Posted on 06/06/2006 11:58:40 AM PDT by dukeman
A Debate between
William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman
On March 28, 2006, Dr. Craig, Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California, and Dr. Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, debated the status of the Christian claim to Jesus' resurrection from the perspective of historical data. The debate was sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and the Campus Christian Fellowship.
What if they are told about multiple universes, when the evience of such things is as thin as butterfly wings, as Stephen Hawkins would have it? Or that the polar ice caps are melting because of SUVs, as Al Gore would have it?
:-)
You find that, my friend, you'll be able to print your own money.
That's going to take some time to digest.
Thanks.
The multi-verse concept right now is just an unproven theory. Altho it certainly could be true, but it's too early to tell. As far as I'm aware, no one is claiming it to be absolute truth -- yet.
Global warming is a good example of how gullible people today can be, and that's with the benefit of a modern education.
So you can imagine how much more gullible folks would have been 2000 years ago!
Multi-verse is simply an effort to avoid the evidence, something like the epicycles in Ptolemy's cosmology. It is really about as scientific as astrology. People who are not religious, and I mean our secular educated, tend to believe in such faux science. Remember Nancy Reagan? Her kids are just like her, but the educated of all ages are as prone to superstition as their servants. Back in the 1850s, spiritualism in the big plantation house, (and in the White House); voodoo in the servant quarters.
You know this for a fact? :-)
I'd agree that the idea of 'multi-verses' is not necessarily probable. That doesn't mean it isn't true, of course, but it's just a theory. As far as I'm aware, no one claims it to be absolute truth . . .
And of course people are still easily fooled. And since education does indeed help people be less easily fooled, then the people of the past were more easily fooled.
But the real irony is that your argument works against you. Since people are so easily fooled today, that is even more evidence that we can't just take it as gospel (pun intended) that the Jesus story was true.
As you point out, some people can believe anything. So the belief of the apostles doesn't prove truth.
The right comparison with testimony in a court. Which witness do you believe? Which side better explains the facts of the case. But you assume that a jury constituted today, selected at random, is better qualified to decide the matter than one likewise constituted two thousand years ago. If we are trying to decide a narrow point of law, where all the advantage of experience matters, or where the witnesses speak a certain language or are under a certain legal code, then and only then one set of jurors will be superior.
No, no. I'm sorry, I must not be making myself clear.
If the witnesses got on the stand and said, "David Koresh was Jesus, and we saw him work miracles!" I wouldn't believe them without proof.
The point is that when I hear witnesses who claim miraculous things, I don't believe them today.
And since people in the past were even *more* superstitious than people today, I would treat their testimony inexactly the same way.
You put yourself up as jury. I am saying that a jury of my peers today is no more competent to render a decison on testimony in a case than a jury of the peers of Peter two thousand years ago.
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Are you arguing that education doesn't help someone tell fake from real at all, in any way?
I agree educated people can still be fooled.
But do you not allow that it becomes less likely?
Most excellent. Thank you for that post. I've bookmarked it.
A-G: Nevertheless, you begin with a willful presumption that precludes ever meeting Christ. So that's "all she wrote".
Not only that, but to tell SUCH a whopper! Whoo! For example, Dominic, are you married? If not, have you ever had sex? Your affirmative answer to either of those questions is only ONE piece of direct evidence against that sentence above which you posted as though it were true. You most definitely have made decisions in your life based, at least in part, upon unseen "internal, subjective" evidence or factors or facts. Have you never tasted a food for the first time? Of course you have! And yet what did you base your decision to do so upon? Certainly upon how it looked and smelled, its own physically observable factors, but also, if I'm not mistaken, you had to have certain unseen factors at work upon the decision as well, such as your level of hunger, the evidence of others eating the food before you, the testimony of some who had previously done so....
Thank you so much for your encouragements and for your insights!
As you point out -- physical evidence, like how it looks and smells.
I fell in love with the woman I married because of how she acted, who she was, how she treated me.
When I was a kid in my teens, I "fell in love" with a girl based on purely internal emotion. It was a big disaster, I won't bore you with the details.
I *can* decide what I want to eat tonight based on internal information. Not much risk of getting it wrong, there. But I do *not* want to decide the biggest questions of life, the universe and everything that way.
How many muslims believe that "god says" things we would find heinous???
To recap, I’m working through five historical facts which, when taken together, present a strong case for Jesus’ death and resurrection. You agreed earlier that Jesus is a person of history who was executed by crucifixion. Fact two is the sincere belief of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus.
There is a virtual consensus among scholars who study Jesus’ resurrection that His disciples really believed that He appeared to them risen from the dead. This scholarly consensus is reached from data that suggest that (1) the disciples themselves claimed that the risen Jesus had appeared to them, and (2) his disciples were radically transformed from a cowering band who had lost their leader to bold proponents of the gospel.
But a skeptic might say, “I don’t believe that the Bible is inspired by God and I’m not certain the four gospels were written by the four alleged authors. So how do you trace these claims back to the lips of the disciples themselves? And even so, it doesn’t mean they believed it. They could have been lying.”
There is no need to defend the position that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the four gospels while defending the Resurrection. Instead, a number of ancient sources lead to the conclusion that the disciples sincerely believed they had encountered the risen Jesus.
How do we know what the original disciples claimed about Jesus’ post-mortem appearances? There are three early and independent sources: the writings of Paul, oral tradition, and written tradition.
Paul provides very strong evidence for establishing the Resurrection claims of the disciples. Remember, at this stage I’m only speaking to what the disciples claimed and not the truth of what they claimed. Paul claimed that his own authority in the church was equal to that of the other apostles. 2 Corinthians 10:8; 11:5; 13:10; 1 Thess. 2:6; 4:2 That authority was acknowledged by a number of the apostolic fathers soon after the completion of the New Testament (Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius—there are quotes from their writings available, but they’re too much to post here).
Paul reported that he knew at least some of the other disciples, even the “big three’-- Peter, James, and John. All three of these went to their deaths claiming that Jesus had risen and appeared to them. Acts reports that Paul and the disciples knew and fellowshipped with one another. Therefore, what Paul has to say about the other apostles is important. Paul knew the apostles personally and reports that they claimed that Jesus rose from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15: 9-11; Galatians 2: 1-10
I would expect a skeptic here to say, “But this is from the Bible and I don’t believe the Bible.” That type of blanket rejection will not do. I am not assuming inspiration or even general reliability of the New Testament in the case for Jesus’ resurrection. I am only regarding the New Testament as an ancient volume of literature containing 27 separate books and letters. Then I am using these data that are well evidenced and accepted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the skeptical ones. Paul is a source independent of the original disciples and contemporary to them.
The second type of ancient evidence we have for the disciples’ claims about Jesus is known as oral tradition. [Note: Some of this is from an earlier post I made on this thread] People in antiquity did not have our tools for recording and passing along information. They relied on oral tradition to teach others. Scholars identify several instances where oral traditions have been copied into the writings which later comprised the New Testament (sort of an ancient “cut & paste”). These include carefully constructed creeds, hymns, sermon summaries, and poetry. This is significant because the oral tradition had to exist prior to the New Testament writings in order for the New Testament authors to include them. This takes us back to some of the earliest teachings of the Christian church.
For example, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 contains a very early creed attesting to Jesus' resurrection and appearances to the disciples and James, his skeptical brother. The date of origin for this creed is probably within five years of Jesus' crucifixion. Here's how the dating works: Jesus' crucifixion is dated A.D.30 by most scholars. Paul’s conversion is dated around A.D. 31-33. Paul goes away for three years, then visits Peter and James in Jerusalem (Gal. 1:18-19). Most scholars believe Paul received the creed at this time. The other option is that Paul received the creed in Damascus just after his conversion (three years earlier).
Either way, Paul probably received the creed within two to five years of Jesus’ crucifixion (which places the origin of the creed even earlier). At the very latest, we have source material that dates within two decades of the event of Jesus’ resurrection (1 Corinthians is dated in the early 50s A.D.).
Dean John Rodgers of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, speaking of this creed, said, “This is the sort of data that historians of antiquity drool over.” “Who Was Jesus?” Time magazine, Aug. 15, 1988, 41.
Sermon summaries incorporated into the writings which later formed the New Testament are another example of oral tradition. Examples may be found in Acts 1-5, 10, 13, and 17.
Recorded dialogues in the 1st century had to have been summaries prepared after the fact by the listeners. Most sermons last longer than five minutes. Yet most sermons in the New Testament can be read in that amount of time or less. Most scholars agree that many of the sermons in Acts contain oral summaries included in the text that can be traced to the earliest teachings of the church and possibly to the disciples themselves. Another reason for identifying these summaries as oral tradition is their possession of Jewish words and traits, or Semitisms. Some of the sermon summaries, Acts 10 for example, are written in rough Greek, while the rest of Acts is written using the Greek of an educated person. These traits may well reflect that the summaries were from an original source in Aramaic, and later translated into Greek. Luke, the author of Acts, was a gentile physician educated in Greek.
At minimum, there appear to have been standard sermons preached during the earliest times of the church, contemporaneous to the apostles, attributed to the apostles, and in agreement with Paul’s eyewitness testimony that this is what they were preaching. If these words did not come from the lips of the apostles, we are very close.
The third type of ancient evidence for the disciples’ claims about Jesus is the written tradition. The most obvious examples of this are the four Gospels. Regardless of critics’ skepticism, the Gospels contain multiple claims by disciples, written within 70 years of Jesus, that Jesus rose from the dead. Again, treating the Gospels as literature from antiquity and not the inspired Word of God, they make claims about Jesus consistent with what we know was being taught through the oral tradition and Paul’s writings. Again, I am only speaking here about the fact that the apostles early and openly claimed Jesus’ resurrection and not that their simply claiming it makes it true.
Another example of written tradition which corroborates that the apostles were teaching Jesus’ resurrection are the writings of the apostolic fathers. These are the church leaders who succeeded the apostles. It is probable that some of these men had fellowshipped with the apostles or were instructed and appointed by them. These men include Clement, bishop of Rome (c. 30-100) and Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (c. 69-c. 155). They wrote about the claims of the apostles concerning Jesus’ resurrection and the suffering of the apostles for their claims.
So, the three categories of sources—Paul, oral tradition, & written tradition—point to multiple, very early, and eyewitnesses to the disciples’ claims of witnessing the risen Jesus.
I turn now to the radical transformation of the apostles after Jesus’ crucifixion.
Their transformation is strongly documented from men who abandoned and denied Jesus at his arrest and execution to men who, to their own harm, boldly and publicly proclaimed him risen from the dead. We are told specifically that the Resurrection was their central message Acts 4:2, 33. The disciples were willing to suffer for their belief that the risen Jesus had appeared to them.
Clement of Rome (c. 30-100), a contemporary of the apostles, reports the sufferings and deaths of Peter and Paul:
“Because of envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars have been persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set the good apostles before our eyes. Peter, who because of unrighteous envy endured, not one or two, but many afflictions, and having borne witness went to the due glorious place. Because of envy and rivalries, steadfast Paul pointed to the prize. Seven times chained, exiled, stoned, having become a preacher both in the East and in the West, he received honor fitting of his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, unto the boundary on which the sun sets; having testified in the presence of the leaders. Thus he was freed from the world and went to the holy place. He became a great example of steadfastness.” First Clement 5: 2-7
There are other examples of apostolic fathers writing about how the apostles suffered for their teaching.
What is the significance of all this? The willingness of the apostles to suffer and die for their testimony of the risen Jesus is evidence of their sincerity. They truly believed. It is important to note the primary purpose of getting someone to recant a belief is to publicize it so that others will be discouraged. There is no evidence that such a recantation occurred and if the news had spread that one or more of the original disciples had recanted, we would expect that Christianity would have been dealt a severe blow.
Please note I am not implying that their sincerity verifies the truth of their beliefs; people have long been willing to suffer and die for various religions and causes. It does demonstrate that they were not deliberately lying. Another way of saying this is that liars make poor martyrs.
A skeptic might observe, “Atheists have died for communism and believing Islamic terrorists have today become suicide bombers. How is that any different from what the apostles claimed?” There is an important difference between the apostle martyrs and those who die for their beliefs today. Modern martyrs act solely out of their trust in beliefs that others have taught them. The apostles died for holding to their own testimony that they had personallybelieveto be true. The disciples of Jesus died for what they knew to be either true or false.
The fact is strongly attested to, then, that Jesus’ disciples sincerely believed that he rose from the dead and appeared to them. Thus, legend and lies fail to account for the appearances, because the original apostles both claimed and believed that the risen Jesus had appeared to them.
Because the original, eyewitness apostles were making the claim, Jesus’ resurrection was not the result of myth making. His life story was not embellished over time if the claims can be traced to the original witnesses. If they really believed, we can also dismiss contentions that the apostles stole Jesus’ body and made up the story.
Virtually all scholars, even the most skeptical, agree that the apostles saw something and believed it was the risen Jesus. Here’s my favorite scholarly quote on the sincere belief of the apostles:
“The most drastic way of dismissing the evidence [for the Resurrection] would be to say that these stories wee mere fabrications, that they were pure lies. But, so far as I know, not a single critic today would take such an attitude. In fact, it would really be an impossible position. Think of the number of witnesses, over 500. …Think of the psychological absurdity of picturing a little band of defeated cowards covering in an upper room one day and a few days later transformed into a company that no persecution could silence- and then attempting to attribute this dramatic change to nothing more convincing than a miserable fabrication they were trying to foist upon the world. That simply wouldn’t make sense.”
J.N.D. Anderson, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ” Christianity Today, March 29, 1968.
I appreciate your reply, and I am so happy for your happy marriage!
I don't consider the above question in any way connected to our discussion, however.
As you reported to me, Dominic, "I do *not* want to decide the biggest questions of life, the universe and everything that way [as per our discussion of the evidence of the unseen]."
dukeman's 'way' is what you must be searching for. He has done a masterful job of it. Bravo!
A skeptic might observe, “Atheists have died for communism and believing Islamic terrorists have today become suicide bombers. How is that any different from what the apostles claimed?” There is an important difference between the apostle martyrs and those who die for their beliefs today. Modern martyrs act solely out of their trust in beliefs that others have taught them. The apostles died for holding to their own testimony that they had personally encountered the risen Jesus. The disciples of Jesus died for what they knew to be either true or false.
I would sincerely appreciate your prayers for my family members as well.
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