Category: Religion and Atheism

Distinct from Biblical Studies. Includes studies in origins and nature of religious ideas; posts on religions in history and contemporary world (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism.) Should this include post-biblical Christianity and rabbinical Judaism of late antiquity, the direct outgrowths of Second Temple era? Also includes various types of Christianity (e.g. fundamentalism) and debates with atheists. Posts on atheism and atheist world views per se are also included, of course. It does not include Islamism as the matrix of terrorism — that goes into Politics and Society. But here we get into a grey area. Compare social attitudes towards and criticisms of Islam related to Islamism and terrorism.

2009-05-12

Why oppose godless (human) morality?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ethics & Human Nature, Religion and Atheism
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This post relates to an earlier one on Keller here.

There is plenty wrong with human nature but there is also plenty of good. I have been lucky enough to have travelled a little bit to places where different religions are practiced and where the majority of people appear to profess no religion, and one thing stands out in my experience: the extent to which people are friendly, kind, gentle, bears no obvious correlation with religion or lack of it.

Timothy Keller (The Reason for God) admits that all people have morals.

Conservative writers and speakers are constantly complaining that the young people of our culture are relativistic and amoral. As a pastor in Manhattan I have been neck deep in sophisticated twentysomethings for almost two decades, and I have not found this to be the case. The secular, young adults I have known have a very finely hones sense of right and wrong. There are many things happening in the world that evoke their moral outrage. (pp.143-44)

People still have strong moral convictions . . . . (p.145)

[W]e all have a pervasive, powerful, and unavoidable belief not only in moral values but also in moral obligation. . . . All human beings have moral feelings. We call it a conscience. When considering doing something that we feel would be wrong, we tend to refrain. (p.146)

From the above I would have concluded that our moral sense is something inborn, part of our nature, just like language.

And there are anthropological studies that have concluded exactly that. Acts such as rape, murder, pushing in to get to the front of a queue, are no-no’s the world over. Donald Brown’s compilation of human universals confirms Keller’s observations. Continue reading “Why oppose godless (human) morality?”

2009-05-11

Tim Keller — almost immediately, but a mere hundred years later, everyone knew the 4 gospels were true

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by Neil Godfrey

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The canonical gospels were written at the very most forty to sixty years after Jesus’s death. (p.101 of The Age of Reason)

The four canonical gospels were written much earlier than the so-called Gnostic gospels. The Gospel of Thomas, the best known of the Gnostic documents, is a translation from the Syriac, and scholars have shown that the Syriac traditions in Thomas can be dated to 175 A.D. (sic) at the earliest . . . . (pp.102-103)

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, however, were recognized as authoritative eyewitness accounts almost immediately, and so we have Irenaeus of Lyons in 160 A.D. (sic) declaring that there were four, and only four, gospels. (p.103)

It appears that the very first evidence Keller can find of anyone accepting the canonical gospels as “authoritative eyewitness accounts” was at the very least 90 years after the first gospel was supposedly penned.

Actually Keller’s 160 date for the composition by Irenaeus against heresies is generous in the extreme. We cannot be absolutely sure if Irenaeus was born earlier than 142 c.e., and it was from 161 to 180 that an imperial persecution against Christians was waged. (See Wikipedia Irenaeus.) It was from 180 c.e. that Irenaeus most likely had the time and circumstances to write his many volumes, and 180 c.e. is the date for his writings I usually see referenced.

Justin Martyr around 140 c.e. appears to quote some gospel passages, but he also appears to quote passages from non-canonical gospels, too. So he can hardly have regarded the canonical four as “authoritative” to the exclusion of others.

Ignatius and Polycarp are also highly debatable re how much of their works were late addition or compilations. Keller has no clear evidence of the belief in the canonical gospels as the authoritative “eyewitness accounts” apart from a late second century bishop and apologist for the church headquartered at Rome.

This, in The Age of Reason, is sufficient evidence for him to proclaim:

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, however, were recognized as authoritative eyewitness accounts almost immediately, and so we have Irenaeus of Lyons in 160 A.D. (sic) declaring that there were four, and only four, gospels. (p.103)

2009-05-10

Timothy Keller: “The literary form of the gospels is too detailed to be legend.”

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament, Religion and Atheism
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This post relates to an earlier one on Keller here.

Timothy Keller in The Reason for God makes an astonishing claim meant to reinforce the argument that the gospels could not possibly be fictional:

The literary form of the gospels is too detailed to be legend.

Modern fiction . . . contains details and dialogue and reads like an eyewitness account. . . . In ancient times, romances, epics, or legends were high and remote — details were spare and only included if they promoted character development or drove the plot. . . . In modern novels, details are added to create the aura of realism, but that was never the case in ancient fiction.

The gospel accounts are not fiction. In Mark 4, we are told that Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern of a boat. In John 21 we are toldthat Peter was a hundred yards out in the water when he saw Jesus on the beach. He then jumped out of the boat and together they caught 153 fish. . . . None of these details are relevant to the plot or character  development at all. If you or I were making up an exciting story about Jesus, we would include such remakrs just to fill out the story’s air of realism. But that kind of fictional writing was unknown in the first century. The only explanation for why an ancient writer would mention the cushion, the 153 fish . . . . is because the details had been retained in the eyewitnesses’ memory. (pp. 106-107 — underlining is my emphasis)

Timothy Keller has clearly never read any (or certainly very very little) ancient fiction from the Greco-Roman period spanning the time of the gospels.

Unfortunately my own collection of ancient Greek novels (spanning b.c.e. to c.e.) is back in Australia, but there is still enough translated content online to give anyone interested the ability to assess Keller’s assertion that the gospels, because they include realistic details that do not advance the plot, are unlike any ancient fiction and therefore can only be understood as records of eyewitness testimony.

More than a match for Mark’s “cushion in the boat” detail

If one wants an ancient fictional counterpart to the detail in Mark of Jesus sleeping on a cushion, how about this description concerning a famous Greek hero who went to sleep on a boat:

As he spoke he crossed the threshold, and Alkinoos sent a man to conduct him to his ship and to the sea shore. Arete also sent some maid servants with him – one with a clean shirt and cloak, another to carry his strong-box, and a third with grain and wine. When they got to the water side the crew took these things and put them on board, with all the meat and drink; but for Odysseus they spread a rug and a linen sheet on deck that he might sleep soundly in the stern of the ship. . . .Thereon, when they began rowing out to sea, Odysseus fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike slumber. (Homer’s Odyssey, 13.63)

“In modern novels, details are added to create the aura of realism, but that was never the case in ancient fiction”? I submit that a spread out rug and linen sheet in the stern of a ship beats a mere cushion for realistic detail in any age.

The identities and the voyages of the Argonauts

From the ancient romance of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the golden fleece, by Apollonius

Book 1 of this novel (the Argonautica) begins with a list of not just 12 names who will follow the hero, Jason, but with 50 – and each of the 50 names is described with some unique detail that in most cases will have nothing whatever to do with advancing the plot. Apollonius is a master of infusing his narrative with “realistic details”. One example of his love for detail that serves no purpose other than to encourage the audience to sit back and picture the events unfolding “realistically” in their minds’ eye:

And straightway the misty land of the Pelasgians, rich in cornfields, sank out of sight, and ever speeding onward they passed the rugged sides of Pelion; and the Sepian headland sank away, and Sciathus appeared in the sea, and far off appeared Piresiae and the calm shore of Magnesia on the mainland and the tomb of Dolops; here then in the evening, as the wind blew against them, they put to land, and paying honour to him at nightfall burnt sheep as victims, while the sea was tossed by the swell: and for two days they lingered on the shore, but on the third day they put forth the ship, spreading on high the broad sail. And even now men call that beach Aphetae of Argo.

On meeting a companion

Some web filters would block much detail from Petronius’s Satyricon, but enough can be salvaged to publicly belie Keller’s fatuous claim:

After running about almost over the city, I caught sight of Giton, as it were a fog, standing at the corner of an alley close to the door of our inn, and hurried to join him. I asked my favorite whether he had got anything ready for our dinner, whereupon the lad sat down on the bed and began wiping away the tears with his thumb. Much disturbed at my favorite’s distress, I demanded what had happened. For a long time I could not drag a word out of him, not indeed till I had added threats to prayers. Then he reluctantly told me. . . .

He didn’t just see Giton, he saw him “at the corner of an alley” and “close to the door” and not just any door, but the one “of our inn”. And the two didn’t just begin to speak — that is all the plot would have required, and the character development — but he spoke while he “sat down on the bed”, etc etc etc. . . .

Can this ancient account, so rich in detail that was never the case in ancient fiction (Keller!), really have no explanation other than being derived from eyewitness testimony?

On getting off his horse

Another any reader can consult online is The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius. (The translation is 16th century but I have updated the spelling.)

As I fortuned to take my voyage into Thessaly, about certain affairs which I had to do (for there my ancestry by my mothers side inhabits, descended of the line of that most excellent person Plutarch, and of Sextus the Philosopher his Nephew, which is to us a great honour) and after that by much travel and great pain I had passed over the high mountains and slippery valleys, and had ridden through the cloggy fallowed fields; perceiving that my horse did wax somewhat slow, and to the intent likewise that I might repose and strengthen my self (being weary with riding) I lighted off my horse, and wiping the sweat from every part of his body, I unbridled him, and walked him softly in my hand, to the end he might piss, and ease himself of his weariness and travel: and while he went grazing freshly in the field (casting his head sometimes aside, as a token of rejoycing and gladness) I perceived a little before me two companions riding, and so I overtaking them made a third. . . .

Riding through slippery valleys, cloggy fallowed fields, wiping the sweat from the horse’s body, letting his horse have a piss, seeing its head shake from side to side. . . .

And Thomas Keller claims in a best selling religious tract that the ancients did not use realistic detail to portray fiction!

The story of Atlantis by Plato

This, by Keller’s lights, is the truest of all, since it not only recreates an ancient civilization in amazing detail, but is introduced with many assertions that it really is indeed a true story. And the richness of the detail in how the story came to be known by Critias has convinced many even today that the tale really does have a verifiable lineage. It doesn’t, of course. Plato in the same and other books regularly makes up myths to teach his philosophy.

In Timaeus it is declared of Atlantis:

Listen then, Socrates, to a tale which, though passing strange, is yet wholly true, as Solon, the wisest of the Seven, once upon a time declared.

The details are saved for a subsequent volume: Critias 114ff

. . . but it was the eldest, who, as king, always passed on the scepter to the eldest of his sons, and thus they preserved the sovereignty for many generations; and the wealth they possessed was so immense that the like had never been seen before in any royal house nor will ever easily be seen again; and they were provided with everything of which provision was needed either in the city or throughout the rest of the country. For because of their headship they had a large supply of imports from abroad, and the island itself furnished most of the requirements of daily life,—metals, to begin with, both the hard kind and the fusible kind, which are extracted by mining, and also that kind which is now known only by name but was more than a name then, there being mines of it in many places of the island,—I mean “orichalcum,” which was the most precious of the metals then known, except gold. It brought forth also in abundance all the timbers that a forest provides for the labors of carpenters; and of animals it produced a sufficiency, both of tame and wild. Moreover, it contained a very large stock of elephants; for there was an ample food-supply not only for all the other animals which haunt the marshes and lakes and rivers, or the mountains or the plains, but likewise also for this animal, which of its nature is the largest and most voracious. And in addition to all this, it produced and brought to perfection all those sweet-scented stuffs which the earth produces now, whether made of roots or herbs or trees, or of liquid gums derived from flowers or fruits. The cultivated fruit also, and the dry, which serves us for nutriment, and all the other kinds that we use for our meals—the various species of which are comprehended under the name “vegetables”— and all the produce of trees which affords liquid and solid food and unguents, and the fruit of the orchard-trees, so hard to store, which is grown for the sake of amusement and pleasure, and all the after-dinner fruits that we serve up as welcome remedies for the sufferer from repletion,—all these that hallowed island, as it lay then beneath the sun, produced in marvellous beauty and endless abundance. And thus, receiving from the earth all these products, they furnished forth their temples and royal dwellings, their harbors and their docks, and all the rest of their country, ordering all in the fashion following.

First of all they bridged over the circles of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, making thereby a road towards and from the royal palace. And they had built the palace at the very beginning where the settlement was first made by their God and their ancestors; and as each king received it from his predecessor, he added to its adornment and did all he could to surpass the king before him, until finally they made of it an abode amazing to behold for the magnitude and beauty of its workmanship. For, beginning at the sea, they bored a channel right through to the outermost circle, which was three plethra in breadth, one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stades in length; and thus they made the entrance to it from the sea like that to a harbor by opening out a mouth large enough for the greatest ships to sail through. Moreover, through the circles of land, which divided those of sea, over against the bridges they opened out a channel leading from circle to circle, large enough to give passage to a single trireme; and this they roofed over above so that the sea-way was subterranean; for the lips of the landcircles were raised a sufficient height above the level of the sea. The greatest of the circles into which a boring was made for the sea was three stades in breadth, and the circle of land next to it was of equal breadth; and of the second pair of circles that of water was two stades in breadth and that of dry land equal again to the preceding one of water; and the circle which ran round the central island itself was of a stade’s breadth.

One can read the rest — the detail becoming ever more baroque — at http://tinyurl.com/ogzgg6

Given the suffeit of detail in the Atlantis account, by Timothy Keller’s claims we have far more reasons to believe Atlantis was a fact than anything in the gospels.

Letters as fiction with many touches of realism

Another form of ancient fiction was letter writing, including the creation of collections of letters to form a kind of novel. I have made my notes on Rosenmeyer’s discussion of this ancient fiction available at Ancient Epistolary Fictions on this blog.

In this work Patricia Rosenmeyer discusses in detail how budding authors were taught the art of creating realism in their fictional works by the inclusion of incidental and personal details.

The Gospel of John with novelistic features

Keller cites the 153 fish detail in the Gospel of John as reason to believe this gospel is not fiction. Scholar Jo-Ann Brant would disagree. She has written a study demonstrating the novelistic motifs throughout this Gospel.

Again I have notes from her work on this blog: Novelistic plot and motifs in the Gospel of John.

A woman weeping at a tomb

For the sake of a little irony it is appropriate to round this post off with another passage from Petronius’s Satyricon (ch.13). Here is a narrative incorporating little details that don’t seem to advance the plot or add to character development, but is about a widow weeping over her cadaverized husband in a tomb, with two crucified bodies still hanging outside nearby, and a Roman soldier. In the end the corpse is no longer found in the tomb but back on a cross.

So deep was her affliction, neither family nor friends could dissuade her from these austerities and the purpose she had formed of perishing of hunger. Even the Magistrates had to retire worsted after a last but fruitless effort. All mourned as virtually dead already a woman of such singular determination, who had already passed five days without food.

A trusty handmaid sat by her mistress’s side, mingling her tears with those of the unhappy woman, and trimming the lamp which stood in the tomb as often as it burned low. . . .

Meantime, as it fell out, the Governor of the Province ordered certain robbers to be crucified in close proximity to the vault where the matron sat bewailing the recent loss of her mate. Next night the soldier who was set to guard the crosses to prevent anyone coming and removing the robbers’ bodies to give them burial, saw a light shining among the tombs and heard the widow’s groans. . . .  Accordingly he descended into the tomb, where beholding a lovely woman, he was at first confounded, thinking he saw a ghost or some supernatural vision. But presently the spectacle of the husband’s dead body lying there, and the woman’s tear-stained and nail-torn face, everything went to show him the reality, how it was a disconsolate widow unable to resign herself to the death of her helpmate. He proceeded therefore to carry his humble meal into the tomb, and to urge the fair mourner to cease her indulgence in grief so excessive, and to leave off torturing her bosom with unavailing sobs. . . .  But the lady, only shocked by this offer of sympathy from a stranger’s lips, began to tear her breast with redoubled vehemence, and dragging out handfuls of her hair, she laid them on her husband’s corpse.

Given that this was written in ancient times when, supposedly, “adding little details for realistic effect was unknown”, would the little details here — the number of days without food, the mistress trimming the lamp as it burned low, the particular night in question, the good-looks of the woman, the pulling her hair out and laying it on her husband’s corpse — prove this to be an eyewitness report?

Re-reading some of the ancient fiction for this post I was reminded of another classic description of the most fabulous detail and famous throughout so much of antiquity — the description of the shield of Achilles. The details on this shield were popular enough to be emulated by Virgil for Aeneas, and by Apollonius for his cloak of Jason. A partial translation and summary of the details can be read at this Wikipedia article.

Timothy Keller, ‘Reason for God’ — “The content is far too counterproductive for the gospels to be legends.”

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by Neil Godfrey

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This post relates to an earlier one on Keller here.

The crucifixion counterproductive?

Why would the leaders of the early Christian movement have made up the story of the crucifixion if it didn’t happen? Any listener of the gospel in either Greek or Jewish culture would have automatically suspected that anyone who had been crucified was a criminal, whatever the speaker said to the contrary. (Timothy Keller, Reason for God, p.104)

The answer to the first question is simple. The last statement is nonsense.

To ask why a religion would make up a story of their leader being crucified is the same as asking why any religion would want to have a martyr as its founder. All martyrs are by definition falsely blamed and suffer unjust deaths.

Not a single reader of Josephus suspects for a second that the 800 Pharisees crucified by King Alexander Jannaeus deserved their fate, and this entirely because of the facts the speaker narrated to explain how it came about that they were so unjustly crucified.

Any character created in the shadow of the Old Testament heroes who suffered unjustly would attract the sympathy and praise of audiences. Prophets were martyred. Men of God, such as Joseph in particular, were betrayed by their brethren. This makes them all the more honourable and worthy in the eyes of readers. Nor was the pagan god Dionysus any less popular in the Greek and early Roman times for his cruel and unjust death.

There is evidence that Second Temple Judaism included some who came to think Isaac had literally been sacrificed and was raised again from the dead, and that at the time of the Maccabean martyrs many looked to Isaac’s act as embodying both their personal hopes and the hope of Israel. See my post from last year, Could Jews Never Have Imagined a Crucified Messiah?, and related posts, for the details.

The mental torment of Jesus counterproductive?

Why would any Christian make up the account of Jesus asking God in the garden of Gethsemane if he could get out of his mission? Or why ever make up the part on the cross when Jesus cries out that God had abandoned him? These things would only have offended or deeply confused first-century prospective converts. They would have concluded that Jesus was weak and failing his God. (p.105)

Methinks Keller knows the value to be acquired in “making these up” or “reporting them” — I am sure missionaries today are able to avoid confusing their prospective converts in the way Keller says first century folks would be confused. I think many believe, argue, that one of the very reasons for the success of Christianity from the beginning was its ability to preach a God who could identify with humanity’s sufferings, who knew the “weaknesses of the flesh”, “yet without sin”. The fact of the success of Christianity shows that they were not, as Keller suggests, offended in the least, but attracted to the idea just as many moderns are.

The success of the gospel story lies in how its hero does not succumb to the pressures of the flesh that torment him. Keller’s objection is a straw man.

The failing disciples counterproductive?

Also, why constantly depict the apostles — the eventual leaders of the early Church — as petty and jealous, almost impossibly slow-witted, and in the end as cowards who either actively or passively failed their master? (p.105)

A famous teacher have dim-witted disciples is a classic literary foil to both exalt the leader and encourage readers that there is hope for them, too. Buddha had the like, so did Apollonius of Tyana, and Elisha, and Moses. . . How many Christians don’t love Peter for his failings despite his intentions? The appeal of the disciples is universal. It has been the same from the beginning.

Matthew, Luke and John, and many would also include Mark too, acknowledge that the gospels are not as pessimistic about the disciples at all, but are stories that demonstrate how they came to emerge as leading witnesses and pillars despite their earlier faililngs. Again Timothy Keller’s argument is a straw man.

Timothy Keller seems to be arguing that a story that works for people today would not have worked for people of yesterday. But it obviously did work for it to be still here, with the same appeal as ever.

2009-05-09

Happy Vesak Day

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by Neil Godfrey

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Today in Singapore is a public holiday, Vesak Day. It’s a Buddhist festival. One positive about Singapore is that public holidays are officially sanctioned for each of the faiths in this multicultural city state: Buddhist (+Taoist), Christian, Moslem, Hindu (+Sikh).

I’m not a Buddhist and I shy away from its sermonizing about mind-control/thought stopping or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to “remove one’s mind from what might cause suffering”. Not that I’m against CBT. I’m sure it’s a great benefit to many people.

I’m not a fan of the Dalai Lama, either. I don’t like his politics and I especially don’t like his giggly way of justifying a report of poor villagers raising money for a local temple or statue when their health and lives remain at risk from a lack of basic sanitation. Nor do I keep my patience when monks pretend to be striking up a welcoming conversation only to lead the conversation to where they can try to bite me for money. But at least they do provide an alternative floor to sleep on for those who would rather not opt for the subway, so I believe.

But for all that, I do find all the colour and paraphernalia that comes with special Buddhist festivals (and even some of their less ostentatious temples) to convey a happy peacefulness and tranquility.

Sure there are the devotees who are there handing out literature. Maybe it’s my bias, but it does seem to me that they have a more laid-back attitude to their task than their Christian counterparts. These latter have generally come across to me as more intense in their desire to get you to take and read their tracts. (I cannot forget one extreme case of a Jehovah’s Witness looking frantic and fearful and crying out that God holds him accountable for my hearing his message — as I was closing the door on him. First time I ever had the guilt trip put on me in reverse in order to win me over.)

But a happy smiling Buddha, and lots of lotus flowers and tranquil pools of water and graceful statuettes is undeniably a far more positive, relaxing and happy image than the suffering figure of a crucified man. One focuses one’s thoughts on peace and wellbeing for “all sentient beings”, and the other on guilt, pain, suffering, horror, desolation, especially guilt and sin.

Is it surprising that Buddhists I know or know of seem so much more tolerant and at peace with difference, than so many Christians who, speaking generally certainly, at best, struggle with difference and “the other”?

A couple of pics from the opening night of Vesak right in the Aljunied area of Singapore — all recently set up for the coming weekend:

A few more, for what they’re worth, on flickr.

2009-05-08

Timothy Keller’s “The Reason for God” — does it get any “better”?

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by Neil Godfrey

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A colleague and friend, concerned over my being an atheist, invited me to read Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God so I started to do so. I had not known who Timothy Keller was so I googled and found this wikipedia entry re this particular book:

Keller’s book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism was named Book of the Year for 2008 by World Magazine, a conservative evangelical news magazine. It rose as high as #7 on the New York Times Non-Fiction Best-Seller list in March of 2008.

That looked promising, so I looked at its table of contents and then flipped to his chapter titled “The Reality of the Resurrection”. I began reading on page 203:

The first accounts of the empty tomb and the eyewitnesses are not found in the gospels, but in the letters of Paul, which every historian agrees were written just fifteen to twenty years after the death of Jesus. One of the most interesting texts is 1 Corinthians 15:3-6:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have died.

Here Paul not only speaks of the empty tomb and resurrection on the “third day” (showing he is talking of a historical event, not a symbol of metaphor) but he also lists the eyewitnesses.

Yep, that’s what Timothy Keller wrote in his award winning best seller. That the letters of Paul not only contain “accounts”, plural, of “the empty tomb”, but a passage that he quotes and that all can see contains not a thread of a whisker of a mention of an empty tomb is boldly claimed to speak of the empty tomb!

I guess this is called argument by bluff. Just hold up a piece of paper which contains the word “was buried” and declare confidently enough that what the audience sees is something else and you just might get away with it, especially if your audience wants to believe. (Anyone who is bamboozled still needs to check the meaning of burial.)

But Keller is just warming up here. On page 205 he gives readers a double whammy,

Firstly he explains that the women were the first witnesses of the resurrection. He runs through the usual commentary on this point:

  • low social status of women meant they could not testify in court
  • no advantage to the church to publicize women being the first eyewitnesses
  • to admit women were the first eyewitnesses, Christians would know would undermine their credibility

And then the usual coup de grace (or fallacy of the false dilemma): “The only possible explanation for why women were depicted as meeting Jesus first is if they really had.”

Nothing new there, but what caught my attention was the next bit:

N.T. Wright argues that there must have been enormous pressure on the early proclaimers of the Christian message to remove the women from the accounts.

Why of course! THAT’s why Paul did not mention the women in the passage Keller had just cited! Paul succumbed to the pressure to avoid reference of the women being the first witnesses because it would undermine his credibility!

Keller continues:

They felt they could not do so — the records were too well known.

Woops. So Paul was found out? The Corinthian audience laughed when they read his pretence that it was men only who first witnessed Jesus?

But wait. There’s more. And it’s all on the same page.

Keller cites Wright again with the assertion that what really convinced people about the resurrection was not simply the eyewitnesses, nor simply the empty tomb.

If there had been only an empty tomb and no sightings, no one would have concluded it was a resurrection. They would have assumed that the body had been stolen. Yet if there had been only eyewitness sightings of Jesus and no empty tomb, no one would have concluded it was a resurrection, because people’s accounts of seeing departed loved ones happen all the time. Only if the two factors were both true would anyone have concluded that Jesus was raised from the dead.

If only Paul had the hindsight of Wright and Keller! Earlier Keller had remarked on Paul’s reference to the 500 witnesses of the resurrected Jesus.

Paul was inviting anyone who doubted that Jesus had appeared to people after his death to go and talk to the eyewitnesses if they wished. It was a bold challenge and one that could easily be taken up . . . . Paul could not have made such a challenge if those eyewitnesses didn’t exist.

What chance did he have of persuading the Corinthians of the resurrection if that’s the best he could do? He should also have told them that Jesus was resurrected from an empty tomb and to not only consult the eyewitnesses but also to take a pilgrimage to see the empty cave for themselves. After all, any of the 500 could have been just imagining a vision of their beloved messiah. Even though other accounts say there were no more than 120 loyal followers remaining. Maybe 380 of them had died by the time Luke wrote Acts so that he could not in good conscience include them in his narrative by that stage. 😉

Those were the first three pages I read of this 2008 book of the year. How to break this gently to my friend . . . . 🙁

2009-04-27

The Real Battle in debates over the bible among non-believers

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by Neil Godfrey

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updated . . . .

Recently I quoted René Salm’s summary of the deeper psychological issues that believers of the bible often bring to the fore when engaging sceptical arguments — in the Real Battle in debates over the bible with believers.

What I am still trying to understand is why the same “group think”, the same “circling of the wagons”, the same intestinal reactions bedevil the responses of so many nonbelievers, scholars included, when “engaging” arguments and critiques of Jesus mythicists. “Engaging” in quotation marks because 99% of the time the responses of the “historicists” are red-herrings, ad-hominems, straw-men, whatever — anything but what the central arguments of those mythicists so often are.

Strange. I have never been able to bring myself to read a whole page of anything written by the fatuous reasoningsof the likes of Acharya S, but I do know that the best and well-known mythicist arguments are grounded in cultural and exegetical biblical studies, and are far more cogent, devoid of fatuous circularity and inconsistencies, than just about anything I have read by historicists about “the historical Jesus”.

A little while ago I wrote a detailed critique of Bauckham’s betrayal of true scholarship and logical and historical enquiry, and did so because of the astonishing popularity such a book was winning. I could have written as damning a critique of almost any other book on the historical Jesus. I have so many marginal notes of points to make in quite a number of prominent scholars — I may yet do this, when retired maybe.

It is easy to understand the knee jerk nonsense of committed apologists. I like to think I avoid going out of my way to debate them. They feel a need for their faith. That’s their business. Live and let live.

Maybe the irrational but nonetheless deeply meaningful needs of nonbelieving scholars who ridicule and scarcely hide their contempt for those they like to call “mythers”,  as if their position is not even deserving of a proper noun, have something to do with self-actualization, ego-needs from a certain academic circle, I don’t know. Strange.

For the curious, the above musings were prompted by a depressing series of exchanges among academic ‘historicists’ and those they contemptuously denigrate as mythers – even though it is patently obvious to anyone who has read the better “mythicist” arguments that such historicists have never bothered to apprise themselves of the basis of mythicist arguments in the first place. I can imagine if some of them tried, they’d find the books they hold as repulsive as a socialist tract might be in the hands of a Rockefeller. Got carried away in there with long winded sentences — the occasion of the above musings are the exchanges found in The Forbidden Gospels Blog posts, My decision about the Jesus project, and The Jesus Seminar Jesus project is bankrupt, part 4. Steven Carr’s basic questions that went to the core of the sham behind the historicists’ arguments were simply ridiculed or ignored — not once engaged seriously.

When confronted with the mythicist position, it seems erudite scholars and untrained fundamentalists respond as one.

Strange.

But maybe not really. Peer pressure is a powerful thing, especially when one’s livelihood and professional reputation depends on a certain base acceptance by one’s professional peers.

Depressing.

Not least because not so long ago I encountered historicists declaring as absolute fact that there is as much evidence for the existence of Jesus as for Julius Caesar or such. Now — and maybe it is a sign of some progress — scholars actually admit there is no real “evidence” to “prove” the existence of Jesus. Or even more depressing, when the flimsiest threads (a verse in Galatians open to several meanings and a debated passage in Josephus) serve as “bedrock” evidence for historicity.

I’m reminded of the intellectual dishonesty of the Catholic Church and its hired scholars to proclaim “proof” for the historical existence of Nazareth. I think I need to start hitting harder again so much of the nonsense that passes for “scholarship” in biblical studies – and not just the Bauckham fringe.

2009-04-24

The Real Battle in debates over the bible with believers

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Ethics & Human Nature, New Testament, Religion and Atheism
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My copy of The Myth of Nazareth (René Salm) has arrived and I love this paragraph in its Introduction:

The real battle, however, is not empirical, nor even about how we view the evidence of Nazareth or of any other site in biblical archaeology. The battle is not between postmodernists and conservatives, minimalists and maximalists, nihilists and positivists. It has nothing to do with facts but has to do with human needs, for if need be, man will invent. He desires comfort, not facts. The two thousand years of Christian tradition have nothing to do with the facts of history. They never did. They have to do with human desires and needs. (p.xv)

2009-04-17

3 types of miracles: Mark’s, Matthew’s and Mary MacKillop’s

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament, Religion and Atheism
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Comparing miracles in Mark and Matthew

Getting physical

The first healing miracle narrated in the earliest canonical gospel (Mark) says that Jesus physically lifted the patient up before she was healed:

But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her. And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them. (Mark 1:30-31)

For the author of the Gospel of Matthew, who copied much of his material from the Gospel of Mark, this was apparently not a fitting way for a god on earth to do things. To his mind, a mere touch ought to suffice:

And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. (Matthew 8:14-15)

Through spiritual warfare

The second healing miracle in the Gospel of Mark was of the leper.

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with anger (orgistheis), put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. (Mark 1:40-41)

Bible translations follow other manuscripts that read splanchistheis, meaning compassion, in place of orgistheis (anger) for obvious reasons. But the authors of Matthew and Luke who copied Mark here omit this word, strongly suggesting that what they found in the original also sounded offensive to them.

And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.  And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. (Matthew 8:2-3)

Newcomers to this original text (according to more than one criteria used, including priority being given to the more difficult reading) of Mark’s gospel will find it easier to embrace when they recall Mark’s Jesus from the beginning is unlike any found in the other gospels. Thus from the first Mark’s Jesus is possessed (entered into, not “lighted upon” as in Matthew) by the spirit at baptism and is then “cast out” by that same spirit into the wilderness. At every point subsequently this Jesus is seen breaking apart the present “cosmos”, or world order — whether by

  • casting out demons with violence and torment,
  • wrestling with the very elements of nature (waves, storms, wind),
  • restoring physical wellness by strange charms, physical applications or conflict with contrary (demonic, spiritual) forces in the background
  • denying death through crucifixion.

Healing only Many or healing All?

Gospel of Mark’s next reference to healing is a less personal en masse occasion:

And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, . . . And all the city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, . . . (Mark 1:32-34)

Matthew’s author is apparently offended by the suggestion in Mark that of “all” who came to Jesus only “many” were healed, so he changed that to a more satisfying:

When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick . . . (Matthew 8:16)

We get the picture

Where Jesus in the Gospel of Mark heals either

  • through strenuous or dramatic physical actions and applications
  • or through conflict with spiritual ‘attitudes’ and forces,
  • or heals only “many” but never “all” of those who come to him,

Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew heals like a serenely supreme being

  • with a mere touch,
  • or in a context where “bad attitudes” and evil forces are nothing more than a foil for the goodness of Jesus,
  • or he heals all who come to him, leaving none behind.

Matthew was helping Mark’s Jesus evolve into the supremely aloof being we associate with him today. Mark’s Jesus was the being who came to tear apart and overturn the old order as one possessed from the beginning. Matthew’s Jesus was heavenly aloof and all compassionate while in the flesh and only had to show up for evil fell to fall away before him or for all to be healed.

Enter Mary MacKillop Continue reading “3 types of miracles: Mark’s, Matthew’s and Mary MacKillop’s”

2009-04-11

Good Friday and Thaipusam, and the common DNA of religions

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by Neil Godfrey

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What does it say about the nature of religion when we observe that, just as human culture and language are at the same time the same thing yet richly diverse, so the world’s diverse religions share so many of the same themes, metaphors and motifs? This post looks at rituals from two religions by way of convenient illustration.

(Caveat etc: Scholarship has rightly moved on beyond Sir James Frazer, but Jonathan Z. Smith has missed the forest while studying the trees.)

A month or so ago I stumbled across the Hindu Thaipusam procession. Last night I went to see the famous Good Friday procession at St Joseph’s cathedral in Singapore. The sameness of its motifs with the Christian and other religions reinforced my view that religions all share a common mindset, a common consciousness, a common set of motifs. They are all part of a singular cross-cultural psychological family in the same way. The concepts they share, and which vary only in their ritual and mythological details, are like the biological similarities that point to a common genetic base that unites the animal kingdom.

Both the Hindu and Christian processions dramatize

  • suffering,
  • symbolic or momentary ego or literal death,
  • and glory and victory of spirit through both suffering and death,
  • including sharing the glory of the divinity — some form of identity with the deity.
  • a special place of the mourners, especially the women and family, of those who follow or otherwise accompany their loved one through his burdens or ‘suffering-passion’.

Common motifs of that suffering include

  • Physical torment, piercing of the flesh,
  • Emphasis on the role of blood — whether the value of it being shed or the value of it not being shed,
  • Fasting, a denial of food for relief in the midst of suffering, special foods and drinks.
  • And of course, not forgetting a solemn attention to the forsaking of sin and the embrace of righteousness through this suffering.

Devotees in the Thaipusam festival bear the pain themselves for their god:

Pierced penitent bearing cross-shaped kavadi and the glory of the god, followed by family women

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Christian devotees prefer to vicariously suffer through their god:

The body of Jesus, followed by Mary, after being taken down from the cross.

Good Friday procession at St Joseph’s cathedral, Singapore, 2009.
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It is all about suffering, death, and overcoming these in body, spirit or both. And I wonder if it all has common roots in the evolution of religion and human consciousness, and if the same motifs can be found in our earliest art still found in “cave-cathedrals” — See Mind in the Cave for earlier discussion.

Inside St Joseph’s Singapore, Good Friday 2009

The image of a tortured body, no less gruesome than the Hindu  flagellents, likewise glorified by devotees. This same effigy was lowered from the cross and placed in the bier captured in the photo above that also shows Mary following.

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A Christian does not need much imagination to understand the essential meaning underlying one of the rituals caught on this video

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Our languages differ, but they are all the one thing, language. Maybe it’s the same with our religions. Yes?

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2009-03-25

Miraculous proof of the truth of the Moslem faith?

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by Neil Godfrey

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The Guard Who Found Islam

Terry Holdbrooks stood watch over prisoners at Gitmo. What he saw made him adopt their faith.

A current Newsweek story:

The Guard Who Found Islam

Terry Holdbrooks stood watch over prisoners at Gitmo. What he saw made him adopt their faith.

Many Christians — myself included when I was one — have at some time been inspired by the stories of early martyrs whose courage in the face of persecution led to the conversions and baptism even of the soldiers charged with escorting them to their fates.

The archetypes of this story are two biblical narratives: one of Paul almost appearing to almost convert his judge, king Agrippa by his testimony; and another of the Philippian jailor of Paul and Silas who was baptized after hearing how happily Paul and Silas sang in their prison cell, and subsequently on hearing them happily announce that they had not taken their chance to run away when an earthquake shattered open their cell door and shook off their chains.

Thereafter Christian writers inspired pride in the astonishing examples of other martyrs that likewise led at times to the conversions even of their prison guards. Polycarp’s military escort were so moved by Polycarp’s apparent piety and good character that they “repented” that they had had anything to do with his arrest:

After feasting the guards who apprehended him, he desired an hour in prayer, which being allowed, he prayed with such fervency, that his guards repented that they had been instrumental in taking him. He was, however, carried before the proconsul, condemned, and burnt in the market place. (Fox’s Book of Martyrs)

Some Christians look on stories like these as signs or evidence, even proofs, of the truly divine source of their faith.

So it is instructive to read in the current issue of Newsweek the story headlined as at the beginning of this post.

Interested readers can access the full story by Dan Ephron online

in WayBack Machine.

2009-03-01

Eddy and Boyd, The Jesus Legend. Overview impressions.

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Religion and Atheism
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Eddy and Boyd’s book, The Jesus Legend, reminds me of Intelligent Design literature. It is an attempt to guise faith in serious sounding academic garb. While ID aspires to be accepted as an equal explanation beside evolutionary theory, The Jesus Legend aspires to be accepted as an alternative scholarly historiographical hypothesis to explain Christian origins. (Indeed, at least one of the authors is associated with a website promoting Intelligent Design.)

It is also a book that could only have been written by religionists from the USA. The authors at times appear to equate surveys of U.S. beliefs regarding miracles and the supernatural with the experience of the vast bulk of all human experience at all times, against which are pitted only a few sheltered Western academics. They seem oblivious to the implications of applying their reasoning to anything other than their religious interests, such as popular beliefs in astrology, common superstitions and folklore, aboriginal dreaming, etc. They also naively (regularly) equate a gospel narrative and reported sayings with direct tangible evidence that such and such was really seen or experienced as historical fact.

In a recent post I showed how Eddy and Boyd misrepresented David Hume’s argument against the rationality of believing in miracles, and only subsequently noticed that E & B hinge the relevance of their entire book on their supposed demonstration of the fallaciousness of Hume’s argument.

Hume’s argument renders all possible historical arguments in favor of Jesus’s rising from the dead virtually irrelevant. For no conceivable historical evidence could possibly overturn such an overwhelmingly improbable claim — if, again, Hume’s argument is valid. (p.42)

So until someone can demonstrate that their argument about David Hume’s sceptical position is indeed valid, I can conclude that it’s entire argument is a waste of time.

Another fatal flaw in Eddy’s and Boyd’s argument is its inflexibility in the range of alternative naturalistic explanations they appear willing to consider. Finding a weakness in one naturalistic explanation for the origins of Christianity would normally prompt historical researchers to refine that explanation or consider alternative (naturalistic) hypotheses. Eddy and Boyd, however, drive home their supernaturalistic hypothesis at each and every sign of a weakness in a single naturalistic hypothesis.

This is a bit like Renaissance astronomer Kepler discovering that the model of circular orbits of planets did not fit the recorded observations, and deciding to opt for angels interfering with planetary orbits from time to time in preference to testing the evidence against a model of eliptical orbits instead. Fortunately for us it was Kepler who was working at giving us the understanding of how planets orbit the sun and not Eddy and Boyd. The latter may well have decided that since God can cause the sun to stand still and a star to stand over a manger that there was no need to attempt any naturalistic explanation of planetary movements — their supernaturalistic hypothesis had the power to explain everything!

Another feature of “interest” is the way Eddy and Boyd massage the naive reader with word-play. They emphasize, with italics, that the assumptions of the naturalistic approach to historical enquiry are not proven.

This assumption . . . does not have to be proven: it is presupposed. (p. 44)

Naturalistic assumptions are a fatal flaw in the whole naturalistic enterprise? Eddy and Boyd complain that by approaching the world through naturalistic assumptions one tends to be able to explain the world naturally. There remains no room for the miraculous, they protest. (Assumptions are generally of the nature of values and perspectives that by nature are not “provable”, but “recognized”, in scholarly discourse.)

Not surprisingly, the results “worked out in the whole field of her activity” serve to demonstrate the validity of the assumption. (p.44)

But the fact is that the naturalistic approach to historiography is not as circular as E&B imply. The assumptions of naturalism rest on the successful testing of the model in the field of the physical sciences. This success gives very strong grounds for viewing the entire world of human experience through the same presumption of naturalism.

Consistently applied, this reasoning of E&B would need to find even stronger grounds for the reality of miracles (that questions of nature are more generally best explained by miracles than by natural law) to justify replacing the naturalistic presumption underlying modern historiography.

As time permits I’ll try to address various other aspects of The Jesus Legend hypothesis in some detail. It does, after all, appear to be something of a ‘standard’ to which many fundamentalists appeal.

2009-02-26

Miracles 2: another misrepresentation of David Hume’s sceptical argument

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by Neil Godfrey

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This post should be Part 2 of my ‘reviews’ or notes re “God, Actually” by Roy Williams (1).

The subtitle of Roy Williams’ book is “Why God probably exists, Why Jesus was probably divine, and Why the ‘rational’ objections to religion are unconvincing”.

Roy Williams wishes to define a miracle in terms that do not presuppose a god, so embraces English philosopher Brian Davies’ definition of a miracle as

an event that cannot be explained in terms intelligible to the natural scientist or observer of the regular processes of Nature. (p.163)

That’s hardly a very good definition. It would mean that any event that is not currently understood by science is miraculous. It would mean that if Einstein had not been born or no-one had postulated the theory of relativity at the time that a star’s light was seen to actually bend around the sun at the time of an eclipse, then that bending of starlight would have to be defined as even more miraculous than the bending of Uri Geller’s spoon. Did lightning only cease to be a miracle after the discovery of electricity? The role of science has been to uncover natural explanations for things that once could not be explained naturally. Still a wee way to go too.

Roy Williams distils David Hume’s argument against the possibility of a true miracle being honestly reported into four points (p.165):

  1. no such testimony has ever been given by enough people of adequate learning and intelligence;
  2. people are naturally gullible and untrustworthy;
  3. reports of miracles tend to emanate from ‘ignorant and barbarous nations’;
  4. and different religions report different miracles, and this invalidates all such reports.

Of the first three points Williams writes:

they amount to saying that no human observer can ever be completely trusted. This seems to me a cynical generalisation, a prime example of reductionism.

With this dismissal, Roy Williams’ dismisses David Hume from the remainder of his discussion of miracles, apart from a later section where he treats point 4 separately.

Williams depicts David Hume’s scepticism as extremist and even unnatural in its relationship to the rest of humanity. My own scepticism has been accompanied by a deeper sense of affinity with the rest of human kind, and David Hume’s argument never struck me as so cynical. Compare Roy Williams’ rationalization for dismissing David Hume with what Hume actually wrote in his famous section on miracles:

. . . we may observe, that there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of men, and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators. . . . It will be sufficient to observe that our assurance in any argument of this kind is derived from no other principle than our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses.

Far from coming within two miles of even suggesting that “no human observer can ever be completely trusted”, Hume flatly states from the start that acceptance of eye-witness testimony is the most common, useful and even necessary of “species of reasoning” we all have.

Were not the memory tenacious to a certain degree; had not men commonly an inclination to truth and a principle of probity; were they not sensible to shame, when detected in a falsehood: were not these, I say, discovered by experience to be qualities, inherent in human nature, we should never repose the least confidence in human testimony. A man delirious, or noted for falsehood and villainy, has no manner of authority with us.

There is no room in the passage from David Hume for Roy Williams to dismiss his writing as a “cynical generalization” against the normal course of eyewitness testimony of fellow human beings. On the contrary, Hume begins with “the charitable” position that most people are generally inclined to tell the truth about what they witness throughout life. Most people, Hume asserts, have no wish to be disgraced by being found out to be liars.

This passage from David Hume pulls the rug from beneath Roy Williams’ reasons for dismissing Hume’s arguments, and obliges Williams to seriously return to engage with the detail of Hume’s actual argument.

So if Hume asserts that it is natural and necessary to rely on eyewitness testimony as a general rule, under what circumstances does Hume then open the way to doubting others? He explains:

We entertain a suspicion concerning any matter of fact, when the witnesses contradict each other; when they are but few, or of a doubtful character; when they have an interest in what they affirm; when they deliver their testimony with hesitation, or on the contrary, with too violent asseverations. There are many other particulars of the same kind, which may diminish or destroy the force of any argument, derived from human testimony.

So how does Hume treat accounts of miracles in books that have a reputation of being authored by historians, or even just from any person with a reputation for being of good character?

The reason why we place any credit in witnesses and historians, is not derived from any connexion, which we perceive a priori, between testimony and reality, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them.

Hume argues that the reason we tend to believe historians and others is because our experiences have conditioned us to expecting them to tell the facts.

But when the fact attested is such a one as has seldom fallen under our observation, here is a contest of two opposite experiences; of which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind by the force, which remains.

But if an historian or otherwise honourable person proclaims a miracle, then our experience that miracles do not happen is enough to alert us that in this case the otherwise trustworthy person is mistaken. Hence most readers of Josephus today may take many of his details of the history of the Jewish war as factual, but will not treat his reports of miracles as having the same level of credibility. Similarly ancient historians like Herodotus and Livy pass on many historical details that we are at liberty to assume as factual, but no-one embraces their tales of miracles with the same certainty.

Hume argues for consistency:

The very same principle of experience, which gives us a certain degree of assurance in the testimony of witnesses, gives us also, in this case, another degree of assurance against the fact, which they endeavour to establish; from which contradiction there necessarily arises a counterpoize, and mutual destruction of belief and authority.

The reason we generally accept certain information from historians as factual is the same reason we dismiss their reports of miracles.

Many fundamentalists and other Christians who dismiss the miracles in pagan histories yet believe in the Bible’s miracles are being inconsistent. They treat the “facts” in pagan histories as historical for the same reason most people do — readers are accustomed to finding correlations between the writings of historians and true facts. And they find it as easy as any sceptic to dismiss as untrue any event (a miracle) that goes against their experience of nature and the world. But they treat the Bible differently (as a book whose words are permitted to assume greater authority than our own personal experiences) and therefore the miracles of the Bible must be accepted.

David Hume does not write cynically or with sweeping generalization against the trustworthiness of people. I have quoted his writings on how he approaches normal eyewitness testimony to show that he is hardly a reductionist (as Williams suggests).

In the first part of his essay on miracles Hume presented the rational argument against believing in them. In the second part of his essay he discusses four reasons for disbelieving the testimony that does exist for miracles. Williams dot-pointed these 4 (above) and Hume’s discussion of each of them can be found in part 2 of his essay.

Disappointingly, after dismissing David Hume’s scepticism as cynical and reductionist, Williams discusses the miracles of Jesus as if they are known to us all from multitudes of eyewitnesses. Of course, we only have four gospels, with at least two and very likely three all largely mutations from the original one (GMark) — not multitudes of eyewitnesses at all.  The fact that one author wrote a story about multitudes of witnesses, and that that story was modified by others, and that it was not testified till the second century c.e., is scarcely credible evidence for miracles being performed a century earlier. We have more reason to believe the historian Tacitus who “reported” miracles by the emperor Vespasian within a decade or two of his lifetime.

But I will leave the last word to Roy Williams here and leave it to readers to ask the obvious follow up questions it leaves hanging. Roy Williams argues against Hume’s fourth point as follows:

My own view is that the consistency of such reports through human history is suggestive that miracles do — rarely — occur. Has the Catholic Church always been wrong when, as a precondition to conferring sainthoods, it has accepted reports of miracles? I doubt it. (p.293)

2009-02-24

Miracles: fundamentalist misrepresentation of David Hume’s sceptical argument

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by Neil Godfrey

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Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd are widely reputed among fundamentalist circles for having authored a “most important book . . . for critical assessment of the Gospels”, “a powerfully argued defence of the historical reliability of the Synoptic Gospels”, “a thoroughly compelling cumulative argument – one of the very best available – for the reliability of the Synoptic Jesus tradition”, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus tradition. Average Amazon.com rating is 4 and a half stars out of a max possible of five!

I have repeatedly been urged by fundamentalists to read it for myself. So now I have begun to do that. I really had hoped for something substantial after the hype, but so far have been a bit disappointed.

To take just one point here, — Eddy and Boyd’s argument against eighteenth century Enlightenment sceptical philosopher David Hume‘s writings against belief in miracles — pages 61-63 of The Jesus Legend. (I have already addressed another point or two of theirs and will, no doubt, address more. The complete set will be found in the Eddy and Boyd link under BOOK REVIEWS & NOTES on the right margin of this blog.)

Here’s how Eddy and Boyd sum up David Hume’s argument against believing in miracles:

Hume defined a miracle as “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agents.” With this definition in hand, Hume concluded that it is always irrational to believe a miracle had occurred. To Hume’s way of thinking, one must weigh the probability of a claim that a “transgression” of a natural law (a miracle) had occurred against . . . every confirmed instance of this law being confirmed . . . (pp. 41-42)

Thus against a report that one man had risen from the dead must be counted the number of times people who die stay dead. Eddy and Boyd rightly conclude that such an argument means that no historian can ever rationally believe a report that one man rose from the dead. But they go further and argue that this argument is invalid, and they argue it is invalid by directly misrepresenting what Hume actually wrote. (I’d like to think they had not read Hume directly for a long time, or being rushed they over-relied on common wrong assumptions about what Hume wrote.)

They continue:

The Perfect Bridge Hand – A Circular Straw Man Fallacy

(E&B cite N.Geisler’s The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 1999, for this)

One problem with Hume’s line of reasoning is that he seems to associate rational thinking with adding up evidence rather than weighing evidence. To rationally determine whether one has been randomly dealt a perfect bridge hand, for example, one wouldn’t simply add up all the possible alternative hands one could have been randomly dealt and compare it with the odds of getting a perfect bridge hand (1,635,013,559,600 to 1) Were this the case it would obviously never be rational to accept that one had been dealt a perfect bridge hand — even if, as a matter of fact, one was holding one!

Eddy and Boyd have subtly twisted Hume’s argument in the above passage. Where Hume made a case about the likelihood of predicting a certain event, Eddy and Boyd give the impression that Hume would dispute the possibility of a past event known to have happened.

Eddy and Boyd:

The way a rational person goes about determining whether or not he or she has been randomly dealt a perfect bridge hand is by looking at the empirical evidence. Is the person in fact holding a perfect bridge hand?

And THAT is exactly what David Hume was arguing. Eddy and Boyd appear not to have brushed up on Hume’s argument before attempting such a “refutation”.

So to let David Hume speak for a moment from his famous passage on miracles, Section 10 of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors. One, who in our climate, should expect better weather in any week of June than in one of December, would reason justly, and conformably to experience; but it is certain, that he may happen, in the event, to find himself mistaken. However, we may observe, that, in such a case, he would have no cause to complain of experience; because it commonly informs us beforehand of the uncertainty . . . . All events follow not with like certainty from their supposed causes. . . .  so that, in our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence.

A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

In other words, Hume is arguing that the odds of experiencing worse weather in any one week in June than in December are small, but not impossible. And the mathematical odds of being randomly dealt a perfectly bridge hand are so astronomical that it would be irrational to expect to be dealt one, but if one was dealt one, then one knows just how astonishingly rare such an event is.

Hume says that past experience teaches us that we can have absolute certainty about some things happening or not happening (e.g. the sun rising or dead cats not rising). Our experience teaches us that there has never been an exception to those events so we can have the highest assurance they will remain true tomorrow.

The chances of being dealt a perfect bridge hand are quantifiable numerically, so they are not infinite. One can say that a tossed coin will have a 50-50 chance of landing heads up, so one can have a rational fifty-fifty assurance that it will land heads. But experience also teaches us that a coin may land tails up many times before it really does land heads up. The rational expectation (50 -50 chance) is not invalid, however. The question of the perfect bridge hand is merely an extension of the degree of expectation, of assurance, one can have. One knows it is possible by the “laws of probability” while at the same time confessing that one is not likely to see it happen in one’s lifetime.

In between these two extremes one might place the odds of “YOU” winning the Lotto. Not likely, but possible, so “you” keep dreaming, and paying.

Eddy and Boyd distort Hume’s argument. Hume is arguing that it is our physical senses, including reason, that inform us of the likelihood of an event happening. And that it is our physical senses, including reason, that also inform us either directly or indirectly whether an event has really happened. Hume would not deny that he had been dealt a perfect bridge hand if indeed he had, but he would be extremely confident he never would be dealt a second, and that he may even have been the only person in history who ever will be dealt such a hand. It is a straw man argument for E & B to say he would not believe it if it happened because the odds, not even infinite odds, are against it.

It is also a circular argument that E & B make, because they are assuming that the resurrection of Jesus can be proven. It is only with this assumption that the odds against a raising the dead can be reduced to a finite, and therefore a technically possible probability ratio.

The Unusual and The Impossible – they really are not in the same peapod

Eddy & Boyd further stretch (distort) Hume’s argument by writing:

Second, if carried through consistently, Hume’s methodology would render it unreasonable to conclude that anything unusual ever happens, since, by definition, there are far more usual events than unusual ones. . . . In fact, Hume’s methodology would justify denying that a miracle occurred even if one witnessed it personally. (pp.61-62)

The same passage from Hume that I copied above demonstrates the failure of Eddy and Boyd to understand Hume’s argument.

Hume indeed discusses unusual experiences (e.g. having a finer week of weather in June than in December). All that this means is that we are surprised that something unusual has happened, and we talk about it. The fact that something happened against the odds is the very definition of a “surprising” or an “unusual” event.

Eddy and Boyd cite the conquests of Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte as so “unusual” (they use the adjective “mind-boggling” to describe the exploits of these men) that according to Hume’s argument, a sceptic must not believe they ever happened.

Thus, E&B conclude, one must “weigh” the evidence, not merely “add up” the evidence. They mean one must not judge the likelihood that an event has happened according to mathematical probability (adding up the evidence). Rather, they argue that one must “weigh” the evidence. “Weighing” is (instructively, I would suggest) left as a vague and undefined concept in their book.

But of course E and B know as well as anyone that there are very real naturalistic explanations (economic and geo-political etc) for the unusual moments of conquests of extraordinarily large areas by military leaders throughout history. There are no naturalistic reasons for believing that cats, or any other mammal, run over by trucks or skewered to stakes, ever comes to life again.

Eddy and Boyd vainly try to squeeze a supernatural event, a defiance of the laws of gravity, of physics, of cellular biology, into the realm of “possible” and therefore “probable” to some extent.

Hume, in fact, argues that while our experiences teach us that some events may possibly happen, they can be expected to happen only very rarely, and maybe never in our own lifetimes. A wise man looks at the evidence, including that of his own experience, Hume wrote, and from there he makes a rational assessment of the probability of a similar event happening again. If there are NO instances at all of inexplicable gravity defiance (an apple or man “falling” upwards and taken up by the clouds and angels “into heaven”) then the likelihood of such an event happening in the future is zero, infinitely improbable.

E&B conclude by effectively charging Hume with biased reasoning against the supernatural:

Hume’s reasoning about miracles, it seems, was filtered through his a priori convictions about the probabilistically inviolable laws of nature, which rendered it virtually certain that miracles do not occur. (p.62)

Note E&B’s reduction of the laws of nature, let’s take gravity as an example, to a matter of (finite mathematical) probability and to what is “virtually certain”. Is it really a matter of finite mathematical probability that a rock will sink if you throw it into deep water? Is it only “virtually certain” that if you are caught out in the rain without cover you will get wet?

I find it somewhat amusing (also somewhat hypocritical) that fundamentalists resort to the relativity of post-modernism to push their anti-scientific, anti-enlightenment and psychologically and socially retrograde agendas of black-and-white absolutes.

There’s another side to David Hume’s argument about belief in miracles that Eddy and Boyd do not address at all in their book, but I’ll save that one for another post.

(P.S. Yes, yes, I know that the laws of physics don’t behave in the same way the closer we get to the singularity or the speed of light etc, but fundamentalists don’t believe in the big-bang anyway. Also I know that one day something might crash into the earth knocking it to smithers so there’s no more rising of the sun, etc etc. But the discussion that interests me is the one of human experience in the here and now)