Burden of Proof is on Atheists

[leroy]

]Whereas I, and several others have offered hypothetical explanations that are all possible, ipso facto they are more probable.

@Sheldon


That assertion has to be justified/ just kidding nobody is expecting you to justify your claims.

 

[leroy]

I am dealing with your claim that the empty tomb was known to a high degree of certainty, [Q

And the evidence has been provided. For example te fact that multiple independent sources afirm the empty tomb.

When 2 or more independent sources afirm that that an event took place , historians typically consider it a historical fact .... so why are you making an arbitrary exception with the empty tomb? ....

I need make no counter claim, you are again trying to reverse the burden of proof using an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

Avoiding the burden proof at all cost

Why would I accept that, based solely on second and third hand hearsay?

Almost All historical documents are second or third hand sources...... but you dont seem to have a problem with that , you only have a problem when these documents have theological implications that you don't like.

As for hearsay, the burden proof is on you, you are afirming that the empty tomb is hearsay...... , o wait no, i forgot, you dont like to carry the burden proof. It easier to make rabdom and unsupported claims, and then find pathetic excuses to avoid supporting that claim.

 

[leroy]

Hearsay
noun

1. information received from other people which cannot be substantiated; rumour.

I have never deviated from that definition, despite your relentless sophistry on this.

t.

Yes other definitions for hesrsay that you have shared are


1 source from unknown authors

2 source that is not contemporary

3 any second or third hand source.

 

[leroy]

You don't have any independent sources, and the narratives you have are all unevidenced hearsay.
t.

Ok so should i add this to the list of assertions that you are not willing to support. ?


If you claim that the 6 sources are not independent, then it is your burden to explain who copied from who , ..... o wait you font like to support your assertions

 

[leroy]

There is not one source independent of your religion or the bible.

Independent means that the authors didn't copied from each other (nor for a common source)

To claim that Paul and Mark are independent simply means that each has their own sources.......

If you show say that Mark copied from Paul then the sources would no longer be independent.


So can you show that the 6 sources for the empty are not independent? Or are you willing to admit your mistake and accept that atleast some of these sources are independent?

 

[leroy]

Is that a joke? You seriously think you can rationally assert accounts are independent



, when you don't know where they came from?

Yeeees wow i can hardly belive that we are actually debating this.

I'll give you a last chance, do you really afirm that we can't know if 2 sources are independent if they are written by unknown authors? ....please think twice before answering.

there is no account to substantiate the claims outside of the bible or Christian religion.

Yes , so what?

 

[Sheldon]

You are calling people out for sending what you think are random conspiracy. theories yet in the same post your source is WLC? A fundamentalist apologist with no training in history?
Who's been caught telling lies in his lectures?

I know, it's hard not to draw an inference from someone who thinks Lane Crane is a reliable or even remotely objective source, an apologist for biblical genocide as well don't forget.

 

[Sheldon]

Independent means that the authors didn't copied from each other (nor for a common source)

Er no it doesn't. this is another word you may want to learn the definition of, before making sweeping claims using it.

You don't even know who 4 of the gospels were written by, and 3 of them heavily plagiarise parts of the other. However you need to demonstrate a source outside of religion or the bible, before you can claim it to be independent. They are all based on hearsay.

are you willing to admit your mistake and accept that atleast some of these sources are independent?

They're not independent sources, they are hearsay accounts, many of which are of unknown authorship, they were written many decades after the event, and cannot be substantiated. That is why a scholarly consensus exists only for an historical Jesus, and for the crucifixion, because there are independent sources to corroborate this, that's the difference you are determined not to see, out of sheer bias.

 

[Sheldon]

Is that a joke? You seriously think you can rationally assert accounts are independent, when you don't know where they came from? I can't tell if you're joking, but nonetheless there is no account to substantiate the claims outside of the bible or Christian religion.

Yeeees wow i can hardly belive that we are actually debating this.

One would have to be an idiot to believe any text from unknown authors, can be asserted as independent. Is it possible unknown is another word you don't understand?

 

[Sheldon]

there is no account to substantiate the claims outside of the bible or Christian religion.

Yes , so what?

Independent
adjective

1. free from outside control; not subject to another's authority.

Historian use several criteria for critical scrutiny of sources, here are some well known examples:

1. When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
2. Where was it produced (localization)?
3. By whom was it produced (authorship)?
4. From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
5. In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
6. What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?

Anything leaping out at you?

 

[Sheldon]

@Sheldon


That assertion has to be justified/ just kidding nobody is expecting you to justify your claims.

I did justify it, with a rational argument, that unsurprisingly you have omitted here, and to make sure you have omitted the link. I do wonder if you think you can provoke me into an inappropriate response, if you employ relentless dishonesty like this?

If you do then allow me to assure you, it will not. Now if you want me to respond to a quote from one of my posts, reciprocate the courtesy I show you, and include a link to it, it's easy enough, since the quote function includes it automatically.

 

[Sheldon]

And the evidence has been provided. For example te fact that multiple independent sources afirm the empty tomb.

They are not independent, 4 of them are from unknown sources, and even though you think you can make up whatever you want, historians set a very different standard.

When 2 or more independent sources afirm that that an event took place , historians typically consider it a historical fact ....

Which is no doubt, why there is no scholarly consensus for an empty tomb, let alone your ludicrous hyperbole that is "is known to high degree of certainty."

so why are you making an arbitrary exception with the empty tomb? ....

I'm not, you just don't understand what an independent source is, and are being deliberately dishonest in ignoring the fact that there is no scholarly consensus on this and other claims you have made.

There is a scholarly consensus on only two of your claims, for an historical Jesus, and for the crucifixion, part of the reason for this is that there are independent sources outside of the influence of religion and the bible that corroborate these. However even these two are not "known to a high degree of certainty" as you risibly claimed.

 

[Sheldon]

I am dealing with your claim that the empty tomb was known to a high degree of certainty, when in fact it is naught but second and third hand hearsay. I need make no counter claim, you are again trying to reverse the burden of proof using an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

Avoiding the burden proof at all cost

I'm guessing the irony of that rather idiotic assertion is lost on you, si I'll spell this out for you. Epistemologically one should avoid incurring a burden of proof, if one cannot properly support an assertion, you might want to think about that.

Almost All historical documents are second or third hand sources...... but you dont seem to have a problem with that , you only have a problem when these documents have theological implications that you don't like.

I am dealing with your claims, that if you want to assess other historical claims, then I suggest you start a thread for that purpose, rather than resorting to duplicitous claims involving poisoning of the well fallacies.

As for hearsay, the burden proof is on you, you are afirming that the empty tomb is hearsay...... , o wait no, i forgot, you dont like to carry the burden proof.

It easier to make rabdom and unsupported claims, and then find pathetic excuses to avoid supporting that claim.

 

[Sheldon]

Yes other definitions for hesrsay that you have shared are


1 source from unknown authors

2 source that is not contemporary

3 any second or third hand source.

All of those would contribute to a claim being hearsay???

Is English not your first language?

If you're struggling then please do ask, and I will take more time to explain basic word definitions to you. Though to be fair I, and others, have taken great pains to help you already, and it seems to be a wasted effort given your obvious and blind bias, and what appears frankly to be dishonesty here?

Ok I will try again and dumb this right down.

Hearsay
noun

1. information received from other people which cannot be substantiated; rumour.

So both 1 and 2 clearly are "information received from other people", and in the context of your hubristic claims, other than the crucifixion and an historical Jesus, they cannot be substantiated by any independent source, outside of your religion and the bible. Now before I move on, do you understand that simple qualification, or is it still beyond you?

YES or NO?

So dealing with point 3:

A second hand source is obviously "information received from other people", and since again, as scholars agree, your hyperbolic claims (outside of the crucifixion and an historical Jesus, ) that you idiotically insisted are "known to high degree of certainty", cannot be substantiated by any independent sources, outside of religion and the bible, again they are by definition, hearsay. Now are you able understand that simple qualification, or is it still beyond you?

YES or NO?

 

[Sheldon]

Ok so should i add this to the list of assertions that you are not willing to support. ?

I have supported all my assertions? You do know what assertions means right, and support? Only your claims seem to be more and more bizarrely dishonest here?

If you claim that the 6 sources are not independent, then it is your burden to explain who copied from who , ..... o wait you font like to support your assertions

None of them are independent of religion or the bible yes. So in terms of basic word definitions they are not independent, in terms of historical analysis they fall woefully short.

Maybe if you look up the definition of independent in the dictionary, then it would be a good learning starting point for you? If it helps I quoted it above, and you can of course Google word definitions yourself, only you seem to be making assertions from an erroneous subjective idea you have of what it means?

Maybe if you can learn this much, and then go and look at critical analysis of sources that credible historians use?

For example, four of your "sources" are fictional names, assigned by early Christians (see non independent bias) at the first Council of Nicaea over 3 centuries after the alleged events they depict.

 

[KWED]

I know, it's hard not to draw an inference from someone who thinks Lane Crane is a reliable or even remotely objective source, an apologist for biblical genocide as well don't forget.

Indeed. I remember him saying that our sympathy should actually lie with the Israelite soldiers who had to carry out the massacre of the Canaanite children, rather than the victims themselves.

What a c**t!

 

[joelr]

I know, it's hard not to draw an inference from someone who thinks Lane Crane is a reliable or even remotely objective source, an apologist for biblical genocide as well don't forget.

WLCs debates on the cosmological arguments have been debunked by Sean Caroll and other physicists. He has a real snake oil vibe as well. Yes, terrible source.

 

[joelr]

And the evidence has been provided. For example te fact that multiple independent sources afirm the empty tomb.

When 2 or more independent sources afirm that that an event took place , historians typically consider it a historical fact .... so why are you making an arbitrary exception with the empty tomb? ....

we can just keep going.
To sum it up,
Mark is the source. Q/M is no longer considered to have good evidence backing it up.
The consensus is at least Matthew and Luke sourced Mark:

Synoptic problem
The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke bear a striking resemblance to each other, so much so that their contents can easily be set side by side in parallel columns. The fact that they share so much material verbatim....
It is widely accepted that this was the first gospel (Marcan Priority) and was used as a source by both Matthew and Luke, who agree with each other in their sequence of stories and events only when they also agree with Mark.[22] - Wiki page on gospels

Current Johannine scholarship agrees that the Biblical version of John is the 3rd redaction. So several authors made changes, so they could have attempted to harmonize the gospels. This is not Dr Carriers specialty but he mentions the current experts opinion at 2:30

However he feels even John is a redaction of Mark, I sourced the quote earlier.

So you just have Mark. And some apologists who are massively bias and want this to be a real magical religion with multiple sources. The facts do not support that. Even the empty tomb is clearly mythology.
The latest peer-reviewed scholarship on Q and M have demonstrated too many faults in the logic and determined Mark is the only source.
The Case Against Q: A Synoptic Problem Web Site by Mark Goodacre

But even if the myths were developed before Paul and contained a story that included an empty tomb and that story spread around and ended up at several sources, why would that make it historical?
If any of the other 6 savior demigod myths were spread around and several people wrote them down and each source was used to create a gospel would that make them historical?
Hellenistic magical demigods ARE MYTHS. They have all been myths and coming from one source or 20, they are still myths. Any of the other 10,000 religious tales may have had multiple sources and multiple versions of the same event written down, yet none of it is historical.
The Church underwent a MASSIVE campain over many centuries to convince people and to erase doubt and any counter-information. It's still not real.

 

[joelr]

And the evidence has been provided. .

The Psalmic Origins
Crucial to any account of the Gospel would be elucidation of the idea that Christ was raised on the third day after his burial, as scripture required (1 Corinthians 15:4). Many Jews held a belief that “until three days” after death “the soul keeps on returning to the grave, thinking it will go back” into the body, “but when it sees the facial features have become disfigured, it departs and abandons it” (Midrash Rabbah Genesis 100:7, based on Job 14:20-22). This is corroborated by the oft-repeated principle that the identity of a corpse could only be legally established by the corpse’s “countenance” within three days, after which it became too disfigured to be identified (Mishnah, Yebamot 16:3a-e), the law declaring “you cannot testify” to the identity of a corpse “save by the facial features together with the nose, even if there are marks of identification in his body and garments” after three days, emphasizing, “again, you can testify only within three days” of someone’s death.

Both facts were explicitly connected in a Midrash on Leviticus:

For three days the soul hovers over the body, intending to re-enter it, but as soon as it sees its appearance change, it departs, as it is written, “When his flesh that is on him is distorted, his soul will mourn over him” … [So] the full force of mourning lasts for three days. Why? Because the shape of the face is recognizable, even as we have learnt in the Mishnah: Evidence is admissible only in respect of the full face, with the nose, and only within three days.

MIDRASH RABBAH LEVITICUS, 18:1
This third-day motif was certainly widespread, and may be very ancient. In Jewish tradition it could lie behind the prophecy of Hosea 6:2 that “He will revive us after two days, He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before him.” The Jewish belief that corruption sets in on the third day might even have entailed the savior’s resurrection then, to fulfill Psalms 16:9-11 that the savior’s body would not see corruption. Other possible origins of the idea include Jonah 1:17 and 2 Kings 20:5. The covenantal use of the third day motif in Exodus 19:11, 15, and 16 is also an inviting possibility, as is the story in 2 Kings 2, where, after his ascension men search for Elijah for three days and don’t find him (2:17).

The same idea was popular long before Judaism. The first recorded myth of a crucified and resurrected deity, that of the Sumerian goddess Innana, relates that after her naked, murdered corpse is nailed up, her minions come to feed her the food and water of life and she is raised back to life “after three days.” Many pagan legends of resurrection feature rising “on the third day,” including that of Aridaeus, Timarchus, and Rufus of Philippi (Not the Impossible, p. 122 nn. 17-18). Parallels with then-contemporary Osiris cult are curiously strong, too, though I see no need for so precise a connection. Among the links: Osiris was sealed in a casket (equivalent to a tomb) by seventy-two conspirators, while the Sanhedrin who condemned Christ consisted of seventy-one men, and Judas makes seventy-two; Osiris was then resurrected on the third day, and died during a full moon, just like Christ (Passover occurs during the full moon). I don’t know what to make of this, though it does seem an improbable coincidence (see Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 39 and 42, where Osiris is buried on the 17th of Athyr, the concluding day of the full moon, and raised on the 19th, two days later—thus three days inclusively, just like Jesus.

Whatever the case, Paul’s conviction in 1 Corinthians 15:4 that Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the scriptures” must derive from some Old Testament passage, even if it was also developed (then or by Mark) in conjunction with Jewish or Pagan ideology. However, in choosing how to illuminate this motif in his parable of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, Mark drew upon the Psalms. He consciously modeled his crucifixion narrative on Psalm 22, adapting phrases directly from the Septuagint text thereof (as countless scholars have long noted), including Christ’s cry on the cross, the taunts of the onlookers, and the dividing of garments by casting of lots. Crucifixion also calls up that Psalm’s image of the messiah’s pierced hands and feet. This begins a logical three-day cycle of psalms: Psalm 22 marks the first day (the crucifixion), Psalm 23 the next (the Sabbath, during which Christ’s body rests in the grave), and then Psalm 24 predicts and informs the resurrection on Sunday, the third day.

The middle one, Psalm 23, corresponding to the Sabbath, the day of rest, is the Funeral Psalm (“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”) and thus represents Christ’s sojourn in the realm of the dead. That Psalm also concludes with what can be taken to be a prediction of a Pauline resurrection: “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” just as Psalm 22 concludes with a prediction of salvation for those who believe in the Christ.

Then Psalm 24 proclaims God’s Lordship over the universe and anticipates a new era, which a Christian would understand began with Christ’s resurrection and ascension to heaven. As the Psalm proclaims, “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?” And with what imagery is this signaled? “Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O ancient gates, That the King of glory may come in!” So what might be the gates that open up in Mark? The “stone” that “had been rolled away, although it was extremely large,” a symbol of the barrier of death, which Christ has finally broken through. So the gates of the land of the dead have opened for him, proving that he has “ascended to the Lord’s hill.” Hence the empty tomb signifies not only the conquest of death, but Christ’s ascension—and the fact that he is the Christ.

That Mark is drawing on Psalm 24 for his empty tomb narrative is indicated by the very same method employed for Psalm 22: he adapts and inserts a peculiar phrase from the Septuagint (or Greek) version of the Psalm. Breaking with the Pauline phrase “on the third day” that most characterizes the Gospel, Mark instead employs the strange Hebraic formula “on the first from the Sabbaths” (mia tôn sabbatôn) meaning “on the first day of the week,” i.e. the first day after each Sabbath (Mark 16:2). This phrase appears in only one place in the entire Old Testament in Greek: Psalm 24, in the title verse, “A Psalm for David during the First Day of the Week” (tês mias sabbatôn; this heading is not present in the Hebrew from which modern English translations derive; also note the Psalms are numbered differently in the Septuagint, these being Psalms 21, 22, and 23 there, but I will continue using the standard numbers). The obvious narrative role of Psalms 22 and 23 for Mark, combined with this peculiar phrase as an overt marker, confirms that he is calling the reader to reflect on Psalm 24 and to ‘interpret’ his empty tomb narrative in light of it. And in so doing, we see the tomb as a symbol of the gates of death that Christ has flung open.

Mark also calls upon other biblical parallels to illuminate the secret meaning of the narrative. I list several in my discussion of this in The Empty Tomb. But most prominently among them, when Mark has the women say “who will roll away the stone…?” he copies a Septuagint phrase from the Genesis narrative of Jacob’s fathering of the twelve tribes of Israel through two women (Mark 16:3, apokylisei…ton lithon; Genesis 29:8, apokylisôsin ton lithon), which, like Mark, contains a reversal of expectation theme, leads to the foundation of a new Israel (the twelve tribes prefiguring the twelve disciples), and involves the visit of a woman, in that case bringing in the sheep to be watered from the well, the parallel to Christ’s tomb, whose opening also brings the water of life to the faithful. Psalm 24 also links us to this very narrative and its meaning, through its prominent mention of Jacob and his nation (in Psalm 24:6).

 

[joelr]

And the evidence has been provided.

Thus, just as the empty tomb served for Matthew to evoke Daniel in the Lion’s Den (as I demonstrated in my chapter on the theft legend in The Empty Tomb and later summarized in Proving History), so here, for Mark, it evokes Jacob’s watering of the sheep and the founding of Israel. But there is an even more telling mythic connection here in result. Jewish legend held that ‘Mary’s Well’ (a reference to Mary, meaning Miriam/Mariam, the sister of Moses) was the rock that gave birth to the flow of water after Moses struck it with his staff. Paul equated Jesus with that very rock (1 Corinthians 10.1-4). But if Jesus were instead equated with the water that flowed from it (the water of life), the rock would then become his mother. Thus ‘Mary’s well’ would have been Jesus’ mother in Paul’s conceptual scheme.

In the legend, ‘Miriam’s Well’ (the name Miriam and Mary are identical in the Greek) not only traveled with the Jews, but finally settled in the Sea of Galilee, where it healed the sick (the evidence is catalogued by Joan Taylor in Jewish Women Philosophers, pp. 335-36). Paul’s contemporary, the Jewish theologian Philo, equated that same rock with the celestial being named Wisdom (e.g. in his Life of Moses and On Flight and Finding), which was then considered the feminine dimension of God (Taylor, p. 336, who notes that “Miriam is thus associated with an everlasting well which will never dry up,” a legend ripe to be paralleled with the mothering of Jesus). The fact that ‘Mary’s Well’ also had symbolic parallels to ‘Jacob’s Well’ which Mark is thus linking Jesus’s death to, both his birth and his death are associated with life-giving wells. The symbolic achievement is elegant, and foregoes any need of this being historically factual.

But why did Mark choose to say “the first day,” why Psalm 24? Besides the handy alignment of the three psalms with the three days of Christ’s death, sojourn, and resurrection, and besides the rich meaning that can be drawn from the text, brilliantly illuminating the Christian concept of salvation, the ‘first day’ also represents the day of circumcision, and through faith in Christ’s resurrection the believer is spiritually circumcised, a prominent theme in Paul (e.g. Philippians 3:3-5; Romans 2:28-29; and in Pseudo-Paul, Colossians 2:11), and we know Mark loves to adapt his ideas from Paul. But even more importantly, this represents the first day of the New Creation, a fundamental symbol in early Christian eschatology, as we see not only already in Paul (e.g. 2 Corinthians 5:17, specifically in connection with resurrection; and Galatians 6:15, specifically in connection with circumcision) but also in the later texts of Barnabas 15 and Justin Martyr’s Apology 1.67, Colossians 1:15-18, 2 Peter 3:13, and so on.

Thus, by inventing an empty tomb, Mark can exploit all these layers of meaning through his allusions to the Psalms, and convey deep truths about the Gospel. This is mythmaking. Not history.