Burden of Proof is on Atheists

[joelr]

The 5 facts have been authenticated; this is why scholars accept hem as facts

Apologist Peter Williams wrote a book answering the arguments about the Gospels being unreliable. Except he didn't answer and real criticisms, he used strawman arguments. Bart Ehrman debated him and pointed out:

"My contention throughout the debate is that he has not answered the question adequately, that in fact virtually everything he says in the book is irrelevant to the question. It’s a very interesting and unusual attempt that he makes. But most of the book completely misses the point.

It’s the kind of book that anyone who wants very much to trust the Gospels will come away from saying “See, we CAN trust them.” But anyone who actually looks at what he’s saying, and who knows about the actual reasons people have for NOT thinking the Gospels are historically reliable, will say, “Wait a second! He’s simply countering arguments that no one makes, and is not addressing the arguments they do! That’s just building a straw man an knocking it down. That ain’t gonna work!”


No "facts" from the Gospels have been "authenticated"? What does that even mean? What it means is apologists decided to say "yup, uh huh, that part right there, that definitely happened, yup, so that's authenticated. Next...."

What a HISTORIAN says,
"
The short story is that I’m not intending or trying to trash the Gospels. In my view, what I’m doing is showing what the Gospels really are and what they really are not. And that is not a matter of trashing them. It’s a matter of revealing their true character, rather than foisting a false character on them.

To be sure, by arguing that the Gospels are not historically accurate I am contesting and challenging views of the Gospels that many Christians unreflectively have (and that some Christian scholars reflectively have). But urging a different understanding of the Gospels is not the same thing as trashing them. On the contrary if my views of the Gospels are right, then I’m illuminating the Gospels and showing both what kinds of books they are and how they ought to be read. That’s a good, positive thing, not a bad, negative one.
Among other things, these views insist that the Gospels are not always historically accurate in what they say about Jesus. That has been acknowledged by critical scholars of the New Testament as long as there have been critical scholars of the New Testament – for over 300 years. So it’s nothing new, even though I hear from people nearly every week who tell me that it’s news to them. It’s news to them because scholars can be among the worse communicators on earth, and biblical scholars in particular have done a truly dismal job of telling non-scholars what they have come to think and what they have tried to demonstrate in their research – for example about the accuracy of the Gospels.

Different scholars have different assessments of *just* how inaccurate the Gospels are. Some think they are reliable in most of the basics, with lots of details being unreliable; others think that major stories are not historically accurate (birth narratives, e.g.); others think that in fact very many of the stories need to be questioned. But for all of these scholars there is a basic sense that, at the end of the day, the Gospels are not dispassionate, accurate accounts of the things Jesus said and did. "


Bart Ehrman


This is the opinion of a historian who is NOT taking into the account the fact that Jesus and Christianity are mainly Hellenistic and Persian myths which completely explains its purpose. It's just religion doing it's religious syncretism as it always does.
Historians who study other religions that have influenced Judaism have a completely different view. Like Carrier, Lataster, Fransesca S, Price.

Theologians who claim these 5 elements to the story are authenticated facts are apologists not interested in what is true. They are interested in supporting their beliefs.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

The 5 facts have been authenticated; this is why scholars accept hem as facts

What are these "five facts"??? To the best of my knowledge, nothing in the gospels has been authenticated as a fact, other than that Jesus was killed (we know this from the writings of his brother, James).

 

[leroy]

Th

He did personal research into Roman practices after crucifixion and found that the body was not allowed to be taken down for several days. From his blog:
"Sometimes Christian apologists argue that Jesus had to be taken off the cross before sunset on Friday, because the next day was Sabbath and it was against Jewish Law, or at least Jewish sensitivities, to allow a person to remain on the cross during the Sabbath. Unfortunately, the historical record suggests just the opposite. It was not Jews who killed Jesus, and so they had no say about when he would be taken down from the cross. Moreover, the Romans who did crucify him had no concern to obey Jewish Law, and virtually no concern about Jewish sensitivities. Quite the contrary. When it came to crucified criminals – in this case, someone charged with crimes against the state – there was regularly no mercy and no concern for anyone’s sensitivities. The point of crucifixion was to torture and humiliate a person as fully as possible, and to show any bystanders what happens to someone who is a troublemaker in the eyes of Rome. Part of the humiliation and degradation was being left on the cross after death, to be subject to the scavenging animals."

.

And do you claim that Bart is probably correct? Would you affirm that Bart is more likely correct than wrong?

 

[leroy]

Apologist Peter Williams wrote a book answering the arguments about the Gospels being unreliable. Except he didn't answer and real criticisms, he used strawman arguments. Bart Ehrman debated him and pointed out:

"My contention throughout the debate is that he has not answered the question adequately, that in fact virtually everything he says in the book is irrelevant to the question. It’s a very interesting and unusual attempt that he makes. But most of the book completely misses the point.

It’s the kind of book that anyone who wants very much to trust the Gospels will come away from saying “See, we CAN trust them.” But anyone who actually looks at what he’s saying, and who knows about the actual reasons people have for NOT thinking the Gospels are historically reliable, will say, “Wait a second! He’s simply countering arguments that no one makes, and is not addressing the arguments they do! That’s just building a straw man an knocking it down. That ain’t gonna work!”


No "facts" from the Gospels have been "authenticated"? What does that even mean? What it means is apologists decided to say "yup, uh huh, that part right there, that definitely happened, yup, so that's authenticated. Next...."

What a HISTORIAN says,
"
The short story is that I’m not intending or trying to trash the Gospels. In my view, what I’m doing is showing what the Gospels really are and what they really are not. And that is not a matter of trashing them. It’s a matter of revealing their true character, rather than foisting a false character on them.

To be sure, by arguing that the Gospels are not historically accurate I am contesting and challenging views of the Gospels that many Christians unreflectively have (and that some Christian scholars reflectively have). But urging a different understanding of the Gospels is not the same thing as trashing them. On the contrary if my views of the Gospels are right, then I’m illuminating the Gospels and showing both what kinds of books they are and how they ought to be read. That’s a good, positive thing, not a bad, negative one.
Among other things, these views insist that the Gospels are not always historically accurate in what they say about Jesus. That has been acknowledged by critical scholars of the New Testament as long as there have been critical scholars of the New Testament – for over 300 years. So it’s nothing new, even though I hear from people nearly every week who tell me that it’s news to them. It’s news to them because scholars can be among the worse communicators on earth, and biblical scholars in particular have done a truly dismal job of telling non-scholars what they have come to think and what they have tried to demonstrate in their research – for example about the accuracy of the Gospels.

Different scholars have different assessments of *just* how inaccurate the Gospels are. Some think they are reliable in most of the basics, with lots of details being unreliable; others think that major stories are not historically accurate (birth narratives, e.g.); others think that in fact very many of the stories need to be questioned. But for all of these scholars there is a basic sense that, at the end of the day, the Gospels are not dispassionate, accurate accounts of the things Jesus said and did. "


Bart Ehrman


This is the opinion of a historian who is NOT taking into the account the fact that Jesus and Christianity are mainly Hellenistic and Persian myths which completely explains its purpose. It's just religion doing it's religious syncretism as it always does.
Historians who study other religions that have influenced Judaism have a completely different view. Like Carrier, Lataster, Fransesca S, Price.

One of the awesome things is that these 5 facts don’t rely solely on the gospels………..So even if you dismiss the gospels as “just legends” these facts would still stand

[E]Theologians who claim these 5 elements to the story are authenticated facts are apologists not interested in what is true. They are interested in supporting their beliefs.

the concensus amoung scholars is that these 5 facts are true, the emty tomb is supported by 75% of scholars and the rest by virtually all of them.


this article sumerices it a survey that was done with thausands of authors who published on the topic
Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?

 

[joelr]

And do you claim that Bart is probably correct? Would you affirm that Bart is more likely correct than wrong?

Ehrman explained he went to the sources, copies of the remains of Roman documents and spent time researching what the practices and procedures were for crucifixion. The last 4 years of getting a PhD in history is learning how to vette and properly source historical documents. So he is far more qualified to do this research project than a non-historian.

"
Here I’ll continue my thread on topics that I changed my mind about or came to see in doing my research for How Jesus Became God. One of the most important things I changed my mind about was the idea that Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty three days after his death.

When I was a Christian, of course I thought that was the case. But even when I had become an agnostic I thought it was probably a historical tradition: it’s found in all four Gospels, for example, and the fact that the stories indicate precisely it was *women* who found the tomb did not seem like something Christians would want to make up. (And so, as an agnostic, I had to come up with alternative explanations for why the tomb was empty. But…)

I changed my mind. Most of my change came from my investigation of Roman practices of crucifixion. As it turns out, standard policy appears to have been to have left the bodies of corpses on the crosses to decompose, as part of their punishment. Decent burials were not allowed. I go into this matter at length in the book – at greater length than I want to excerpt here. But I can excerpt my new reflections on whether it is conceivable that any Christian story-tellers would invent the tradition that women found the tomb empty. Here is what I say about that:"

He then goes on to explain why Mark would make up having the body found by a woman and why it isn't strange or "criterion for embarrassment".
Although when an actual literary analysis is done it's obviously part of a theme running through the story, the least shall be the first. Ehrman doesn't study that type analysis.

 

[joelr]

One of the awesome things is that these 5 facts don’t rely solely on the gospels………..So even if you dismiss the gospels as “just legends” these facts would still stand

Have you gone mad? All historians of that time are mentioning is there are people who follow the gospels (except the forgeries). The 7 authentic Epistles do not mention these, Jesus dies by "archeons of the age" which could have been in the upper firmament for all we know. Previous resurrecting savior demigods went through their passion in one of the the celestial realms and was later euhemarized as a historical figure set on Earth. This happened more than once.
Acts is the most non-historical of all. R Pervos peer-reviewd work has completely demolished Acts as anything but a grand story.

Thats it?

the concensus amoung scholars is that these 5 facts are true, the emty tomb is supported by 75% of scholars and the rest by virtually all of them.

Not by historians. Theologians are apologists whos job is to defend the faith. Not to find what is actually true. Just like Islamic theologians who have degrees oftyen support the idea that the Quran MUST be divine because the science, the philosophy, the writing style.....they largely agree. And they are scholars.
Yet......there are zero historians who will back this up. Zero scientists.

I gave you 3 historians, 2 who have peer-reviewed books supporting mythicism and another who supports historicity and STILL claims that WE (read - EVERYONE) cannot be certain of any narrative in the gospels or the NT canon. We can keep going. We can bring in Price, Pervo, Thompson, Pagles, but Ehrman is the most prolific on NT studies. And he is clear. We. Cannot . Know. What. Actually. Happened.

Your 75% stat is ridiculous. Sounds like you are taking 75 apologists with degrees and 25 historians?

How plain do you need a NT historian to say it? I'm sure I can find Ehrman saying it more plain if you don't get it.
Of course the mythicists believe none of that happened because it's all fiction. We now have 2 sitting professors with peer-reviewed work supporting it. about 20 more are claiming it's probable.

this article sumerices it a survey that was done with thausands of authors who published on the topic
Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?

OMG, you are using Gary Habermas as your source..................and you actually asked me about an honest scholar Bart Ehrman - "And do you claim that Bart is probably correct? Would you affirm that Bart is more likely correct than wrong?"
Seriously, you don't care about what is true. Please don't act like you are interested in who's "probably correct"??
Habermas later recanted the empty tomb from this article after people exposed his flawed methods. I'll print one below.
That was 20 years ago. I guess you don't follow research?

But, even the other "facts" - from another article,
"This methodological problem has implications beyond the empty tomb, too, for all of the six minimal facts mentioned above, as well as any other facts that could be conjured up on the same basis. So whether Dr. Habermas wants to single out 4 facts, 6 facts, 12 facts, or his exceedingly generous 21 facts, the fatal flaw remains present in all cases. Statistical analysis is only as good as your data and the method you use to analyze that data, and a study like the one published by Dr. Habermas in a religious studies journal would not pass in an introductory level Stats class (I say this from experience). Granted, it was probably not Gary’s intent to do a rigorous statistical analysis, but the limitations of this research need to be noted when attempts are made at extrapolating certain trends from it. For more on this specific concern, see Richard Carrier’s article, Innumeracy: A Fault to Fix.



So, the Habermas study is junk.
Gary Habermas Shows Why the ‘Minimal Facts’ of Jesus’ Death Can’t Establish the Resurrection


Carriers analysis below

 

[joelr]

this article sumerices it a survey that was done with thausands of authors who published on the topic
Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?

Habermas and the Devious Trick of Excluding the Middle



’ll ease you into my point by picking a “ra ra” example that atheists easily get behind and usually already are suspicious of: Gary Habermas’s frequent use of “statistics” to make an argument for the resurrection of Jesus from expert consensus, an argument that is then borrowed and regurgitated by mathematically gullible Christian apologists everywhere (up to and including William Lane Craig, when he isn’t lying about whose argument he is using). Atheists are usually already deeply suspicious here, but not usually for the most mathematical reason. So it’s a good, “safe” example.

Habermas claims to have cataloged thousands of articles on the resurrection of Jesus (the number of thousands always changes, presumably because he keeps expanding his database) and found that (roughly; the exact number varies depending on which article you read) 25% of “writers” on the subject of the resurrection of Jesus sided against an empty tomb and 75% “for.” In debates this gets translated into “75% of experts agree there was an empty tomb.” Which is false. And it’s false because of a mathematical mistake in the translation from what he actually said to what gets claimed publicly…a mistake, to my knowledge, Habermas makes no effort to correct, and which I suspect he is happy to encourage (and that’s if we charitably assume he is numerate enough to know it’s a mistake).

The latest article on this that I’ve read (I don’t know if he has published anything more recently on it) is Gary Habermas, “Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection,” in Dialog: A Journal of Theology 45.3 (Fall 2006): 288-97. Notably in that article he no longer says 75%, but from his sample of “2200” articles (which has increased since the 1400 he claimed in an earlier article) he now waffles by saying “70-75%.” But he doesn’t tell us how he calculated that—he doesn’t give any numbers, or name or date any of the items in his sample that are being set in ratio to each other.

Which is usually where atheist critics pounce: Habermas doesn’t release his data (still to this day; even after repeated requests, as some of those requesting it have told me), so his result can’t be evaluated. That makes his claim uncheckable. Which is a perversion of the peer review process. That basically makes this bogus number propaganda, not the outcome of any genuine research methodology. The closest I have ever seen him come to exposing how he gets this result was in his article “Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What Are the Critical Scholars Saying?” in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (June 2005): 135-53.

There it is revealed that it is not 75% “of scholars,” but 75% of writers (regardless of qualifications) who have published articles arguing specifically for or against the empty tomb (he never gives an actual count that I know of). But those who publish on a specific issue do not represent a random sample, but could very well represent a biased sample (the more so when you include authors with no relevant qualifications), and so there is no way to assess the actual percentage of relevant scholars in the field who share those published conclusions. You would need a scientifically controlled randomized poll of verified experts. He hasn’t done that. And he shows no interest in ever doing it (despite having plenty of well-funded Christian institutes and universities he could appeal to for financing such a relatively simple project).
But my interest here is to get you to think of this mathematically. So even for that common rebuttal, look at it as a mathematician.

Suppose 75% of qualified experts in relevant fields (e.g. biblical studies, ancient history) actually reject the historicity of the empty tomb, and then those eager to oppose what was actually a general consensus against an empty tomb feel more motivated to submit those defenses for publication—especially given the readiness with which such defenses would be accepted by the plethora of religious journals. The result would be Habermas’s observed ratio of 75% in favor, yet it would be exactly the opposite of the actual consensus on the issue (which would be 75% against).

Compare someone who wanted to defend the existence of Atlantis: they would have a much harder time finding a kind reception—there are not dozens of pro-Atlantean journals out there, much less hundreds of Atlantis believers in the ranks of the academic elite—and yet even then I would not be surprised to find there were more articles in print defending Atlantis than attacking it, simply because those who don’t believe in it don’t think it worth their time to debunk, or regard one or two good debunking articles as sufficient to close the case. Only ardently denialist believers see the continual writing of such papers as worthwhile, precisely because the majority remains set against them no matter how many papers keep getting written, so they keep writing them—in frustration.

That’s just one way the sample could be biased. There are many others.

Therefore, even just on this fact alone, Habermas’s 75% statistic is completely useless. It tells us nothing about what a polled consensus of qualified experts actually is on the historicity of the empty tomb. Nothing. The rule to take away here is to always ask what is actually being counted in any statistic.

It’s only worse that Habermas counted even non-experts in his paper survey. Some of the names he does reveal in the JSHJ article as among those he counted are not qualified to derive reliable independent conclusions on a question of ancient history, like Richard Swinburne (who has zero qualifications in the study of ancient history and is only trained in modern philosophy and theology, and even then only fifty years ago). Hence Habermas’s “study” did not distinguish, say, professors of ancient history from professors of philosophy who can’t even read Greek—or even, so far as we know, distinguishing them from entirely unaccredited Christian apologists (since Habermas does not release his data, it cannot be ascertained how many of the thousands of articles he is including were written by completely unqualified Christian missionaries and the like). In short, he used no evident standard of qualification: every author was counted as equal to every other. That obviously biases the sample heavily toward Christian believers, and not objective, well-trained experts.

Another common objection atheists will raise is that even his own numbers destroy Habermas’s argument. If we granted him the benefit of the doubt (even though we now know we shouldn’t) and assume he is only counting qualified experts, his own math tells us that 25-30% of qualified experts reject the historicity of the empty tomb. That is by definition the absence of a consensus. That shows quite clearly a huge divide in the expert community, one that is suspiciously close to the ratio between professed Christians and non-Christians in that same community (a big red flag for ideological bias). So we cannot say the expert consensus supports the “fact” of an empty tomb. Even using Habermas’s own math.

This is an important point, because this is another common mathematical error: ignoring the outliers. Jumping from “70-75%” to “most” is a trick designed to make you think that “most” means 95% or something, when really a huge number (from a quarter to almost a third) disagree. We want to know why. And thinking about the math compels you to ask why. And how many. Hence always ask about the outliers in any statistic: how many people are not in agreement with what is being claimed to be the “majority” or the “norm,” and why.

A third point, one a bit rarer to hear because atheists debating this point often don’t check, is to look at not just what and who is being counted, but its relative value. Some random Christian hack arguing for the empty tomb with arguments even Habermas agrees are bogus, should not be allowed to count at all. Yet Habermas makes no distinction for quality or merit of argumentation. Which destroys the whole point of trying to ascertain (much less argue from) an expert consensus. If the consensus you are polling is based on obviously false claims and invalid methodologies, then that consensus is not worth anything. At all. (I show this is pretty much the case for the historicity of Jesus in chapter one of Proving History.)

So it is very telling that Habermas says (in his article for JSHJ) that “most” of the scholars he counted on the pro side of the empty tomb debate “hold that the Gospels probably would not have dubbed [women] as the chief witnesses unless they actually did attest to this event,” which apart from being incorrect (not a single Gospel identifies any woman as its source, much less “chief” source—we merely “presume” this because the story puts them there, but that becomes a circular argument, as all the Gospels after Mark have men verify the fact, while Mark says no one even reported the fact, not even the women!), is also based on incorrect claims about the ancient world (women’s testimony was fully trusted—as even Habermas admits in the very same paragraph! See my complete discussion of this point in chapter eleven of Not the Impossible Faith). If even Habermas admits “most” of his 75% are relying on an invalid argument, then even if the count really were 75%, it’s still wholly invalid, because “most” of those scholars are thereby in fact wrong—by Habermas’s own inadvertent admission, no less. Thus he shouldn’t be counting them in defense of the fact. Yet he does! And every other Christian apologist aping him just does the same, not even realizing what a total cock-up this is.

And yet none of that is even the most damning.

Here is where my point about numeracy really kicks in. More egregious than all those other faults I’ve already mentioned, Habermas’s study only counted people who specifically wrote articles on the empty tomb pro or con. You might not immediately see what’s mathematically wrong with that. But when you start seeing everything mathematically, you will see the mistake right away. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[joelr]

this article sumerices it a survey that was done with thausands of authors who published on the topic
Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?

Habermas cheats, p2:

In any poll counting opinions or conclusions, those who say yay and those who say nay almost never constitute the entire sample polled. In fact, quite frequently, the majority—sometimes even the vast majority—say neither. That’s right. Habermas’s “study” did not count agnostics, people who believe the evidence currently leaves the question undecided, or who haven’t exhaustively checked both sides of the debate and thus personally admit they don’t know, or those who even claim it can’t be known on present evidence whether there really was an empty tomb. And yet in my personal experience these three categories actually define most scholars with Ph.D.’s in relevant fields. For every article “against” an empty-tomb counted in Habermas’s study I’m certain we can find at least two agnostics (and probably more), so even from Habermas’s own math I can be confident at least 50% of qualified experts do not believe there was an empty tomb—because they either believe there wasn’t one or do not believe it to be known one way or the other.

Just do the math. If Habermas counts 3 writers pro and 1 writer con (for 75% against 25%, his most favorable statistic, which he waffled on later), and if for every writer con we can find at least 2 qualified experts who have never and would never publish on the matter because they deem it an unknowable question, then the ratio will be 3 pro and 3 non-pro (1 + 2 = 3). Notice how non-pro is a very different thing than counting just those arguing con. Yet the law of excluded middle requires us to count all the people in that middle category (the “I don’t knows”). Habermas tries to hide them by only counting the tail ends of the spectrum (the ones arguing pro and the ones arguing con, hoping you don’t notice the huge number of experts he just excluded by that false dichotomy). But when we bring them back in, we start to see the expert community might actually be at least evenly divided on the question (because with agnostics estimated in, it’s more likely going to be closer to 50/50), and given the previous problems already noted (which entail his 75% is probably already hugely inflated), it starts to look like the majority consensus of experts is not in favor of the historicity of the empty tomb.

Just do the math again: if really the expert community has as many experts in each category as in every other (as many who argue pro as who argue con, and just as many who conclude it can’t be known either way on present evidence), then only 33% of the expert community believes the empty tomb is a fact (1:1:1 = 33% pro : 33% con : 33% agnostic). And I’ll bet the number is even lower than that. Because I’m personally fairly certain the agnostics are a far larger proportion of the expert community than either the pros or the cons (certainly when we limit our polling only to experts with relevant qualifications, as we should). Given that I am certain we can find at least two agnostics for every expert who argues con, I expect it’s really closer to 1:1:2, which is 25% pro : 25% con : 50% agnostic. Which would mean 75% don’t conclude there was an empty tomb, the exact opposite of Habermas’s claim. And this, even from his own numbers, and obvious facts he omits, and despite the fact that even experts in this area are majority Christian!

But it gets worse. Because Habermas admits “most” of the arguers pro rely on what even he agrees is an invalid argument, that means more than 50% of those counted in the pro column (“most”) should be eliminated from it (because “most” entails “more than half”). So if we had 3 pro and 3 con and 3 agnostic, now we have to subtract 1.5 from the pro count. Possibly we’d have to reduce the other columns, but we can’t know from anything Habermas has said, and he hasn’t released his data, so all we know for certain is that more than half of those arguing pro must be discounted, by his own inadvertent admission. And that leaves us with 1.5:3:3, which is the same proportion as 3:6:6, which divides the total community into fifteen portions (3 + 6 + 6 = 15), of which less than 20% is occupied by experts who believe there was an empty tomb (1/15 = 0.0667; 0.0667 x 3 = 0.20). Or if we use that more realistic proportion of 1:1:2 I just showed is not unlikely (twice as many agnostics as argue either pro or con), and then cut the first in half, we get 0.5:1:2, which is the same as 2:4:8, which divides the sample into fourteen (2 + 4 + 8 = 14), of which less than 15% is occupied by experts who believe there was an empty tomb (1/14 = 0.0714; 0.0714 x 2 = 0.143). And that’s still before we remove non-expert opinions from his totals, which very likely will drop that percentage even further. But even without that, already a mere 15% approval of the empty tomb’s historicity is getting suspiciously near the proportion of hard-core Biblical inerrantists in the expert community. Now we’re staring at a huge red flag for bias. In any event, a definite minority; because by these estimates, four times more experts do not believe the empty tomb is an established fact as do…or even six times more (if the pros make up 15% instead of 20%).

It’s not looking good for the empty tomb. And all because we can do a little math.

And that’s using nothing more than Habermas’s own numbers, which are already inflated and bogus, plus just a few undeniable likelihoods he tries to conceal from his own arithmetic.

So really, even based on the bogus data Habermas himself presents in defense of the claim that “most experts believe there was an empty tomb,” we can conclude it’s far more probable that most experts do not believe there was an empty tomb—either being certain there wasn’t, or admitting they don’t know.dropped this claim about the empty tomb. It’s no longer something he insists most scholars believe. So much for that.

 

[leroy]

Ehrman explained he went to the sources, copies of the remains of Roman documents and spent time researching what the practices and procedures were for crucifixion. The last 4 years of getting a PhD in history is learning how to vette and properly source historical documents. So he is far more qualified to do this research project than a non-historian.

"
Here I’ll continue my thread on topics that I changed my mind about or came to see in doing my research for How Jesus Became God. One of the most important things I changed my mind about was the idea that Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty three days after his death.

When I was a Christian, of course I thought that was the case. But even when I had become an agnostic I thought it was probably a historical tradition: it’s found in all four Gospels, for example, and the fact that the stories indicate precisely it was *women* who found the tomb did not seem like something Christians would want to make up. (And so, as an agnostic, I had to come up with alternative explanations for why the tomb was empty. But…)

I changed my mind. Most of my change came from my investigation of Roman practices of crucifixion. As it turns out, standard policy appears to have been to have left the bodies of corpses on the crosses to decompose, as part of their punishment. Decent burials were not allowed. I go into this matter at length in the book – at greater length than I want to excerpt here. But I can excerpt my new reflections on whether it is conceivable that any Christian story-tellers would invent the tradition that women found the tomb empty. Here is what I say about that:"
.

Tombs of crucified people have been found. This proves that atleast sometimes romans made exceptions and allowed crucified people to be burried.

From the point of view of the Roman Empire Jesus didn't do anything wrong so it's likely that the romans would have made an exception with Jesus.

 

[Sheldon]

If someone is going to claim that the empty tomb (or any other of the 5 facts) is an unsupported rumor

There is a scholarly consensus that Jesus existed and was crucified, the rest is unsubstantiated, Paul neither met nor knew Jesus, and the authorships of the gospels is unknown, the earliest written account of the resurrection we have is 2 to 3 decades after the fact, from second or third hand through Paul that is the very definition of hearsay. Your 5 claims are not facts, and it is a lie to claim there is a scholarly consensus they are.

 

[Sheldon]

But your extencive answers dont expalin if you accept or deny those facts ...

I said expansive, and of course they do to any half way literate person, again your execrable command of language, and inability to reason beyond the trivially facile is your problem, not mine. I gave very detailed specific answers go read them or don't, but your content and dishonest misrepresentation of my response won't convince me to make the sweeping facile yes or no responses you want to created gotcha moment from a false dichotomy.

your extensive answers have been responded, for example the claim that the empty tomb and the post mortem appearances is hearsay is refuted by the fact that multiple independent sources confirm this claim.

Expansive not extensive, and it's pretty clear you haven't even understood them, judging from your facile responses. There are no independent sources, the sources you have are all from the bible, and largely from unknown authors dated decades after the fact, thus hearsay by definition. Again, since you keep mispresenting this, there is a scholarly consensus only for an historical Jesus and the crucifixion. but even these are not known to a high degree of certainty, which was what you claimed.

It´s unlikely (nearly impossible) for 2 or more independent authors to invent the exact same rumor independently.

Not one word was written until decades after the fact, the gospel authors are unknown, and since you can't independently corroborate anything beyond an historical Jesus and the crucifixion, which is all there is a scholarly consensus for. No matter how often you repeat his spurious assertion.

The fact that you ignore this reply strongly suggest that you don’t have an answer.

I haven't ignored it, what a spectacularly stupid claim, since anyone can go back and read multiple responses I have made to this duplicitous claim you keep repeating.

 

[Sheldon]

We know natural phenomena are possible, we have no objective evidence that anything supernatural is possible, thus your claim that a supernatural resurrection is "the most probable explanation" is demonstrably false.

No the conclusion “it´s demonstrably false” doesn’t follow from your premises. // you have to elaborate an argument and explain why is it demonstrably false

If something has never been evidenced as possible how can it be more probable, than anything we know is possible? If you need that explained to you, then I'm not sure I can dumb it down anymore. You claims was demonstrably false, leaving that aside it was a subjective unevidenced claim, that a supernatural event was more probable than an unknown natural event. It is for you to evidence that claim, which of course you haven't a hope of doing, hence your histrionics and dishonest attacks on my response.

o wait you don’t elaborate arguments because you are just a fanatic atheists that is not interested in a rational conversation

Petty ad hominem is not a rational response, so yet again you have unintentionally broken my irony meter.

 

[Sheldon]

Paul's sources are conjecture, and there is not a scholarly consensus on the source of any non Pauline material.

Well yes, but you make it seems as if it where something “bad”

You think basing arguments and beliefs on unevidenced conjecture, received as second hand hearsay is a good idea? Can't say I agree.

You are adding extra and extra word (in red)

It is not “unevidenced conjecture” the evidence has been provided and ignored

What you offered was not sufficient or objective evidence, but subjective opinion, citing one religious website, and when I asked you to corroborate it, you did not.

NEWSFLASH for you, disbelieving something is not ignoring it. What's more i and others offered definitive and expansive arguments for disbelieving the subjective opinions you cited.

There is a scholarly consensus for a historical Jesus, and for the crucifixion, but this is not known to a high degree of certainty as you claimed, and there is no scholarly consensus for your other claims you keep labelling as facts. A fact is a claim to knowledge, it cannot be based merely on second hand hearsay.

 

[Sheldon]

leroy said: ↑
That is a strawman, I said that most scholars accept those 5 facts, not that they accept the resurrection.
1 jesus was crucified

2 jesus was buried

3 the tomb was found emty

Only the first claim is accepted as likely true, by a scholarly consensus. The second is hearsay, but it would be a trivial fact anyway, and the third is again hearsay, and again would not represent rational evidence for any supernatural event, why would it?

 

[Sheldon]

Tombs of crucified people have been found. This proves that atleast sometimes romans made exceptions and allowed crucified people to be burried.

From the point of view of the Roman Empire Jesus didn't do anything wrong so it's likely that the romans would have made an exception with Jesus.

This is pure conjecture, and more importantly you are backtracking from your claim the empty tomb is a fact accepted by scholars, so fast you're going to trip over one of your other superiors claims you keep labelling incorrectly as facts. I'm starting to wonder if you know what the word means, but here's a tip, any claim to knowledge must necessarily involve being able to share and explain it, and cannot be based solely on second hand hearsay written millennia ago, and decades after the alleged event.

 

[PureX]

Only the first claim is accepted as likely true, by a scholarly consensus. The second is hearsay, but it would be a trivial fact anyway, and the third is again hearsay, and again would not represent rational evidence for any supernatural event, why would it?

Well, of course it is 'evidence', whether you agree that it stands as support for the claim based on it, or not. It's just not conclusive evidence. In fact, it's pretty weak evidence given the EXTRAORDINARY nature of the claim being based on it. I, personally, would not accept such evidence as a reason to accept the claim being based on it. Though, undoubtably, some will.

 

[PureX]

Tombs of crucified people have been found. This proves that atleast sometimes romans made exceptions and allowed crucified people to be burried.

From the point of view of the Roman Empire Jesus didn't do anything wrong so it's likely that the romans would have made an exception with Jesus.

To be honest, I doubt they would have cared. If they'd thought about it at all, I suspect they would have preferred he stayed dead, and entoumbed.

 

[Sheldon]

One of the awesome things is that these 5 facts don’t rely solely on the gospels………..So even if you dismiss the gospels as “just legends” these facts would still stand

They're not all facts.

the concensus amoung scholars is that these 5 facts are true,

No it isn't.

the emty tomb is supported by 75% of scholars and the rest by virtually all of them.

So most people writing about the resurrection that author studied, the majority of whom are theologians, claim it is a historical fact there was an empty tomb, again this gets a massive so what?

this article sumerices it a survey that was done with thausands of authors who published on the topic
Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?

It will be lost on you, but that author is so obviously biased it leaps out at any remotely objective reader. Christian author in defending Christian beliefs non-shocker.

 

[joelr]

Tombs of crucified people have been found. This proves that atleast sometimes romans made exceptions and allowed crucified people to be burried.

From the point of view of the Roman Empire Jesus didn't do anything wrong so it's likely that the romans would have made an exception with Jesus.

No, no, they did take people down after about 1 week. Eventually they would be put into a tomb. But the narrative of the story does not fit real world Roman practices. Which makes sense because the story is fiction. The crucifixion narrative isn't even original?
-
Only a few verses later, we read about the rest of the crucifixion narrative and find a link (a literary source) with the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament (OT):

Mark 15.24: “They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.”

Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.”

Mark 15.29-31: “And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘…Save yourself…’ and mocked him, saying ‘He who saved others cannot save himself!’ ”

Psalm 22.7-8: “All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying ‘He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes.’ ”

Mark 15.34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Psalm 22.1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

On top of these links, Mark also appears to have used Psalm 69, Amos 8.9, and some elements of Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9-14, and Wisdom 2 as sources for his narratives. So we can see yet a few more elements of myth in the latter part of this Gospel, with Mark using other scriptural sources as needed for his story, whether to “fulfill” what he believed to be prophecy or for some other reason.



According to this Christian scholar you are wrong, if this part of the story was true the Romans considered Jesus a criminal.
Special pleading/apologetics already?

Why the Romans Crucified Jesusby Harold W. Attridge
"Jesus was probably crucified by the Roman authorities, who were governing Israel-Palestine at the time, because he was perceived as a political threat. Someone who causes a ruckus in the Temple, the major focal point of Jewish life and a symbol of Jewish national independence, someone who causes a ruckus there was going to get the attention of the authorities.

I think that Pilate, from all that we know about him from other sources, such as Josephus, a Jewish historian writing about the period, probably was a fairly ruthless and efficient administrator and would not tolerate the outbreak of resistance to Rome and his territory.

 

[leroy]

No, no, they did take people down after about 1 week. Eventually they would be put into a tomb.

That is funny, care to provide an example from any person in history who was crucified, left in the cross for 1 week and then buried in a tomb?

But anyway that wouldn’t contradict the fact that Jesus Died and was buried,

But the narrative of the story does not fit real world Roman practices. Which makes sense because the story is fiction. The crucifixion narrative isn't even original?
-
Only a few verses later, we read about the rest of the crucifixion narrative and find a link (a literary source) with the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament (OT):

Mark 15.24: “They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.”

Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.”

Mark 15.29-31: “And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘…Save yourself…’ and mocked him, saying ‘He who saved others cannot save himself!’ ”

Psalm 22.7-8: “All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying ‘He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes.’ ”

Mark 15.34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Psalm 22.1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

On top of these links, Mark also appears to have used Psalm 69, Amos 8.9, and some elements of Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9-14, and Wisdom 2 as sources for his narratives. So we can see yet a few more elements of myth in the latter part of this Gospel, with Mark using other scriptural sources as needed for his story, whether to “fulfill” what he believed to be prophecy or for some other reason.



According to this Christian scholar you are wrong, if this part of the story was true the Romans considered Jesus a criminal.
Special pleading/apologetics already?

Why the Romans Crucified Jesusby Harold W. Attridge
"Jesus was probably crucified by the Roman authorities, who were governing Israel-Palestine at the time, because he was perceived as a political threat. Someone who causes a ruckus in the Temple, the major focal point of Jewish life and a symbol of Jewish national independence, someone who causes a ruckus there was going to get the attention of the authorities.

I think that Pilate, from all that we know about him from other sources, such as Josephus, a Jewish historian writing about the period, probably was a fairly ruthless and efficient administrator and would not tolerate the outbreak of resistance to Rome and his territory.

Ok ok maybe, but that is a whole different objection, we are dealing with Bart Ehrmans objection

1 claim: romans didn’t allowed the burial of crucified people

2 reply, yes sometimes they did made exceptions we know this because crucified people have been found in tombs / Given that Jesus didn’t committed any serious crime , he was likely to be considered an exception.



So do you agree that the claim has been properly replied?

Someone who causes a ruckus in the Temple, the major focal point of Jewish life and a symbol of Jewish national independence, someone who causes a ruckus there was going to get the attention of the authorities.

That’s my point, from the point of view of the romans causing a runckus in a Jews temple was not a big of a deal (Romans didn’t care about Jewish symbols.)

It was not a serious crime and therefore it´s likely that the romans would have made an exception and allow for the proper burial of Jesus