The Growth Of The Evidence For Christianity

It's sometimes suggested that the arguments for Christianity haven't developed much. There's not a lot being offered beyond the repetition of certain philosophical arguments for God's existence, historical arguments for prophecy fulfillment, historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection, and so forth.

Even if that were the case, that sort of evidence would be sufficient. And much of that older evidence often gets overlooked or underestimated (e.g., the evidence for certain Old Testament miracles, the evidence for apostolic miracles).

There's been more of an increase in the evidence for Christianity than is typically suggested. We've addressed a lot of examples in other posts: apparitions of Jesus, name statistics in the Biblical documents, the evidence for the Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus, modern healings, etc. Think of all of the developments in archeology over the years, for example. Old lines of argument often have new applications. I've written about modern examples of prophecy fulfillment, for instance. The work done in contexts like intelligent design and the paranormal isn't applicable only to Christianity, but it furthers the case for Christianity as far as it goes. And there are frequent advances in those fields.

Since our culture is so secular and trivial, issues like the ones I'm citing in this post don't get discussed much. And even among Christians, few people (as a percentage) bring these things up or attempt to persuade others about them. Those aren't problems with the state of the evidence, though. They're problems with how the state of the evidence is being handled.

How much resurrection evidence should we expect to be mentioned?

When critics of Jesus' resurrection object to something like the lack of mention of the appearance to more than five hundred (1 Corinthians 15:6) in sources other than Paul or the lack of mention of the guards at the tomb in sources other than Matthew, we should ask what we ought to be expecting from these sources. The critics' assumptions about what we should expect may be wrong, and we ought to be careful to not accept false assumptions.

The Cumulative Case For A Christian Understanding Of Psalm 22

I want to put links to some of the relevant posts in our archives in one place:

Is Psalm 22 Messianic?
The Jewishness Of The Individual In Psalm 22
How Well The Psalm Aligns With Roman Crucifixion
How Verse 16 Should Be Rendered
The Individual In Psalm 22 Is Delivered From Death
The Events Of Psalm 22 Are Highly Influential Geographically And Chronologically
Is Psalm 22 too vague to have evidential value for Christianity?
How Well Psalm 22 Aligns With Other Old Testament Passages That Have Evidential Value For Christianity

Why is there so much neglect of the argument from prophecy?

It's widely neglected both in terms of quantity and quality. There are some pastors, apologists, and other individuals who are otherwise highly involved in relevant contexts, yet I don't recall ever seeing them argue for Christianity from the evidence for prophecy fulfillment. Or somebody will only use the argument to a ridiculously small extent. I occasionally hear people go as far as to say that they don't think there's any value to the argument from prophecy or that they think there's only some extremely small number of prophecy arguments they consider worth using. Contrast that to how prominent prophecy is in the Old Testament and how prominent appeals to fulfillment are in the New Testament and the early extrabiblical literature.

Truth, Faith, And Confidence

"And faith is produced by the truth; for faith rests on things that truly are. For in things that are, as they are, we believe; and believing in things that are, as they ever are, we keep firm our confidence in them." (Irenaeus, The Demonstration Of The Apostolic Preaching 3)

What if men like Papias and Polycarp weren't eyewitnesses of the apostles?

I've argued, in other posts here and elsewhere, that they were. But if they weren't, what would follow?

There still would have been other individuals in early church history who had been an eyewitness of one or more of the apostles. There would have been many eyewitnesses, and some of them would have lived well into the second century. That's the nature of life. Skeptical challenges to the eyewitness status of individuals like Papias and Polycarp don't change that. It's not as though the presence of eyewitnesses depends on the status of particular individuals who have traditionally been thought to have been eyewitnesses of the apostles. The fact that eyewitnesses would have existed and have lived until well into the second century can't reasonably be denied. Keep that in mind when you see people questioning the eyewitness status of certain people.

And even those who weren't eyewitnesses could have been in a good position to have had significant information. They were contemporaries of the apostles, lived in an area where one or more apostles had been, etc. Think of the evidence for the apostle John's long lifespan and his interactions with Christians and churches in Asia Minor, for example. On his long lifespan, see here. For a discussion of the evidence for his influence on the Asia Minor region, go here. That post is focused on Ephesus, but much of what's said there is also applicable to Smyrna and other locations in the area. It's not as though Polycarp had to be a disciple of John in order to have had significant information about John and other eyewitnesses of Jesus. Polycarp was in the right place, at the right time, in the right sort of leadership position to have had a lot of reliable information about Jesus and the apostles, even if he wasn't a disciple of John (though the evidence suggests he was).

Anytime skeptics raise doubts about an issue like whether a certain person was an eyewitness of the apostles or whether a New Testament author was an eyewitness of whatever type, it's helpful to begin by asking what's at stake. Even if the skeptic's position were granted for the sake of argument, what would follow from it? Often, even if we granted the skeptic's position, the source in question still offers a large amount of evidence against the skeptic's view of Christianity.

How difficult is it to discern the evidence for Christianity?

One of the recurring themes in Joe Rogan's program with Wesley Huff was the idea that it's so difficult to discern the truth about some of the issues they discussed, including the evidence for Christianity. Rogan repeatedly brought the subject up, but I don't think he ever put it in the form of a question.

When that kind of sentiment comes up, a good way to respond is to mention one or more counterexamples. It's not difficult to discern Jesus' prominence in history, for example, which increases the plausibility of his being a source of Divine revelation. Or you could mention the significance of hostile corroboration of Jesus' resurrection, which is something unusual and widely acknowledged (James' claim to have seen Jesus risen from the dead, Paul's claim, non-Christian corroboration of the empty tomb, etc.). Or bring up some events involved in prophecy fulfillment that are widely accepted (Jesus' death by crucifixion, the timing of the crucifixion, the Romans' destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, etc.). For further discussion of issues like these, see here, among other relevant posts in our archives.

Another point worth making is that people give a lot of time, attention, and other resources to their general education, their career, sports, music, and other things in life. Why think they don't have the resources needed to adequately discern the issues relevant to Christianity?

No, Extrabiblical Evidence Isn't Roman Catholic Or Eastern Orthodox Tradition

Reliance on extrabiblical evidence is often equated with dependence on the alleged traditions of a group like Catholicism or Orthodoxy. But it doesn't make sense to equate extrabiblical evidence with tradition as those groups define it in any relevant way.

For example, all of our Bibles are based on many manuscripts produced by unknown individuals. There's no reason to classify those manuscripts as part of the Sacred Tradition of Catholicism or some equivalent in Orthodoxy. How we define the terminology used by the Bible, what we know about the surrounding historical context, and so forth are largely shaped by a variety of extrabiblical sources, including many archeological artifacts and documents that come from sources who didn't even claim to be Christian. Getting information from those sources isn't equivalent to depending on Catholic tradition, Orthodox tradition, etc. Even when we're assisted by one or more church fathers or what are commonly referred to as patristic documents, we aren't thereby relying on something like the Sacred Tradition of Catholicism or Orthodoxy. There's no reason to think the Didache, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Augustine, and other such sources were Catholic or Orthodox. Similarly, when a modern Catholic or Orthodox uses information found in Tacitus, an archeological artifact from an unknown Christian source, or a modern translation of a patristic document produced by a publisher outside his ecclesial affiliation, he isn't thereby violating his rule of faith, obligated to agree with the rule of faith of those sources, or any other such thing.

Half-Hearted, Weak, And Following The Crowd

"The assent that people usually give to divine truths is very faint and half-hearted, weak and ineffectual. It stems only from a blind inclination to follow the religion that is currently in fashion or from a lazy indifference and unconcernedness as to whether religious truth is indeed either certain or important. Men are unwilling to quarrel with the religion of their country, and since all their neighbors are Christians, they are content to be so too. However, seldom are they at pains to consider the evidences for Christian truths or to ponder the importance or consequences of them. Thus it is that their affections and practice are so little influenced by them….We must therefore endeavor to stir our minds toward serious belief and firm persuasion of divine truths and a deeper sense and awareness of spiritual things." (Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 865)

More Miracles On Video

I wrote a post on the topic a few years ago. As the Ted Serios case discussed there illustrates, we've had video footage of miracles for a long time. I occasionally come across more examples.

Elsewhere, I've discussed the UFO videos released to the public in recent years. Stephen Braude recently did another interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, which addresses some of the paranormal cases Braude has investigated. In the interview, he discusses some recent table levitations captured on video. Go here to watch an earlier interview with Mishlove that showed some photographs and video of table levitations. The segment here about Ariel Farias includes some video footage. Jimmy Akin recently discussed the evidence for animal telepathy, including some video of the phenomena. See here and here for a couple of relevant sections of his program. These are just some examples. I'm not trying to be exhaustive.

We need to keep in mind that the skeptical claim that we don't have good evidence for any miracles, sometimes even taking the form of claiming that miracles are never caught on video, was a weak objection from the start. And it's been getting weaker with the passing of time.

Paul's Familiarity With The Other Resurrection Witnesses

Last year, I wrote about the significance of the details mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6 regarding the appearance to more than five hundred. Something else worth noting is that Paul's comments elsewhere corroborate the idea that he was closely following the lives of the other resurrection witnesses. Think of his comments in Galatians 1-2 about visiting other apostles, spending a lot of time with them, and coordinating his efforts with theirs. Or his discussion of the sufferings of the apostles in 1 Corinthians 4:9-13. Or his discussion of the practices of the apostles when traveling in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Or his reference to how they were all proclaiming the same message, a comment he makes shortly after 1 Corinthians 15:6, in verse 11.

Do passages like Hebrews 11:1 support a view of faith that has little or no concern for evidence?

Stephen Woodford, who operates the Rationality Rules YouTube channel, recently posted a video about the alleged irrationality of theism. It's been getting a lot of attention, including some responses from Christians. I'm not going to interact with all of it. What I want to focus on is a segment about faith, which promotes a popular misinterpretation of Hebrews 11:1. That verse is often cited to support the idea that Christian faith has little or no concern for evidence, that it involves a blind leap in the dark, and so on. A couple of other passages, John 20:29 and 2 Corinthians 5:7, sometimes get interpreted in a similar manner.

You Can Emphasize The Resurrection Without Isolating It

Follow Peter's example in Acts 2, where he highlights Jesus' resurrection while also addressing prophecy fulfillment, Jesus' miracles other than his resurrection, and the miracles of the apostles. And Jesus, the prophets, and others did the same before Peter. Make much of Jesus' resurrection, but bring up other lines of evidence for Christianity as well.

The Poor Quality Of Skepticism

The Twitter account of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) recently linked a video of a presentation by Chris Roe, former president of the SPR, about the poor quality of skepticism of the paranormal. It's worth watching. There's a lot of valuable material in it.

Evidence For The December 15, 1977 Enfield Levitations

There's widespread agreement that the events of December 15, 1977 are among the most significant ones in the Enfield case. I've discussed much of the evidence for those events in previous posts, like this one that provides an overview of the day as a whole and this one focusing on an interview with one of the witnesses, John Rainbow. See here for a discussion I had with David Robertson in 2018 that was partly about the background to the events of that day. He explains what he was trying to accomplish and the reasoning behind it. Contrary to what people often suggest, there were more than two people outside the house who saw Janet Hodgson levitating that day. There were at least four who saw the levitation, and David told me, as quoted in the post linked above, that he suspects there were more than four. Keep in mind that the Hodgsons' house was directly across from a school, that the children were being let out of the school around the time of at least one of the levitations, and that the street the house is on is a very busy one. Anybody who's interested can read the posts linked above and other relevant ones in our archives for more about these issues. I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. What I want to do in this post is add some further lines of evidence for these December 15 events, including some that I don't recall having seen discussed before.

Witnesses In Every Generation

People often underestimate how much Christians of earlier generations were concerned about having evidence for Christianity and how much evidence they had access to. For example:

"if they [non-Christian Jews] had only been in their own land with that testimony of the Scriptures, and not every where, certainly the Church which is everywhere could not have had them as witnesses among all nations to the prophecies which were sent before concerning Christ." (Augustine, The City Of God, 18:46)

Exalted And Stooping

"This passage [in Isaiah 40] begins with God gathering his lambs in his arms (40:11) and ends with his giving strength to the faint who have no might (40:29-31). Between these two pictures of God's stooping to help the helpless are the most exalted glimpses of his majesty: 'the nations are like a drop from a bucket' (40:15); 'the nations are as nothing before him' (40:17); 'earth's inhabitants are like grasshoppers' (40:22); '[he] makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness' (40:23); he created the stars and calls all their billions by name (40:26). This juxtaposition of God's self-exaltation and self-humbling is pervasive in the biblical picture of God's providence and is near the essence of his peculiar and wonderful glory." (John Piper, Providence [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2020], approximate Kindle location 4684)

The Servant Songs begin shortly after, at the start of chapter 42. "I, the Lord, will answer them myself, as the God of Israel I will not forsake them….'Present your case,' the Lord says. 'Bring forward your strong arguments,' the King of Jacob says. Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming" (Isaiah 41:17, 41:21-22).

The Best Arguments For The Enfield Poltergeist

In a post last year, I made some recommendations about how to begin studying the Enfield case. What I want to do in this post is make some suggestions about how to argue for the case's authenticity.

Because the evidence for it is so multifaceted and so strong in so many contexts, and because there's some variability in which arguments will persuade which people, there are many approaches you can take that would have some merit. I'm not suggesting that the approach I'll outline below is the only one that should be taken. You can make whatever adjustments you think are appropriate to my recommendations, but I'll discuss a few of the arguments I would include. I'll start with a couple that I think would be the easiest to use, then mention some that are harder to articulate, but have a lot of value.

Are Gnostic and pagan documents part of Roman Catholic tradition?

In the mid 1990s, I met a man online named John Wallace who impressed upon me the value of hostile corroboration. He made good use of the corroboration of Christianity that we have from ancient non-Christian sources. I also read some material in Philip Schaff's church history that left an impression on me in that context. A series I wrote on the canon of scripture several years ago has a segment about hostile corroboration of the New Testament canon, and it concludes with a quote from the material in Schaff's church history I just referred to. Ever since I came across Wallace and Schaff's work, I've given a lot of attention to hostile corroboration as a line of evidence. You can find many traces of it in my work over the years.

I often think of that line of evidence when I see Catholics and Orthodox claim that Protestants are relying on Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox tradition when we accept our canon of scripture, interpret it in light of ancient sources, or some such thing. They act as though anything outside of scripture should be equated with Catholic or Orthodox tradition. I know that hostile corroboration has long been a large part of what shapes my views on matters like the canon of scripture and scripture interpretation. When Bible translators make judgments about how to render the Biblical text, Biblical commentators decide how to best interpret certain Biblical passages, and so forth, they rely partly on information they're getting from Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Trypho, Celsus, Porphyry, archeological artifacts, and other ancient non-Christian sources. And something like a New Testament manuscript or a catacomb inscription isn't always accompanied by an extensive statement of faith on the part of the individual(s) who produced the manuscript or inscription. Think of the absurdity of suggesting that everything from Josephus to Celsus to an ancient New Testament manuscript from a largely unknown source is equivalent to Roman Catholic Sacred Tradition.

But many Protestants are taken in by that sort of argumentation. And many Catholics and Orthodox think they're arguing well when they utilize such poor arguments. That's largely because we're such a secular, trivial culture that doesn't think and talk about issues like these nearly enough.

If a Catholic or Orthodox just wants to argue that part of what Protestants are relying on is Catholic or Orthodox tradition, then that qualifier should be added upfront rather than later in the discussion. And they should justify their claim about partial dependence on their tradition and explain why that partial dependence allegedly is problematic. A Protestant doesn't have to accept, and shouldn't accept, the assumption that all or even most of the church fathers or other early Christians were Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. And even if they had been Catholic or Orthodox, Catholics and Orthodox often depend on information they get from Protestant or other non-Catholic or non-Orthodox archeologists, historians, Bible translators, patristic scholars, etc. So what? All of us make our historical judgments, including judgments about matters like religion and morals, on the basis of testimony or other evidence from sources outside our church, denomination, or ecclesiastical movement. Again, so what?

Jesus' Use Of Object Lessons

In her book on the historicity of the gospel of John, Lydia McGrew discusses how the gospels agree about Jesus' frequent use of object lessons (The Eye Of The Beholder [Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021], 393-95). He used the presence of his relatives (Matthew 12:49-50), bread (Matthew 16:5-12), children (Mark 9:35-37, 10:13-16), fishing (Luke 5:4-10), a well (John 4:7-14), a need for feet to be washed (John 13:1-17), etc. to illustrate points he wanted to make. Lydia concludes:

"This is what Paley means by a 'visible agreement of manner' in the teaching of Jesus throughout the Gospels. He points out further, '[N]othing of this manner is perceptible in the speeches recorded in the Acts, or in any other but those that are attributed to Christ….[I]n truth, it was a very unlikely manner for a forger or fabulist to attempt; and a manner very difficult for any writer to execute, if he had to supply all the materials, both the incidents, and the observations upon them, out of his own head.'" (395)