Than Christopoulos and Matt Dillahunty recently debated the resurrection. Than made a lot of significant points in his opening remarks, which Matt didn't interact with much. As you listen to Matt, keep in mind that objecting that there isn't more evidence doesn't explain the evidence you have. And keep in mind that offering equal or better alternative explanations of the evidence Than appealed to would be an effective way of demonstrating that Than's case is as bad as Matt suggests it is, yet Matt didn't do that. The more often you ignore the evidence cited and appeal to agnosticism, the less of a position you're in to use the sort of language Matt used to describe the evidence for the resurrection: "pretty weak", "bottom of the barrel", "the weakest evidence", "the worst possible evidence", etc.
No, if we have several letters from a former persecutor of Christians who converted after what he described as seeing the risen Christ, that's better than "bottom of the barrel", "the worst possible evidence", and so on. The same is true of a resurrection claim being made in a culture that previously wasn't expecting an individual to be raised before the general resurrection, Jewish corroboration of the empty tomb, etc. It's easy to think of scenarios in which the evidence would be much less than it is. What if no non-Christians, like Paul and James, had claimed to have seen the risen Christ? What if the Jewish and pagan opponents of the religion had denied the empty tomb rather than corroborating it? What if the Jewish, pagan, and heretical sources had denied the traditional authorship attributions of the gospels (as they sometimes did with other Biblical documents) rather than corroborating them? What if the resurrection appearances had occurred under conditions more in line with hallucinations and other such naturalistic scenarios rather than under conditions so out of line with those scenarios? What if suffering like what's described in 2 Corinthians 11 hadn't occurred, so that we didn't have that sort of evidence for the sincerity of the individuals in question? And so forth.
To Matt's credit, he's more reasonable than some other skeptics on some issues, such as allowing for the possibility of miracles. But he accompanies that with positions that are less reasonable, like claiming that Christians are offering "the worst possible evidence". He shouldn't have used that sort of language, and whatever language he used, he should have demonstrated his claims by making more of an effort to interact with Than's arguments (instead of spending so much time on the general principles of skepticism, Divine hiddenness, etc.). I think he spent much more time objecting that there isn't more evidence than interacting with the evidence he was given.
He did occasionally comment on the empty tomb, though he didn't say much about it. He said that an empty tomb wouldn't prove a resurrection. But it's cited as a piece of evidence in a cumulative case, not as something that's sufficient by itself. And it significantly weakens some of the alternatives to the Christian position, such as the hallucination hypothesis.
And what Matt did with the empty tomb was repeated in other contexts. He objects to arguments for the sincerity of the resurrection witnesses on the basis that they could be sincerely wrong. But, as with the empty tomb, sincerity is argued for as part of a cumulative case. Matt keeps isolating portions of a cumulative case and objecting to them on the basis that they don't make the case in isolation. Maybe Matt would say that he was just responding to certain Christians who think that things like the empty tomb and the sincerity of the resurrection witnesses are sufficient when considered in isolation, but he wasn't debating those Christians. He should have made more of an effort to interact with the position of the Christian he was debating.
The issue of extrabiblical evidence for the resurrection came up more than once. See the audience question here, for example. The questioner asked about leaving out the Bible, but it's unclear whether he meant to refer only to the New Testament or the Bible as a whole. The Old Testament predates Christianity, and its contents are corroborated by non-Christian sources. And the latter can be said of the New Testament. But a source doesn't have to be non-Christian in order to be extrabiblical. The New Testament is frequently quoted, alluded to, described, and such by patristic sources, by heretical sources, in archeological artifacts, etc. The earliest extrabiblical sources commenting on Christianity go back to the first century. I've argued that Justin Martyr cites an extrabiblical first-century Jewish source on the empty tomb. If only the New Testament is being excluded, not the Old Testament, a good argument from prophecy fulfillment can still be made. There are many sources outside the New Testament that refer to Jesus' crucifixion (in line with Psalm 22 and the Servant Song in Isaiah 50), the timing of Jesus' crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (which align with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy), Jesus' background in Galilee and Nazareth in particular (in line with Isaiah 9:1), Jesus' influence on the Gentile world (in line with Isaiah's Servant Songs and other material), etc. That pattern of prophecy fulfillment raises the likelihood of the fulfillment of the resurrection prophecy in Isaiah 53:10-11. An argument can be made from the Shroud of Turin as well. And as Than argued during the debate, modern miracles done in Jesus' name can provide some evidence for the resurrection. So, though removing the New Testament or the Bible as a whole would significantly weaken the case for the resurrection, especially if you also eliminate all references to the Bible in extrabiblical sources or do something else of a similar nature, there is a substantial amount of extrabiblical evidence for the resurrection.
Since Matt kept objecting that there isn't more evidence, I'll link a couple of posts I've written on that topic, here and here. And there are other posts on the subject in our archives. Keep in mind that the resurrection, though often highlighted, shouldn't be isolated. It's a portion of a larger network of evidence for Christianity. See, for example, Peter's appeal to Jesus' pre-resurrection miracles, fulfilled prophecy, and apostolic miracles in Acts 2, even though he was primarily addressing the resurrection.
Matt cited or alluded to John 20:29 at least a couple of times during the debate. Here's a response I wrote to the common skeptical abuse of that passage and a couple of others (2 Corinthians 5:7, Hebrews 11:1). That post addresses John 20 briefly, but is focused on Hebrews 11. If you want some posts that go into more of the details of the John 20 passage and its context, see here's and here.
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