tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67891882024-03-18T02:12:51.143-04:00TriablogueSerious Trinitarian TheologyRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger24261110tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-6169229148592294822024-03-17T06:46:00.004-04:002024-03-17T06:46:41.172-04:00How To Read The Church FathersThe Other Paul recently posted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mj15JlauTE">a video that makes some good points on the subject</a>.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-43887556206050158362024-03-14T04:40:00.004-04:002024-03-14T04:40:45.158-04:00How The Author's Travels Support The Authorship Attribution Of Luke/ActsI've written before about <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-importance-of-romes-testimony-about.html">how Acts ends with a "we" passage that places the author in Rome and how some of the earliest evidence we have for Lukan authorship comes from sources closely connected to that city</a>. Something else to note about the authorship of Luke and Acts is that multiple sources in multiple locations should have been in a good position to know who wrote the documents. The "we" passages in Acts, <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-we-passages-in-acts.html">which suggest participation by the author in the events in question</a>, are evidence that the author traveled widely. And he apparently was writing Acts as he traveled, doing preparatory work for writing while traveling (e.g., gathering information from people, taking notes), or some of each, given the nature of the details in the document. (For evidence to that effect, see <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/01/craig-keener-on-luke-and-acts.html">here</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS-vHmSpP_o">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sdLTyM7Sks&t=4m53s">here</a>.) So, people in a large number and variety of locations should have had significant evidence regarding who wrote Acts (and the gospel of Luke). That includes being in a good position to falsify an incorrect authorship attribution. That's especially true given all of Luke/Acts' references to times, places, individuals involved, etc. I've <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/11/how-jesus-relatives-shaped-our-view-of.html">argued that some of Luke's material on Jesus' childhood likely was acquired in the context of Acts 21</a>. So, it looks like the authorship of the third gospel, not just Acts, is also directly connected to his travels in the "we" passages. Attribution of the third gospel and Acts to Luke was widespread and seems to have not faced much opposition. That makes more sense if the attribution is correct than if it's incorrect. That's true not only as a general principle, but even more so in light of the author's travels.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-7380184657453604572024-03-12T04:47:00.002-04:002024-03-12T04:47:36.391-04:00Neglected Evidence For Acts' Material On The Resurrection Appearance To PaulThere are some good arguments that are often brought up for the material on Jesus' appearance to Paul in Acts, such as the authorship of Luke/Acts and the general historical reliability of the author. See, for example, my posts on such issues <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/01/craig-keener-on-luke-and-acts.html">here</a>, Craig Keener's video on Luke's historiography <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS-vHmSpP_o">here</a>, and a video featuring Lydia McGrew on the subject of hard things Acts gets right <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sdLTyM7Sks&t=4m53s">here</a>. What I want to focus on in this post is some evidence that comes up less often. I'll occasionally mention more common arguments in the process of discussing the less common ones, but my focus here is on lines of evidence that have gotten less attention.<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b><u>The Plausibility Of The Material</b></u><br />
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How much should we expect Paul to say in his letters about his experience seeing the risen Christ? He was writing letters, not an autobiography or a history of Christianity. And he was writing those letters to people who were already Christians, largely to people who had been Christians for a long time. As far as we can tell, every audience he wrote to in his extant letters already knew of him to some extent. They didn't need to be given introductory information about him. (Some of them hadn't yet seen him face-to-face, but that's a different issue.) Like any other writer, Paul assumed some background knowledge on the part of his audiences, and he was highly selective in what he did and didn't write. He often expects his audience to know more than what he addresses in his letters (e.g., 1 Corinthians 7:1, 2 Thessalonians 2:6). He surely said many things in other contexts that he didn't say in the letters we have. Even within the letters, we see him including details in some places that he doesn't include elsewhere (e.g., the details about his background in Galatians 1 and Philippians 3 overlap, but each document has information not included in the other). Given factors like these, though Paul's letters <i>might</i> include a more extensive account of Jesus' resurrection appearance to him, there's no reason to <i>expect</i> such an account in his letters.<br />
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On the other hand, the significance Paul and his audiences assign to topics like Jesus' resurrection and the appearance to Paul in particular give us reason to think the door is wide open for lengthier accounts of Paul's experience to have been recorded elsewhere. Paul opens most of his letters with a reference to his apostleship, and the subject comes up frequently outside of the opening of his letters. Having seen Jesus after he rose from the dead seems to have been a requirement for apostleship, a point Paul himself makes (1 Corinthians 9:1). And when writing to the Galatians, he comments on their knowledge of his background: "you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism" (1:13). He goes on to refer to how his background and the transformation that had occurred in his life were widely discussed among Christians (1:23). Given how much emphasis Paul places on his background in general and his having seen the risen Christ in particular and the implications of it, such as his apostleship, it's likely that his experience seeing the risen Christ is something he widely discussed. And other individuals and churches would have spread the information widely, much as Galatians 1 refers to how information on his background in general was widely disseminated.<br />
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It's undeniable that Paul knew more, and would have been asked about more, than what he says in his letters regarding his experience with the risen Christ. When did the event occur? Where did it happen? Did Jesus speak to him? If so, what did Jesus say? What was Paul's reaction? Was anybody else present? Etc. The idea that Paul only knew what he mentioned in his brief, summarizing accounts in his letters is extremely irrational. He couldn't help but know more. He was there. It was <i>his</i> experience.<br />
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Paul's unusualness should be considered as well. He's among the most significant leaders in Christianity, arguably the most significant, after Jesus. Paul traveled widely. He wrote many letters. Unlike other resurrection witnesses, he had been not only an unbeliever (like James and <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-resurrected-jesus-appeared-to-at.html">others</a>), but even a prominent persecutor of the church who became a Christian in the context of seeing the risen Christ. For reasons like those, there probably would have been an unusually large amount of interest in the appearance of Jesus to Paul and an unusually large number of people who had information about it.<br />
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What we have, then, is a situation in which Paul's letters only address Jesus' appearance to Paul in brief, summary form, but with those letters suggesting that more information was likely widely known and widely discussed and that there's a large amount of potential, accordingly, to find that information elsewhere. That doesn't mean we should uncritically accept whatever we find in other sources, of course. But it does mean that the lack of a lengthier account in Paul's letters isn't much of a problem, and the door is wide open to finding such an account that's credible elsewhere. Looking for it in the gospels wouldn't make much sense, given that they're focused on an earlier timeframe. Looking for it in the non-Pauline letters of the New Testament wouldn't make much sense either, for the reasons mentioned above regarding Paul's letters, along with other reasons. And there's no reason to expect Revelation to have that sort of material. Acts is a good candidate, though. But before we get to Acts, I want to address one other issue.<br />
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<b><u>The Difficulty Of Changing What Paul Reported</b></u><br />
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Since Paul had the sort of status outlined above and had it for a few decades, involving all sorts of travel, planting of churches, and so forth, the account he gave of what he experienced with the risen Christ surely was widely disseminated and often reinforced by the time he died. It would be difficult to get even a large percentage of Christians to accept a change in Paul's account. It would be even harder to do it with every or almost every Christian. And the larger the change involved, the more difficult it would be to successfully carry out the change.<br />
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<b><u>The Date Of Acts</b></u><br />
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Since some of my arguments for an early date for Acts don't get discussed much, I'll link <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/more-reason-to-date-synoptics-and-acts.html">one of my articles on the subject</a>. Keep in mind that though my article discusses why I think Acts was completed in the early to mid 60s, the material on Paul's resurrection experience would predate the time when Acts was <i>completed</i>, and the time when the author of Acts received that information about Paul would be even earlier.<br />
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Also keep in mind that eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Paul would have lived into the second century. The individual in question here is <i>Paul</i>, not Jesus. Paul didn't die until the 60s, and he seems to have still been highly active in his work as an apostle up to that point. Anybody who wants to date Acts beyond the time when eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Paul were still alive will have to date it well into the second century. And dating it so late is ridiculous for a lot of reasons, some of which I'll discuss below.<br />
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<b><u>The Lack Of Rival Accounts</b></u><br />
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The author of Acts was interested enough in Jesus' appearance to Paul to mention it several times (including more briefly in passages like 9:27), with a more substantial amount of detail on three of those occasions. Two of those three lengthier accounts are attributed to Paul himself. The best explanation for why Luke discusses the appearance to Paul so much is that both Paul and the early Christians in general were discussing it a lot. One of the things Ananias is said to have told Paul is that "you will be a witness for him [Jesus] to all men of what you have seen and heard" (22:15). As the larger context suggests and as verse 14 makes even clearer, Paul is to be a witness of his experience with the risen Christ. The same sentiment is found in 26:16. That aligns well with what we see in the rest of Acts and Paul's letters. So, Acts gives us even more reason, like we have in Paul's letters, for thinking that his experience with the risen Christ was widely discussed, by Paul and by others.<br />
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The best explanation for the earliness and widespread acceptance of Acts' view of Paul's experience is that it's substantially the view that was disseminated by Paul and the earliest Christians. Anybody who wants us to think that the appearance to Paul wasn't discussed much beyond the brief summaries we see in his letters needs to argue for such an unusual scenario rather than just asserting it. Or if it's going to be suggested that the appearance was discussed significantly more in contexts outside of Paul's letters, but that the information disseminated in those contexts was widely lost and widely replaced with the view presented in Acts, that kind of unusual scenario would likewise need to be argued for rather than just asserted.<br />
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Notice that Acts presents its view of the appearance to Paul as a matter of public knowledge, known early and repeated before many early sources on so many occasions. It's known to Barnabas and discussed among the apostles (9:27), spoken to a crowd (21:30-22:15), presented to government officials (26:1-19), part of what Paul is to witness to before "all men" (22:15). Just after giving one of his accounts of his experience seeing the risen Christ, Paul comments that "the king knows about these matters, and I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a corner." (26:26) If the author was trying to replace an original view of the appearance to Paul with a more recent view that he preferred and that was significantly different than the original, you have to ask why he or his source did so in such a falsifiable manner. He could easily have presented his view of the appearance to Paul as something conveyed in more private settings and less often and could have offered some explanation for the prominence of the view he was trying to replace. Instead, the author shows no awareness of a rival view that he needs to compete with, and he presents his own view in a way that would be easy to falsify if it was incorrect. If some significantly different view than what we find in Acts was dominant for a few decades or longer, while Paul was alive and however long afterward, how could a work like Acts be written without any awareness of a rival account that needed to be interacted with? The best explanation for why the author of Acts presents his view of the appearance to Paul as if it has no rival is that it had no rival.<br />
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<b><u>The Early And Widespread High Regard For Acts</b></u><br />
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An important line of evidence to consider when evaluating these issues is the early reception of Acts. And one of the things we need to recognize in that context is that the scriptural status of the gospel of Luke implies Acts' scriptural status. The gospel anticipates Acts (the "things accomplished among us" phrase in Luke 1:1 seems to refer to the history of the Christian movement up to that point in time, which is completed in Acts, as suggested by Acts 1:1), and Acts presents itself as a sequel to the gospel (Acts 1:1). The description of the scope of Luke's work at the opening of his gospel could be limited to the timeframe covered in that gospel, but the language is so broad as to be more likely to be about a larger timeframe. Furthermore, there's an early and long history of the large majority of people who accepted one of the two documents also accepting the other. It's unlikely that somebody who accepted the gospel of Luke as scripture wasn't aware that there was a sequel to the gospel of Luke or was aware of the sequel and rejected its scriptural status. Seeing both documents as scripture makes more sense than driving a wedge between two documents that are so connected.<br />
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And it was highly unusual for a document to be considered scripture. Even documents written by well-regarded disciples of the apostles, like Clement of Rome and Polycarp, were often not viewed as scripture. I've written before about the many early Christian documents, <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/03/early-non-extant-documents-on.html">including first-century ones</a>, that aren't even extant today. Luke/Acts provides us with some examples. The "many" accounts of Luke 1:1 didn't include the gospel of Luke and probably didn't include John, which would be written later, and it's very unlikely that Mark and Matthew were thought to constitute "many". Most likely, a majority of the accounts Luke refers to in Luke 1:1 <i>weren't</i> regarded as scripture.<br />
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The early acceptance of Acts as scripture is much harder to explain if its accounts of Paul's conversion are significantly different than what Paul reported. He's a prominent figure in Acts, and his experience with the risen Christ is given a lot of attention. It's not just a minor detail people could have easily overlooked or have regarded as insignificant. Considering the importance of his seeing the risen Christ and how often he mentions it in his letters, there had to be many people he discussed it with and, therefore, a <i>large</i> amount of potential for the Acts material to be falsified if it was substantially wrong. If Paul and the earliest Christians were circulating an account of Paul's experience that was significantly different than what we see in Acts, then early acceptance of Acts as scripture would be more difficult to explain.<br />
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And the evidence suggests that Acts was thought to be scripture early on, in the first century. See <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/08/1-timothy-518-is-important-in.html">here</a> regarding the reference to the gospel of Luke as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18. That carries with it an implication of the acceptance of Acts as scripture, for the reasons mentioned earlier.<br />
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We've argued for Paul's authorship of 1 Timothy elsewhere on this blog, and others have argued for it. Even if the document is a forgery, an earlier date would be better than a later date at making sense of the document's widespread acceptance as a genuine letter of Paul. And it has some characteristics that make more sense earlier rather than later (e.g., the reference to two rather than three church offices in chapter 3). Paul probably wrote 1 Timothy, but it offers first-century support for the Acts material on Jesus' appearance to Paul either way.<br />
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In addition to the evidence from 1 Timothy, the widespread acceptance of Luke and Acts (as scripture and in other contexts) from the second century onward makes more sense if that acceptance goes back to the first century. In other words, even apart from the evidence we have in 1 Timothy, we have good reason to think there was early and widespread high regard for Luke/Acts. 1 Timothy 5:18 adds further weight to what's also suggested by a lot of other evidence.<br />
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For a discussion of an important, neglected example from the first half of the second century, see my comments on Aristides <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-response-to-bart-ehrmans-webinar.html">here</a>. Notice how high a view of the gospel of Luke Aristides seems to have had, how he seems to combine material from Luke with material from Acts, how he expects Luke/Acts to be so accessible to non-Christians, etc. Just after mentioning Jesus' ascension, Aristides refers to how "these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness" (Apology, 2). Keep in mind that he makes that comment just after focusing on the gospel of Luke and recommending that his pagan audience <i>read</i> the relevant material. What he says about the disciples' activities in the world is reminiscent of what we see in Acts. Right after mentioning the ascension, he mentions how the disciples "went forth throughout the known parts of the world". That resembles Acts 1:8, which has Jesus telling the disciples to go out into the world and mentioning the parts of the world involved, after which the ascension occurs (verse 9). Furthermore, Aristides' comment about the good character of the disciples as they went throughout the world wouldn't have to come from Acts, but it makes more sense coming from Acts than from any other source. Aristides had just mentioned material to <i>read</i>, with a focus on Luke, and Acts is a sequel to Luke that collects accounts of how the disciples behaved when going throughout the world more than any other early document does.<br />
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I'll briefly address one other line of evidence in this context. Luke/Acts wasn't just widely accepted and highly regarded in early mainstream Christian circles. It was widely accepted among other professing Christians as well. Irenaeus tells us that some heretics rejected some New Testament documents (Against Heresies, 3:11:7), but that most "do certainly recognise the Scriptures; but they pervert the interpretations" (3:12:12). Tertullian wrote, "that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retain has stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion's is to most people not even known, and by those to whom it is known is also by the same reason condemned." (Against Marcion, 4:5) Origen notes, "There are countless heresies that accept the Gospel According to Luke." (Joseph Lienhard, trans., Origen: Homilies On Luke, Fragments On Luke [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 1996], 67) The Marcionites are an exception to the rule who are often cited, but they don't overturn the rule. It seems that both Luke and Acts were accepted among the large majority of professing Christians, including ones who predated Marcion's movement.<br />
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<b><u>Internal Evidence</b></u><br />
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For a summary of some internal evidence for the material in Acts about the appearance to Paul, see <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-damascus-road-experience.html?showComment=1556878256119#c1547676672874934483">here</a>. More could be added. For example, Jesus' use of "Saul, Saul" when he appeared to Paul (Acts 9:4) is reminiscent of Jesus' use of repetition elsewhere, including with people's names in particular ("Jerusalem, Jerusalem" in Matthew 23:37, "my God, my God" in Mark 15:34 [a citation of Psalm 22, but still one that Jesus chose to highlight and to cite with "my God" twice rather than once], "Martha, Martha" in Luke 10:41, "Simon, Simon" in Luke 22:31, "truly, truly" in the gospel of John, etc.). And the first thing he says to Paul consists of a question ("Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"). Jesus frequently opens conversations and parables with a question in the gospels. Notice the cumulative effect. Jesus starts the discussion with a question, says something twice for emphasis, and does so with a person's name in particular. So, Acts 9:4 parallels Jesus' behavior in the gospels in a few ways.<br />
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<b><u>What's the alternative?</b></u><br />
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To prepare the way for the last subject I want to address, I'll take a few sentences here to summarize some of the points I've made above. Paul would have widely discussed his experience with the risen Christ in more detail than we have in the brief summaries provided in his letters. The author of Acts is very likely to have written when eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Paul were still alive, and the author says that his material on Paul's experience came from Paul himself and was widely disseminated early on, including before large groups, in public, among named individuals, in named places, and so on. Furthermore, the Acts material has multiple characteristics that a Christian fabricator probably wouldn't have included (e.g., Paul is blinded, which raises doubts about what he saw; his companions don't see Jesus; his companions hear Jesus, but don't understand what he says; his companions aren't referred to as converting to Christianity; there's less reference to the physicality of Jesus' body than Luke includes when addressing other resurrection appearances).<br />
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With those factors and the other relevant evidence in mind, we should examine the quality of skeptical alternatives to a traditional Christian view of what Paul reported and experienced. How well does a skeptical view of the appearance to Paul compare to a Christian view? Our scrutiny can't be a one-way street. Just as we apply scrutiny to Christian views, we also have to apply scrutiny to skeptical views. What we're after is the best explanation, not just a possible one. And just complaining that there isn't more evidence doesn't adequately address the evidence we do have. Part of what I'm getting at in this post is that we have more evidence than people usually suggest.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-70465835129509576722024-03-10T07:40:00.001-04:002024-03-10T07:40:08.276-04:00The Number Of Resurrection Experiences Peter HadThe numbers are significant for other individuals as well, but I want to focus on Peter here as an example. He probably was part of at least three of the appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8, and there's a good chance that he was part of four of them. For a discussion of the potential for his participation in the appearance to more than five hundred in 1 Corinthians 15:6, see <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/how-1-corinthians-15-dovetails-with.html">here</a>. He also witnessed the appearances in John 21 and Acts 1. And he's reported to have witnessed the empty tomb and the condition of Jesus' grave coverings at the time (Luke 24:12, John 20:3-7).<br />
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Such a large number of experiences would tend to involve a large amount of variety as well, and we see that with what Peter experienced. He was alone on one occasion, but with one or more other individuals on other occasions, only with John on the occasion of seeing the empty tomb and with varying larger groups on other occasions. The experiences are reported to have ranged across multiple weeks (John 20:26, Acts 1:3), from seeing the empty tomb on Easter day to seeing Jesus at the time of the ascension.<br />
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That sort of number and variety of experiences should be kept in mind. It wasn't just one event or one set of circumstances. Peter is the most significant example in this context, but the same point can be made to a lesser extent about other resurrection witnesses.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-77571044971220340422024-03-07T05:00:00.004-05:002024-03-07T05:00:24.496-05:00Evidence Of How Psalm 22:16 Should Be RenderedMichael Flowers has produced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkWlJILLjYZiWTTxDGPzbRHEi9wfWXdFm">a series of videos on Psalm 22:16</a>, in which he makes a lot of significant points about the passage. He's also published <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/vt/71/1/article-p48_4.xml">an article discussing thirteen proposed renderings of the passage and assessing their strengths and weaknesses</a>. Notice how easily most of the proposed readings can be reconciled with crucifixion. The traditional Christian view involving digging, boring through, or piercing is supported by the earliest versions of Psalm 22 that we have. As Flowers notes, "In an article from 1897 Henri Lesêtre observed that although Justin Martyr quotes Ps 22 for his Jewish interlocutor Trypho and appeals to it as a proof-text for Christ’s crucifixion, he never pauses to consider Jewish objections to the Septuagint rendering of v. 17 [verse 16 in Christian Bibles]. Since Justin is aware of other Jewish objections to Septuagint renderings – as in <i>Dial.</i> 67 where the term παρθένος in Isa 7:14 is discussed at length – Lesêtre hypothesized that כארו was still the established reading in the mid-second century." Justin's comments are in section 97 of his Dialogue if you want to read what he wrote for yourself. Furthermore, multiple other details in the psalm suggest a crucifixion, one with Roman characteristics, as I've discussed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-significance-of-nakedness-and.html">elsewhere</a>. The language Christians appeal to in Psalm 22:16 was circulating in versions of that psalm in antiquity and seems to have been circulating widely, including in pre-Christian sources. If that language was a textual corruption, then was it a mere coincidence that such unusual textual mistakes so favorable to Christianity entered the manuscript record and became so popular? If somebody is going to advocate that sort of view, we should note how often he appeals to such unusual alleged mere coincidences in other contexts as well, such as with regard to other details in Psalm 22 and in other contexts related to prophecy fulfillment (Jesus just happened to be <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-significance-of-jesus-being-raised.html">raised in Nazareth</a> in the region of Zebulun in line with Isaiah 9:1, the <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/03/jesus-fulfillment-of-other-servant-songs.html">flogging in the Servant Song in Isaiah 50</a> just happens to line up with the common Roman practice of flogging an individual before crucifixion, the Romans just happened to <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2024/02/pauls-suffering-and-prophecy-fulfillment.html">destroy both Jerusalem and the temple</a> in line with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, etc.). And if the alternative reading of Psalm 22:16 that's adopted is one like the popular Jewish rendering involving a lion doing something to the hands and feet, we should ask what's being accomplished by going with that sort of reading. Even though it wouldn't support a Christian understanding of the psalm as much as a traditional Christian version of the text would, it's still singling out the hands and feet in a significantly unusual way and can easily be reconciled with crucifixion.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-8140073391077712422024-03-05T04:52:00.000-05:002024-03-05T04:52:06.275-05:00How To Approach Easter ProphecyIssues of prophecy fulfillment often come up in the context of Easter. I want to make a few points about how to best handle the situation.<a name='more'></a><br />
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You have to prioritize. Some prophecies are more evidential than others. And some are of such a nature that they work well even when responding to more extreme forms of skepticism, such as agnosticism or skepticism about Jesus' existence. Prophecy, including Messianic prophecy, involves more than an individual. It also involves a context surrounding that individual: the penal practices anticipated in Psalm 22, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, etc. You can begin with prophecy fulfillments that are less controversial, then get to the more controversial ones later. For more about issues like these, see <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-argument-from-prophecy-works.html">here</a>.<br />
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Secondly, don't get overly focused on whether a fulfillment is primary or secondary, non-typological or typological. Critics often object that Christians are taking Old Testament passages out of context when they claim a fulfillment of a prophecy in later history. Supposedly, the passage is actually referring to David, Hezekiah, a remnant in Israel, Cyrus, or some other source different than the one Christians cite as the fulfillment. As I've mentioned before, one way to respond is to explain that even a secondary or typological fulfillment is significant. It's highly unlikely that by normal means Jesus' life would line up as well as it does with Psalm 22, that his alignment with the Servant of the Lord figure in Isaiah came about by natural rather than supernatural means, that his life would by normal means line up as well as it does with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, etc. even if we were to take such passages as referring primarily to some other figure. Given the involvement of the Romans, for example, in fulfilling passages like the ones I just mentioned, it's unlikely under normal circumstances that all of the relevant events would unfold in such a way as to line up so well with the passages in question. Sources like the Romans wouldn't set out to pattern Jesus' life after such passages, and it's unlikely that such a close alignment would happen as a mere coincidence. If Jesus' life and the surrounding context keep lining up so well with events in David's life, events in the history of the nation of Israel, and so on (assuming that the passages in question are primarily referring to such entities), that seems providential. Even a secondary or typological fulfillment of such passages would have significant evidential force.<br />
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Third, and last, I want to recommend doing something to prepare for discussions about prophecy. It's good to single out one verse, theme, or whatever else in the prophetic passage under consideration, something that can be brought up as an example of the likelihood that the passage is referring primarily to the entity Christians think fulfilled the passage (e.g., Jesus). You can cite the significance of the accomplishments mentioned in Daniel 9:24, the geographical and chronological scope of the significance of the events of Psalm 22 as referred to in verses 27-31 of that psalm, or the Divine terminology applied to the Servant figure in Isaiah 52:13. These passages seem to have a greater rather than a lesser type of figure in view, one you could call an eschatological messiah (in contrast to some lesser type of messiah, like David or Cyrus). Citing material like what I've cited from Daniel 9, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 52 above is a good way of responding to the objection that Christians are taking the passages out of context. It's even better to have more than one verse, theme, or whatever that you can cite from these passages in order to make the point, but at least choose one. And even if you're going to discuss more than one, it's often helpful to focus on one as a starting point. As the paragraph above this one explains, you don't have to begin with an argument that a passage is Messianic in its original context, that it only refers to Jesus, or some such thing. But it's good to be prepared to address that subject and to eventually get to it.<br />
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We've written a lot over the years about prophecy fulfillment, and you can find a lot of relevant material in <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/03/evidence-of-biblical-prophecy.html">those posts</a>. For example, the page just cited links many of Steve Hays' posts on the prophecies of Daniel. In the paragraph before this one, I mentioned the fourth Servant Song in Isaiah. <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/03/jesus-fulfillment-of-other-servant-songs.html">Here's</a> a post I wrote on the Servant Songs. And <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-king-in-isaiah-9-is-god.html">here's</a> one on Isaiah 9. In <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-king-in-isaiah-9-isnt-hezekiah.html">another post</a>, I discussed some of the reasons for rejecting the notion that the passage is about Hezekiah. <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2021/12/jesus-fulfillment-of-micah-4-5.html">Here's</a> an article I wrote that goes into some depth about chapters 4-5 in Micah. And you can find more in our archives.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-45526122884868572452024-03-03T06:36:00.002-05:002024-03-03T06:55:29.358-05:00Easter Resources 2024A few years ago, I wrote <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/03/which-resurrection-evidence-to-focus-on.html">a short post about which evidence for Jesus' resurrection we should focus on the most</a>. And Steve Hays wrote <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/04/making-case-for-resurrection.html">a lengthier article suggesting how to make a case for the resurrection</a>.<br />
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Here are some examples of the Easter issues we've addressed over the years:<br /><a name='more'></a>
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<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-witnesses-willingness-to-suffer-for.html">The Witnesses' Willingness To Suffer For Belief In Jesus' Resurrection</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/06/did-resurrection-accounts-develop-in.html">Did the resurrection accounts develop in a suspicious way?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2021/03/hearing-and-touching-resurrected-jesus.html">Evidence That The Risen Jesus Was Heard And Touched, Not Just Seen, Including In 1 Corinthians 15</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-gospels-and-acts-polymodal.html">The Gospels And Acts' Polymodal Resurrection Accounts Corroborated In The New Testament Letters</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-cumulative-case-for-resurrection.html">The Evidence For The Resurrection Account In Matthew 28:9-10</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/07/does-galatians-116-suggest-that-pauls.html">Paul's Inner Experience In Galatians 1:16</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/02/did-resurrection-witnesses-have.html">Did the resurrection witnesses have an opportunity to recant?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/11/naturalistic-delusions.html">Problems With A Hallucination Hypothesis</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-resurrection-and-grief.html">Were the resurrection appearances grief hallucinations?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/06/did-paul-experience-guilt-hallucination.html">Did Paul experience a guilt hallucination on the road to Damascus?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-damascus-road-experience.html">Evidence That Saul Of Tarsus Saw Jesus Risen From The Dead</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-resurrected-jesus-appeared-to-at.html">The Resurrected Jesus Appeared To At Least Five Non-Christians, Probably More</a><br />
<a href="https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/02/miracles-on-video-some-examples.html">Miracles On Video</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/04/weighing-shrouds-1988-carbon-dating.html">Evidence For The Shroud Of Turin</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/03/bias-is-just-one-factor-among-others.html">How much can we trust ancient Christian sources in light of their biases?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/03/early-non-extant-documents-on.html">Early, Non-Extant Documents On The Resurrection</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/more-reason-to-date-synoptics-and-acts.html">How Early The Synoptics And Acts Were Written</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-evidence-for-matthews-authorship.html">The Authorship Of Matthew</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-markan-authorship-wouldnt-be.html">The Authorship Of Mark</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/01/craig-keener-on-luke-and-acts.html">The Authorship Of Luke And Acts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/06/richard-bauckham-is-wrong-about-johns.html">The Authorship Of John</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/07/hostile-corroboration-of-new-testament.html">The Authorship Of The Pauline Letters</a> (see the comments section)<br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/01/craig-keener-on-luke-and-acts.html">The Historicity Of Acts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-gospels-corroborated-in-letters-of.html">Easter Material Corroborated In The Letters Of Peter</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/03/resurrection-evidence-outside-new.html">Resurrection Evidence Outside The New Testament</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/02/how-and-why-non-christians-corroborated.html">Evidence For The Empty Tomb</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/03/more-evidence-of-non-christian.html">Early Affirmation Of The Empty Tomb From Gentile Non-Christians</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/03/jesus-burial-and-empty-tomb-outside.html">Jesus' Burial And Empty Tomb Outside The Gospels And Acts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/fifty-agreements-among-resurrection.html">Fifty Agreements Among The Resurrection Accounts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/how-1-corinthians-15-dovetails-with.html">The Consistencies Among The Resurrection Accounts In 1 Corinthians 15, The Gospels, And Acts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/04/do-resurrection-accounts-fabricate.html">The Restrained Nature Of The Resurrection Accounts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/05/where-are-female-witnesses-in-acts.html">The Contrast Between The Prominence Of Female Witnesses In Luke And Their Lack Of Prominence In Acts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/09/does-vague-appeal-to-visions-overcome.html">Alleged Errors And Contradictions In The Resurrection Accounts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/03/harmonizing-resurrection-accounts.html">Harmonizing The Resurrection Accounts</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/11/non-physical-body-in-1-corinthians-1544.html">The Spiritual Body Of 1 Corinthians 15</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/03/gods-wisdom-in-choosing-resurrection.html">Why didn't the risen Jesus appear to more and different people?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/01/why-jesus-wouldnt-appear-to-every.html">Why doesn't Jesus appear to everybody?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2021/02/demonic-deception.html">How do we know Jesus' resurrection wasn't a demonic miracle?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/02/naturalized-miracles.html">What if alleged miracles, like Jesus' resurrection, were caused by a currently unknown natural process?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/why-prefer-jesus-to-gods-emperors-and.html">Why prefer Jesus to gods, emperors, and other ancient figures associated with miracles?</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/01/bad-argument-against-resurrection-thats.html">Matthew 27:52-53</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-of-apostles.html">How The Apostles Died</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/09/reviews-of-debates-on-jesus-resurrection.html">Reviews Of Debates On Jesus' Resurrection</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/04/easter-prophecy-fulfillment.html">Easter Prophecy Fulfillment</a><br />
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Go <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/search/label/Easter">here</a> for an archive of our posts with the Easter label. You can search for posts with other labels by replacing the word Easter in the URL with another phrase (Cross, Empty Tomb, etc.). Keep clicking on Older Posts at the bottom of the screen to see more.<br />
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We've written some e-books that have material relevant to Easter. See the e-books section of the sidebar on the right side of the screen.<br />
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My <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/08/skeptical-myths-about-church-fathers.html">articles on skeptical myths about the church fathers</a> also have some material relevant to Easter.<br />
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Here are the Easter Resources posts from previous years:<br />
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<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/resources-for-easter.html">2009</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/03/easter-issues.html">2010</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/03/easter-apologetics.html">2011</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/apologetic-resources-on-easter-issues.html">2012</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/03/easter-apologetic-resources.html">2013</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/03/easter-resources.html">2014</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/03/easter-resources-2015.html">2015</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/03/easter-resources-2016.html">2016</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/easter-resources-2017.html">2017</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/03/easter-resources-2018.html">2018</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/03/easter-resources-2019.html">2019</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/03/easter-resources-2020.html">2020</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2021/03/easter-resources-2021.html">2021</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2022/03/easter-resources-2022.html">2022</a><br />
<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/easter-resources-2023.html">2023</a><br />
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After the 2023 post above, I wrote about <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/how-romes-soldiers-served-christ.html">how the Roman empire unwittingly served Christ by fulfilling so many prophecies</a>. My next post addressed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-difficulty-of-fulfilling.html">some problems with the idea that Jesus fulfilled prophecies like Daniel's Seventy Weeks prediction and the Servant Songs in Isaiah by natural means</a>. I also wrote a post on <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-level-of-detail-in-1-corinthians-156.html">the significance of the details found in 1 Corinthians 15:6</a>. My next post discussed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/you-can-emphasize-resurrection-without.html">the importance of not isolating the resurrection in apologetics</a>. I then addressed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/is-jesus-resurrection-appearance-being.html">the claim that Matthew 28:17 is referring to doubt about Jesus' resurrection or the resurrection appearance referred to in that context</a>. Another post addressed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/james-influence-on-lukes-resurrection.html">some implications of Luke's use of James the brother of Jesus as a source</a>. And <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-credibility-of-johns-gospel-as.html">here's</a> one about the credibility of John's gospel as a resurrection witness, which is often underestimated. Then I discussed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-gospels-and-acts-polymodal.html">corroboration offered by the New Testament letters for the polymodal nature of the resurrection witnesses' experiences with the risen Jesus</a>, as reported in the gospels and Acts. I quoted some comments from John Chrysostom about <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-audience-of-heaven.html">suffering related to the context of Easter</a>. In another post, I addressed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/life-after-our-resurrection.html">the importance of giving more attention to what our lives will be like after our resurrection</a>. And <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/04/why-prefer-jesus-to-gods-emperors-and.html">here's</a> something about objections based on alleged parallels between Jesus and other ancient figures who were associated with miracles. I posted <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-release-date-and-other-information.html">an update on Gary Habermas' multi-volume series on Jesus' resurrection</a>. <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-significance-of-nakedness-and.html">Here's</a> an article on some neglected details in Jesus' fulfillment of Psalm 22. In <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-credibility-of-jesus-relatives-as.html">another post</a>, I summarized the evidence for the credibility of Jesus' relatives as witnesses (e.g., James and Jude as witnesses of the resurrection). I also linked a series of videos by Lydia McGrew about <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/10/how-much-does-acts-support-apostles.html">how much Acts supports the apostles' willingness to suffer for their resurrection testimony</a>. And I addressed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-connections-between-christmas-and.html">the connections between Christmas and Easter in the context of prophecy</a>. Another post discussed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2024/02/pauls-suffering-and-prophecy-fulfillment.html">some implications 2 Corinthians 11 has for Jesus' fulfillment of prophecy in the events surrounding his death</a>.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-82725501586720186322024-02-29T04:47:00.010-05:002024-02-29T05:08:43.406-05:00Skeptics Being Evasive About Recent MiraclesCritics of the supernatural often object to paranormal claims that occurred in the more distant past, since there's no ability to question the witnesses, consult the larger number of records that tend to be available with more recent events, etc. But they often provide poor responses to the evidence we do have for those more distant events, which raises questions like how much these skeptics actually need the larger amount of evidence they're asking for and how sincere their objections are.<br />
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Another way of addressing the line of objections I'm focused on here is to look at how these skeptics handle more recent miracle claims. How much interest do they show in asking the witnesses the relevant questions and examining the evidence involved in other ways?<a name='more'></a><br />
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A few weeks ago, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0Q0bP-4ug">YouTube video about the Enfield Poltergeist</a> came out. It included some comments from Melvyn Willin, an archivist for the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) who's published a book on Enfield and knows a lot about the case, and Deborah Hyde, a skeptic of the paranormal who's been criticizing Enfield for more than a decade now. There have been many developments since her initial comments on Enfield, like the making public of Anita Gregory's doctoral thesis that addresses Enfield, the digitizing of the Enfield tapes and the articles I've written about them, the release of Melvyn's book, and <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-review-of-new-enfield-documentary.html">the four-hour documentary on Enfield that aired on Apple TV+ last year</a>. How have Deborah's thinking about the case and her arguments against it interacted with those developments?<br />
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Not enough, from what I can tell. Several years ago, I wrote <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-enfield-poltergeist-deborah-hydes.html">an article documenting a lot of problems with her comments on Enfield</a> during her earliest years of addressing the subject. Since then, she's repeated her earlier errors in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6rOBwTa4UQ">a presentation on poltergeists</a>. And in the YouTube video that just came out, she once again repeats her earlier sentiments, including some highly inaccurate claims that are easily proven false.<br />
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In 2012, she appeared on a television program with Janet Hodgson (one of the foremost witnesses in the case, often thought to be the center of the poltergeist) and Guy Playfair (one of the primary investigators of the case), which you can watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqf7azyYxtQ">here</a>. It didn't go well for Deborah. You can read about it in my initial article responding to her, linked above.<br />
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Since writing that article, I've listened to Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair's tapes, which provided further information relevant to Deborah's claims. She hasn't made much of an effort to provide an alternative explanation for the Enfield events that most need to be explained, but one of the rare exceptions is her hypothesis that Janet was experiencing sleep paralysis during the December 3, 1977 incident in which the poltergeist was reported to have dragged her out of her bed and partway down the steps. The event was caught on tape, and you can read my analysis of that tape <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/07/dragged-out-of-bed-by-poltergeist.html">here</a>. Deborah's sleep paralysis hypothesis was absurd without taking the audio evidence into account, and it's even more absurd in light of what's on the tape. A portion of that tape, less than half of the relevant section, is now available on YouTube, and you can listen to it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QM3eOQcOrE&t=4m52s">here</a> (from 4:52 to 6:40 in the video). It has much lower audio quality than the digitized version of the tape that I have, but it's better than not having the audio at all. I wrote about that YouTube clip and made some further comments about the December 3 episode <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2021/01/listen-to-poltergeist-dragging-somebody.html">here</a>.<br />
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In the recent YouTube video Deborah appeared in, she repeats her false claim that Peggy Hodgson didn't allow any skeptical investigators into the house. You can read about where Deborah seems to have gotten that idea and how wrong she is about it in my initial article responding to her. She claims that the people allowed into the house were not only not skeptical, but even "predisposed to believe" and "a bit more gullible". Anita Gregory, the foremost skeptic of the case, visited the house seven times, including when she was known to be a skeptic. Milbourne Christopher, another skeptic, not only visited the house, but was even brought there with Guy Playfair's approval and assistance, in an attempt to see if a professional magician (Milbourne) could catch the Hodgson children playing tricks. Many other skeptics visited the house as well, and a lot of the non-investigators who went there were initially skeptical. <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-enfield-skeptics-actually.html">Here's</a> an article I wrote about what skeptics experienced at the Hodgsons' house. And some of the people who visited were agnostic, another category that shouldn't be described as consisting only of people who were "predisposed to believe" and "a bit more gullible". It's not even appropriate to describe believers in general that way. If you read the SPR's committee report on Enfield or the summary of it in Melvyn Willin's The Enfield Poltergeist Tapes (United States: White Crow Books, 2019), you'll see that a large number and diversity of researchers and other individuals visited the house. There's no justification for Deborah's characterization of the people who went there.<br />
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She objects that no "rigorous data collection" could be done in the house under the circumstances involved. In 2018, I had some discussions with David Robertson, one of the investigators of the case, about some scientific testing he did on Janet both inside the house and outside it. You can read some of his comments to me <a href="https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/05/david-robertson-on-enfield-poltergeist.html">here</a>. As he explains, he not only got instrumental evidence of paranormal metal bending, but also saw the metal bending with his own eyes. Watch a brief video clip <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rDzKIZGUL0&t=18m28s">here</a> in which he discusses that experiment. It was also discussed in the Apple TV+ documentary last year. He and a few colleagues also ran a scientific experiment on Janet at Birkbeck College in 1982, which also produced paranormal results. In 2010, Barrie Colvin published an article documenting that the acoustic properties of the knocking phenomena in some paranormal cases, including Enfield, differed from the acoustic properties of normal knocking. You can read his article <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151117015312/https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/ghosts-healing/files/unexplainedrappingsounds.pdf">here</a>. I can't count the number of times Maurice and Guy's tapes record incidents involving informal controls of a highly evidential nature. For example, see my article <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/dreams-and-trances-at-enfield.html">here</a> on the paranormal dreams and trances the Hodgson children experienced. Do a Ctrl F search there for "one doctor" to read about a doctor's visit to the house on November 26, 1977. It's on tape. You hear Janet carrying on in one of her trance states for hours on end, something that would be hard to fake and unlikely to be something she'd want to fake. The doctor arrives. He examines Janet's eyes and reports that her "pupils were dilated and not reacting to light". She's given an injection of Valium. You gradually hear her screaming, groaning, and such getting weaker and weaker, as the Valium takes effect. You hear the doctor explaining what effect the Valium should have. Again, it's all on tape. About forty-five minutes after the injection, when it's highly probable that Janet was in no condition to fake what happened next, there was a loud crash, and she was found on top of a dresser across the room. Graham Morris, who was at the house when it happened, has said that you couldn't hear any of the sort of creaking of the bed or the floorboards that should have been heard if Janet had faked the incident. The event didn't happen in the context of a scientific experiment, but it did happen in a highly controlled setting in which fraud seems very unlikely. And there's example after example after example of that kind of thing on the tapes and in other contexts. What about the <i>many</i> events that happened when none of the children were around, sometimes when the entire family was miles away? See the examples discussed <a href="https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/10/enfield-events-with-none-of-children.html">here</a>. Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ24igrFzW8&t=57m53s">this portion of a documentary</a> discussing some incidents John Burcombe experienced at the house while the Hodgsons were gone. The researchers taped a triple-digit number of hours of audio recordings, they brought in multiple professional camera operators to capture hundreds of photographs and get some video footage, they brought in multiple other types of machinery to get multiple other types of instrumental evidence, they got dozens of signed witness statements, they brought in a broad range of paranormal researchers and professionals with relevant expertise, they arranged to have the Hodgson girls psychologically and medically examined by multiple experts in the relevant fields, they tried a wide range of psychological approaches with the family (giving them incentives to stop faking the case if they were faking it, sending them away on a vacation, recording them without their knowledge on some occasions, hypnotizing Janet, pretending that recording equipment wasn't working when it actually was, etc.), they spent a large amount of time in the house for years (go <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ24igrFzW8&t=30m22s">here</a> to see Mary Rose Barrington of the SPR referring to the amount of time they spent at the house as "extraordinary"), and so on. You can always find fault to some degree and always ask for more, and some aspects of the case were mishandled to a significant extent, but there's far more substance to the case than people like Deborah let on. Complaining that there isn't more evidence can never be a substitute for addressing the evidence you already have. She claims that the evidence was collected under "very, very unrigorous circumstances", but she doesn't interact much with the evidence for rigor, like what I've cited above, and she ignores most of the results that rigor produced.<br />
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Her comments on the poltergeist voice are highly misleading. Like other skeptics, she doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the most significant evidence, much less offer a skeptical explanation for it. See <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-voice-and-personality-of-enfield.html">here</a> for a lengthy discussion of the evidence pertaining to the voice.<br />
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A recurring factor across so many of these contexts is the value of the Enfield tapes. We have a triple-digit number of hours of recordings because Maurice and Guy <i>did</i> apply so much rigor to the investigation, and the tapes provide evidence against Deborah's claims about matters like the incident in which Janet was dragged out of bed and the poltergeist voice. In their 2012 appearance together on a television program, which I referred to above, Guy reminded Deborah about the significance of the tapes: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqf7azyYxtQ&t=11m8s">"My tape recorder was on practically all the time, and you can't accuse tape recorders of having false memory. Or are you suggesting all the tapes have been faked?"</a> Deborah couldn't come up with a good response, so she went with a bad one instead. She made an apparent allusion to the incident when the girls hid one of the investigator's tape recorders and said the poltergeist had taken it. They were joking. What's the logical connection between that one incident and the large amount of audio Maurice and Guy recorded, including tapes made when none of the children were around, when there were other people in the room with the children, etc.? The moving of a tape recorder one time, in order to play a joke on one of the investigators, doesn't explain where the triple-digit number of hours of audio recordings came from. Did the children (or some other individual or group) fake all of the content on the tapes? That would be a remarkably absurd hypothesis, one with a really big number and variety of problems, but I doubt that Deborah had given much thought to what she was saying. The tapes are a major problem for skeptics' usual appeals to the unreliability of memory, legendary embellishment over time, etc. And the tapes have been backed up in digital format now, so they'll be around for many years to come.<br />
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I want to add, though, that after years of discussions with the Enfield witnesses and hearing from them in other contexts and comparing their comments to the tapes and other records, I've found the witnesses' memories to be mostly accurate. They do sometimes get things wrong, especially lesser details, but they're reliable for the most part. And since there are multiple witnesses in so many of the contexts involved, one witness' memories can be checked against another's. Often, if one witness forgets or misremembers what happened in context X, what the other witnesses forget or misremember will be in some context other than X. So, if three out of four witnesses remember X a particular way, the faulty memory of the fourth witness can be corrected. You can reconstruct much of what happened to a significant degree of probability by taking all of the witnesses' comments and the other evidence into account.<br />
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Near the end of the recent video I'm responding to in this post, Deborah says that she thinks there's a skeptical explanation for the case that's better than any paranormal alternative. But she hasn't even attempted to explain the vast majority of what needs explained. For the most part, she hasn't even offered an explanation for Enfield, and what little explanation she has offered has been demonstrably poor.<br />
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If you scroll the screen down and read the comments below the video, you see the typical uninformed and misinformed remarks from skeptics who apparently didn't make much of an effort to research the case they were commenting on. As usual, there are references to how obvious it supposedly is that the photographs of Janet levitating are just photos of her jumping from her bed. Of course, the choice of the term "levitation", how skeptics define it, and which photos the video shows them are all choices outside the control of the people who took the photos, the case's investigators, and others closely associated with the events under consideration. If the skeptics who dismiss the photos because Janet's hair can be seen in motion and her muscles appear tensed had done more research, they'd know that the type of levitation in question involves throwing, so that moving hair and tensed muscles are expected and don't offer any evidence against paranormality. When a person is thrown across a room, you expect hair to move and the possibility of tensed muscles. These skeptics are misdefining the type of levitation involved, because they haven't taken even the most basic steps to research what they're talking about. The examination of that sort of photograph has to include an examination of the context surrounding the photo. I doubt that the skeptics posting in that thread know much about the contexts involved. How much familiarity do they have with the testimony of the witnesses who reported seeing some of the levitations? How much do these skeptics know about the presence of people other than the children in the room when some of the photographed levitations occurred? Are they aware of the lack of control the children had over when photos would be taken? How easily their walking on the beds or the floor (which they would do in a scenario involving faking) could be heard elsewhere in the house? How the paranormal throwing involved more force and more resulting noise than normal jumping, which means that there was more than visual evidence to go by? Have these skeptics looked at the other relevant photos, especially the more evidential ones not included in the video they're responding to? See my article <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-enfield-levitations.html">here</a> for an overview of the Enfield levitations and the photographs of them. Since the time I wrote that article, Apple TV+ aired a documentary on the case that has a segment showing a highly significant series of photos taken by Graham Morris (beginning at 30:12 in episode 2 <a href="https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-enfield-poltergeist/umc.cmc.33t5cskiqmmft1hxp23w9gnbw?ctx_brand=tvs.sbd.4000">here</a>). In the segment, Graham explains that there's only one-sixth of a second between a photo showing Janet lying in bed and the next photo, showing her upright in the air. That doesn't seem possible by normal means. And it lines up well with the testimony of the eyewitnesses who saw some of these levitations occur. John Burcombe referred to how Janet was thrown out of her bed "like a rocket". And the positioning of her bed covers in the photo sequence in question is also evidential and lines up well with what the eyewitnesses reported and what we see in other photos. For further details, go <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-review-of-new-enfield-documentary.html">here</a> and do a Ctrl F search for "30:12". This is the kind of evidence that needs to be interacted with. The skeptics in the YouTube thread under consideration and every skeptic I've encountered elsewhere has failed to address more than a small percentage of what they need to address.<br />
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It's not as though Enfield had never been brought up before or skeptics have had only a small amount of time to examine the case or formulate a response to it. They've had almost half a century now. People like Deborah Hyde have been discussing it for a double-digit number of years. Should they still be getting so many facts wrong and still not even be attempting an explanation of the large majority of the case? As I've documented in other posts, the skeptics of Enfield have been behaving in that manner from the start of the case down to this day.<br />
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Eventually, the witnesses will all be dead, and the amount of evidence available will diminish over time. When that happens, and skeptics object to those circumstances, remember how they behaved earlier, when the circumstances were better.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-66141162580222639262024-02-27T04:26:00.006-05:002024-02-27T04:26:52.323-05:00Responses To Objections To The Name Statistics ArgumentI've occasionally discussed <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2023/12/an-update-to-argument-from-names-in.html">a line of argument for the gospels and Acts based on the names of individuals in those documents</a>. Lydia McGrew recently completed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0ZprwXsMkuV5CqMEDy9s2u">a good YouTube series responding to some objections to the argument</a>.Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-50917013177522853282024-02-25T06:50:00.003-05:002024-02-25T06:50:29.305-05:00Optional Belief In Mary's Assumption"Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254) counted the Assumption an opinion that could be held or not held, for the Church had not yet decided." (Eamon Carroll, in Juniper Carol, ed., Mariology, Vol. 1 [Post Falls, Idaho: Mediatrix Press, 2018], approximate Kindle location 710)Jason Engwerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com1