light), and then "refutting" it, is a firm foundation on which to set up your denial of that position on?
So is it really so weak for me to suggest God talks to you when you are posting a devotional about ... Jesus talking to you?
Jonah said:
I never stated that God spoke directly to me.
Take it up with Patrick. He seems to think God does speak directly to him. Perhaps he is the one who is arrogant?
Jonah then said:
Good grief, Evan, do I really need to spell out the fundamentals of poetry and metaphor to you? Did you take English lit. in school?
So is Patrick's devotional metaphorical? If so, it's a bizarre homoerotic metaphor. It strikes me that Patrick is speaking about a literal Jesus who literally is with him and who he loves to be with. Patrick thinks Jesus is God's son and was a human sacrifice for him and he is so grateful for this.
Patrick says:
so long as our Beloved is ours and we are his in the bonds of the holiest of all holy matrimonies; so long as we have our Beloved and our Beloved has us, then no matter how long the tears may run, and no matter how deep the tears may cut, we know that in the end our Beloved will wipe away all our tears, and restore to us the joy of our salvation, when he restores us to himself.
Is that all metaphor? It's pretty hard to get that from the text. I am thinking when Patrick has real tears he thinks there's a real Jesus who he is in love with who is gonna put his soft man-hands on his weeping face.
John calls me a blog terrorist?
ReplyDeleteTERRORIST?
If that is not libel, what is?
But you are getting more vociferous in your name calling, John.
Get over yourself, you can not shut me up and have no power over me.
Quit pretending like you do.
You know your arguments are deriviative, and hardly any of them are original, and yet you talk about your book being the greatest atheist book ever.
I guess the people who thought you were arrogant had their reasons, didn't they?
Evan said:
ReplyDelete---
Reading this site I wonder if I'm a victim of Poe's law.
---
No, you're just incredibly stupid.
Re: Poe's law
ReplyDeleteLook, either "fundamentalist" means "one who is committed to a strict position and refuses easy compromise" or it means "a movement among American Christianity in the 70s and 80s that advocated withdrawing from society".
The former applies to either of us, and your critique has no referent.
The latter doesn't apply to me or other believers here at all (else why would we be here?) and thus has no bite. Much like the rest of your assertions.
Ah, just come on and admit it debunkers.
ReplyDeleteYou hate Christians, you despise them. You can almost feel the bile spilling out of your site.
You would like to shut them up.
At the very least.
Come on, have the guts to admit it.
J.L. HINMAN SAID:
ReplyDelete"Hey Triblogue guys, I will write a long response to the Jesus myth thing and the arguments being made here if you will post it as a guest commentary. interested?"
I can't make an open-ended commitment. If you do a nice job on them we'd be happy to plug your critique, just as we plugged your reviews of Avalos.
Andrew it's probably not possible for you to write without projecting your feelings onto someone else, and I'm sure I'm guilty of that at times, but obviously I don't hate Christians. I love them. They're the vast majority of the people I know. My family are Christians ... my brother is a minister and my Dad's a retired minister, my mom is the head elder of her church. If I hated Christians I'd really be in a lurch.
ReplyDeleteI do disagree with Christians and I really try to do that by pointing out things like facts and evidence. However to say that I hate them would be statement wholly without basis in fact. One thing I recently pointed out was that Christians think God talks to them ... and so far I think this blog has held up my position on that quite well.
Rho, as for your dichotomous definition of fundamentalism I'd offer a more standard one:
Religious fundamentalism refers to a "deep and totalistic commitment" to a belief in the infallibility and inerrancy of holy scriptures, absolute religious authority, and strict adherence to a set of basic principles (fundamentals), away from doctrinal compromises with modern social and political life.
If you believe that an onager could talk, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe that a man could survive for three days inside a fish, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe Moses wrote the Torah, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe in Noah's flood, you're a fundamentalist.
So ... I'd be eager to find out if there's anyone besides Joe Hinman here who's not a fundamentalist, but I doubt there are any.
Evan, your post about "Poe's Law" just shows that you are going out of your way to be offensive. The mods ought to delete it.
ReplyDeleteI think you know very well what is meant by the language in Patrick's devotional. You're just trying to offend us by making a caricature of the language the Bible uses to describe God's/Christ's relationship to His Church. Language that by its very nature has to be analogical, because the temporal cannot comprehend the true reality of the eternal. We need temporal analogies which we understand rationally and also react to on an emotional and spiritual level.
With all the Christians in your life, it's a pity that none of them explained this and many other things to you. It reflects poorly upon the Church.
I'm going to politely ask you to shut up with the "homoerotic" talk. If you can't, I'm going to politely suggest that you go away until you can control yourself.
I haven't changed a bit. You are saying the gospels have eyewitness testimony. I'm saying they don't and can't for significant portions of the story.
ReplyDeleteThey can't? Hmmm, the narrative of the Virgin Birth is in Luke. Luke traveled with Paul. That gave him easy access to the churches of Asia Minor, the churches that the Apostle John adopted as his own concern. Why is it implausible that Luke, in conducting his research, went to Ephesus, the church with which John is most closely associated in church history, and met Mary, by then in her old age and interviewed her about what happened leading up to Christ's birth. Read the narrative in Luke. It contains inner thoughts and musing only she would know. It contains family details, like her visit to Elizabeth and their conversation that only she might know. How, pray tell is this implausible as eyewitness testimony?
It's very clear that you are simply assuming that it couldn't have happened and then concluding that either Mary lied or the story was a total fabrication.
The stories make much more sense as legends and indeed contain virtually every component of a legend.
No, that's not your claim. You can change your claim, but you don't get to rewrite your history. what this is is a weaker version of your original claim that they are based upon similar stories found in mythology, stories from which the authors borrowed. Well, by all means, which myths contain an actual virgin birth? If Christians were borrowing from these stories, then tell us which stories.
I'm still waiting to be told why assuming the present is the key to the past is the MOST irrational and arrogant thing you can possibly believe
The difference is simple: You're committing the Gambler's fallacy, Evan. The disputant assumes that the future will resemble the past or the past resembles the relative present or future. This is the basis of Hume’s probabilistic argument against the occurrence of miracles. Try to keep up, Evan.
while assuming that the God of the universe inspired a book in Hebrew and Greek is very humble but I guess I can wait.
We've been over this in our archives a number of times. he secularist has no reason to do that. My worldview allows me to do that quite well. You have to borrow from mine to do it. The real problem isn't mine, it's yours because you have to invoke "natural law," but if you are unable to do it, then you can't justify induction, which is the basis of the covering law.
See:http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/induction.html
I'm going to politely ask you to shut up with the "homoerotic" talk. If you can't, I'm going to politely suggest that you go away until you can control yourself.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Consider this, Evan, your second warning. Shape up or ship out.
Just an observer here. So, here's my question: why did God decide to play peek-a-boo with the universe when He created it? Why must He be so obtuse and hidden in the manner in which He reveals Himself?
ReplyDeleteHere's the world as it is: animals eat each other to survive, humans eat animals (and sometimes each other), the world's geography is mostly hostile towards life, the human body is too flawed from a design perspective and the Bible is filled with both apparent and actual contradictions that require an exegetical tap-dance worthy of Fred Astaire (He DOES tempt people, He DOESN'T tempt people, Ahaziah was 22 when his reign started, no wait it was 42).
Further, according to the Bible, this is all a cosmic game where God's using the unelect as mere pawns on a board for amusement: they never had the ability to do anything but be what they were created to be and then get thrown like so much trash into the fire.
My complaint is not so much that God exists but that if He does, He's one mean, crazy and spiteful spirit.
- James
Language that by its very nature has to be analogical, because the temporal cannot comprehend the true reality of the eternal. We need temporal analogies which we understand rationally and also react to on an emotional and spiritual level.
ReplyDeleteOK so you understand rationally that Patrick is making a myth and you react to that emotionally and spiritually.
Yet you can't see that the writers of the Greek gospels might have been doing the same thing.
I got it.
EDWARD T. BABINSKI SAID:
ReplyDelete“Triablogue has ‘refuted’ Loftus's book?__It's a book featuring questions. You don't ‘refute’ questions.”
That’s a dumb statement even by your standards, Ed. Loftus’ book is hardly a series of bare questions. Rather, it’s a compendium of hackneyed objections to the Christian faith.
“I think my book demonstrates that people are people, and such moderating and liberalizing changes happen, not just individually, but even within conservative Christian seminaries as a whole.”
Seminaries going liberal? What a brilliant discovery, Ed! Who’d a-thunk! Perhaps you’d also like to demonstrate that grass is green.
“I was thinking of editing a second collection, LEAVING YOUNG-EARTH CREATIONISM.”
I have a better idea. Why don’t you edit a collection, LEAVING ED BABINSKI.
JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
“Andrew is a stalking blog terrorist who has been banned from DC.”
To be banned from DC is a badge of honor. Andrew should put that on his resume.
Anyway, you know what they say, John—on man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
JAMES SAID:
“Further, according to the Bible, this is all a cosmic game where God's using the unelect as mere pawns on a board for amusement.”
And you’re playing your little part to perfection, James. Thanks for personally illustrating your observation.
Steve writes: "And you’re playing your little part to perfection, James. Thanks for personally illustrating your observation."
ReplyDeleteSo, Steve, as the skin is slowly frying off my bones, blood is oozing out my eyes and my skin erupts in pus-filled boils as your loving God acts out His aggressions on lil ole me, are you going to stand by, watch and laugh while munching some nachos?
I bet you will. ;-)
The Calvinist Christian vision is SUCH a darned beautiful thing, ain't it?
- James
James said:
ReplyDelete"So, Steve, as the skin is slowly frying off my bones, blood is oozing out my eyes and my skin erupts in pus-filled boils as your loving God acts out His aggressions on lil ole me, are you going to stand by, watch and laugh while munching some nachos."
Here's a novel idea for you, James. Why don't you begin by actually exegeting what the Bible has to say about hell instead of parroting B-movie caricatures.
BTW, James, why do you get so worked up over the infernal fate of mere bacteria—in Dawkins' charming description of human beings?
ReplyDeleteJust an observer here. So, here's my question: why did God decide to play peek-a-boo with the universe when He created it? Why must He be so obtuse and hidden in the manner in which He reveals Himself?
ReplyDeleteHere's the world as it is: animals eat each other to survive, humans eat animals (and sometimes each other), the world's geography is mostly hostile towards life, the human body is too flawed from a design perspective and the Bible is filled with both apparent and actual contradictions that require an exegetical tap-dance worthy of Fred Astaire (He DOES tempt people, He DOESN'T tempt people, Ahaziah was 22 when his reign started, no wait it was 42).
Further, according to the Bible, this is all a cosmic game where God's using the unelect as mere pawns on a board for amusement: they never had the ability to do anything but be what they were created to be and then get thrown like so much trash into the fire.
My complaint is not so much that God exists but that if He does, He's one mean, crazy and spiteful spirit.
...So, Steve, as the skin is slowly frying off my bones, blood is oozing out my eyes and my skin erupts in pus-filled boils as your loving God acts out His aggressions on lil ole me, are you going to stand by, watch and laugh while munching some nachos?
Ever notice how closely atheist objections and Arminian objections to Calvinism parallel each other?
1. Divine "hiddenness" is a consequence of man's sin.
And God's target group for revealing Himself is the elect, not the reprobate.
2. Ahaziah was 22 when his reign started, no wait it was 42
As if this has no answer. Ever hear of transcription errors. Here's a novel idea, James, try not to chose texts with known variations in them.
3. Where does the Bible say that the reprobate are "cosmic pawns for God's amusement?" Chapter and verse will do.
4. "Loving God..." How many times do we have to say this: Love is not God's only attribute.
And Steve beat me to the rest.
Steve said,
ReplyDelete"Here's a novel idea for you, James. Why don't you begin by actually exegeting what the Bible has to say about hell instead of parroting B-movie caricatures."
What does the Bible really have to say that we have missed, Steve? From what source do you think Jonathan Edwards got the following ideas, from Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?:
"The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh, how dreadful must that be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! But it is also "the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." ...Oh! then, what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worms that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? And whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this!...But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued in being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and mock," Prov. i. 25, 26, &c.
...And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you, in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets. "
jim said:
ReplyDelete"What does the Bible really have to say that we have missed, Steve? From what source do you think Jonathan Edwards got the following ideas, from Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?"
Punting to Edwards is a stalling tactic. If you're going to attack the Biblical doctrine of hell, you need to exegete the Biblical prooftexts before you're even in a position to attack the Biblical doctrine of hell. Do your homework!
OK so you understand rationally that Patrick is making a myth and you react to that emotionally and spiritually.
ReplyDeleteYet you can't see that the writers of the Greek gospels might have been doing the same thing.
I got it.
You *are* dense Evan, but do you really expect me to believe that you don't know the difference between an analogy and a myth???
And Patrick didn't "make" the analogy, he got it from Scripture. Marriage is an analogical relationship picturing Christ's relationship to the Church.
Now then, it's obvious that you're just baiting, so I'm going from Proverbs 26:5 to Proverbs 26:4 with you. I'm done.
Thank you Jonah, it's about time. Arguing with this guy Evan is like arguing with a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. No matter what evidence you present, no matter how much you batter his fallacies, he comes back with the same argument, but in a different package.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I've arrived after the firefight is pretty much over! Thanks to Steve, Gene, Jonah, Pastor Wilson, et al for their remarks.
ReplyDeleteAnd:
Jonah said: I'm going to politely ask you to shut up with the "homoerotic" talk. If you can't, I'm going to politely suggest that you go away until you can control yourself.
Gene said: Agreed. Consider this, Evan, your second warning. Shape up or ship out.
I'll "third" the motion: If in the future Evan continues to troll like this, we'll take a vote to ban him.