Jesus story 'gets it 97% right' (According to Oxford Professor)

The Age ^ | July 19, 2005 | Barney Zwartz

[nickcarraway]

It is 97 per cent certain that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead - based on sheer logic and mathematics, not faith - according to Oxford professor Richard Swinburne.

"New Testament scholars say the only evidence is witnesses in the four gospels. That's only 5 per cent of the evidence," Professor Swinburne, one of the world's leading philosophers of religion, said last night.

"We can't judge the question of the resurrection unless we ask first whether there's reason to suppose there is a God, second if we have reason to suppose he would become incarnate and third, if he did, whether he would live the sort of life Jesus did."

Professor Swinburne, in Melbourne to give several seminars and a public lecture at the Australian Catholic University last night, said the mathematics showed a probability of 97 per cent.

This conclusion was reached after a complex series of calculations. In simplified terms, it began with a single proposition: the probability was one in two that God exists.

Next, if God exists, the probability was one in two that he became incarnate. Further, there was a one in 10 probability that the gospels would report the life and resurrection of Jesus in the form they do.

Advertisement AdvertisementFinally, the clincher: the probability that we would have all this evidence if it wasn't true was one in 1000.

He argued that any evidence for the existence of God was an argument for the resurrection, and any evidence against the existence of God was an argument against the resurrection.

"Does he have reason to become incarnate? Yes, to make atonement, identify with our suffering and to teach us things, " Professor Swinburne said.

Even Jesus' life is not enough proof, he said. God's signature was needed, which the resurrection was, showing his approval of Jesus' teaching.

The mathematical equations appear in the professor's book, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (OUP, 2003).

[thoughtomator]

Garbage in, garbage out.

[Rodney King]

This conclusion was reached after a complex series of calculations

They are not complex at all.

[traviskicks]

What a joke. Reminds me of when a bunch of pysicists calculated that there was a .001% (or some such number) that their particile accelerator experiments would create a 'tear in matter' and end the universe. lol!

[Physicist]

In simplified terms, it began with a single proposition: the probability was one in two that God exists.

The difference is that the physicists could quantitatively back their numbers up.

Try telling a pantheist that there's a 50% probability that God exists.

[Moral Hazard]

Is there a problem if the probability of the Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, Persians, American Indian, Aztec, Inca, etc being correct total more than 100%?

[Moral Hazard]

So what peer-reviewed journal will we be seeing these calculations in anyway?

[DameAutour]

The bogusity rating is high.

[WorkingClassFilth]

This is real nice and all, but I see it as more of the modern syndrome of the need for expert confirmation in personal matters that seems to be afflicting so many people. Who cares what "experts" think about anything outside of their narrow expertise and laboratory data. Like all of the Hollywood dolts, a lot of academics think they're qualified to weigh in on all sort of life's fundamental matters.

I've got a science news flash: 100% of all scientists, academics and experts are just as screwed up and searching for something just like any other lowly ditch digger. Those who don't admit it are outside 2.5 SD's and can be considered irrelevant.

[King Prout]

this is an elaboration of the Paschal Equation, and it is just as faulty - based on an ideosyncratically oversimplified basic set of possible options.

[Tribune7]

ping

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[trueblue24u]

very interesting