On Jesus' Resurrection

[Perplexity]

By your conclusion, I mean you application of this principle to the Resurrection, ie that since the Resurrection is so improbable on our background info, we should deny the evidence for it (empty tomb, appearances of risen Christ, origin of Christian belief).

My conclusion is that since the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances would entail some highly implausible hypothesis, they have negligible priors.

Again, the reason I mention this is that some Catholics following the thread are under the opinion that you have presented a reason that they should deny the evidence for the Resurrection. But without their background information having been shown to be wrong (as I think it is not), there is no reason for them (or anyone but a very, very committed atheist) to deny either the Resurrection or evidence for it.

Given that the non-resurrection hypotheses offered to explain the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances are horrendously improbable, I need only explain why the resurrection hypothesis’ prior is analogous. As you’ve noted, this is just a function of the probability that God exists, and that he’d raise Jesus.

According to the probability calculus, P(A & B) = P(A|k) * P(B|A & k).

So, P(God exists & God would raise Jesus) = P(God exists|k) * P(God would raise Jesus|God exists & k).

Let’s grant a super high prior for theism: P(God exists|k) = 0.90 for argument’s sake.

How likely is it that God would raise Jesus from the dead, given that he exists? Well, that depends on the God we’re talking about. e.g., Allah probably wouldn’t raise Jesus. Most apologists are speaking about the bare-theistic God here: the one who’s in the conclusions of philosophical arguments for theism, I’ll follow their lead.

He can summarily be described as a necessarily existent, essentially omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect person who causally explains all of contingent reality. Why would this guy be interested in raising Jesus?

Here I’d like to address the following claim:

The only argument of this you offer to point to other people who were “like Jesus” and assert that God did not raise them, hence we should expect that He would not raise Jesus.

I gave two objections, the above was the first. The second was “Why would these [Jesus’ characteristics] incline God to raise him?”

You mention a number of things about Jesus that imply he’s unique. But, granting your claims, I fail to see why a single one of these would inspire God to raise him. What’s more, even if you were able to show that these would inspire God to raise Jesus, it’s unclear that such a desire would motivate God to actually raise Jesus. We have all kinds of desires that aren’t strong enough to move us to action. I think we should find it shocking that God would want to raise some 2nd Temple Palestinian Jew from the dead. So, I’ll place P(God would raise Jesus|God exists & k) at something like 0.0001. According to the probability calculus, this means the resurrection hypothesis’ prior is 0.00009.

The reason I insist on adding the origin of Christian belief as the third point is that your argument (reject evidence for a highly improbable conclusion) would entail also rejecting the origin of Christian belief since that itself is evidence for the same supposedly improbable conclusion.

Given that Christian belief has existed, to deny that it had an origin is to say Christian belief has always existed (i.e., never began, or arose). This is far more implausible than pretty much any origination hypothesis.

Second, Remember, it is not just the improbability of any one item on the list, as you say. Denying the empty tomb, risen appearances, and origin of Christian belief, would entail you being forced to accept every item on that list. Hence, the improbabilities multiply considerably. Assume that each of the first five has a probability of 0.05 and each of the last five a probability of 0.1. Both of these strike me as far higher than is actually probable, but let’s take it for the sake of argument. All 10 taken together results in a probability of: 0.00000000000000015625.

I’m not sure how you got this calculation, but the list will be shorter since I do not reject the rise of Christianity.

So, it seems to me you are saying: if Pr(H on B) is very low, then we should reject E, hence we should reject H.

Hm, it’s more like:

1. If the Empty Tomb [or Post-Mortem Appearances], then either x, y, or z is probable.
2. But, neither x, y, nor z is probable.
3. Therefore, ~Empty Tomb [or Post-Mortem Appearances].

No matter how low Pr (H on B) is, we cannot rationally reject it without considering Pr (E on H) and Pr (E on not H).

If P(H|k) = 0.0, then no evidence can confirm H. But, I disagree that we can’t rationally reject H without considering the rest of Bayes’ theorem, given that H has a low enough prior. This would mean that I’d have to hold my breath before rejecting evidence for solipsism or that I’m a brain in a vat. But, I nor anyone else should do so.

I’d like to come back to why the empty tomb isn’t as likely as you said, given that Jesus rose. For now, I’d like to address the case for the appearances. You suggest that Jesus would want to appear to his followers to show them that he resurrected.

First, as I noted earlier, it’s difficult to tell how strongly Jesus would desire this, even granting that he would. Lastly, it does not follow even from an overriding desire to let his followers know that he rose, that he’d appear to them. There are an infinite amount of ways Jesus could’ve achieved this goal without appearing to them. So, I think we should maintain that the appearances aren’t very likely given that Jesus resurrected.

 

[prodigalson2011]

scholars say the guard story was added later to combat the story that someone stole the body.
even W.L.Craig says that the guard story is probably false.

I know I’m a little late in coming to the conversation, but I would just like to point out that this assertion is untrue. Craig actually argues against those who contend that the story of the guard is false:

reasonablefaith.org/the-guard-at-the-tomb

 

[itullian]

I know I’m a little late in coming to the conversation, but I would just like to point out that this assertion is untrue. Craig actually argues against those who contend that the story of the guard is false:

reasonablefaith.org/the-guard-at-the-tomb

youtube.com/watch?v=b8UMb7NlxkU

 

[prodigalson2011]

youtube.com/watch?v=b8UMb7NlxkU

Well, it would appear we have found a point on which WLC has flip-flopped. I wonder which one is more recent?

 

[itullian]

Well, it would appear we have found a point on which WLC has flip-flopped. I wonder which one is more recent?

yeah, i wonder that too. let me know if you figure it out.ok?

 

[prodigalson2011]

yeah, i wonder that too. let me know if you figure it out.ok?

You bet.

 

[danserr]

Well, it would appear we have found a point on which WLC has flip-flopped. I wonder which one is more recent?

I’m not sure that video actually indicates that Craig himself believes that the guard was a late invention. He is only saying that: 1. most scholars think that guard story is a literary invention and 2. this is irrelevant to the historical evidence for the empty tomb.

Similarly, he sometimes say that: 1. most people think that gospels were written later and 2. this is irrelevant to evidence for the Resurrection. But he has also said that he does believe the gospels were written earlier than most think. I think it is probable the same case here.

 

[danserr]

Given that the non-resurrection hypotheses offered to explain the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances are horrendously improbable, I need only explain why the resurrection hypothesis’ prior is analogous. As you’ve noted, this is just a function of the probability that God exists, and that he’d raise Jesus.

According to the probability calculus, P(A & B) = P(A|k) * P(B|A & k).

So, P(God exists & God would raise Jesus) = P(God exists|k) * P(God would raise Jesus|God exists & k).

Let’s grant a super high prior for theism: P(God exists|k) = 0.90 for argument’s sake.

How likely is it that God would raise Jesus from the dead, given that he exists? Well, that depends on the God we’re talking about. e.g., Allah probably wouldn’t raise Jesus. Most apologists are speaking about the bare-theistic God here: the one who’s in the conclusions of philosophical arguments for theism, I’ll follow their lead.

He can summarily be described as a necessarily existent, essentially omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect person who causally explains all of contingent reality. Why would this guy be interested in raising Jesus?

But into that God (since we are not granting Christianity yet) would go philosophical considerations against other varieties of god. For instance, you only mention Allah, recognizing, I think that there is no other serious competitor. But there are philosophical reasons to think that the Islamic conception of God is morally objectionable. We won’t go into them here, but here is a reference and this does seem to me a defensible point (for more reasons actually than Craig mentions- on is that it seems like Muslims may be committed to a voluntarism position regarding divine commands since they tend to prize God’s will).

The only argument of this you offer to point to other people who were “like Jesus” and assert that God did not raise them, hence we should expect that He would not raise Jesus.

I gave two objections, the above was the first. The second was “Why would these [Jesus’ characteristics] incline God to raise him?”

You mention a number of things about Jesus that imply he’s unique. But, granting your claims, I fail to see why a single one of these would inspire God to raise him. What’s more, even if you were able to show that these would inspire God to raise Jesus, it’s unclear that such a desire would motivate God to actually raise Jesus. We have all kinds of desires that aren’t strong enough to move us to action. I think we should find it shocking that God would want to raise some 2nd Temple Palestinian Jew from the dead.

Ok, so you don’t really defend here your first claim "there were lots of people like Jesus and God didn’t raise them etc…, so what about your second?

Well, the points are not totally separate since one of your considerations for point 2 is “why would God want to raise some 2nd temple Jew,” which I think implicitly draws on other similar Jews and says that since God didn’t raise them etc. Now the point is not a second temple Jew, but this second temple Jew.

Remember, I am not arguing that it is probable that God would raise Jesus, only that it is not improbable. So we consider Jesus’ life teaching, belief that He was the messiah, could drive out demons, perform miracles, claims to radical divine authority, 1st c Jewish context, context of old Testament (higher if we grant that Jesus fits with some OT prophecies or that fits in with God’s plan to reconcile Himself with mankind). Given this (and more), I am not saying that it is probable that God would raise Jesus, only that we cannot say that it is improbable. So I assign a probability of 0.5 indicating agnosticism on the issue. Given background and historical context, this seems reasonable.

Given that Christian belief has existed, to deny that it had an origin is to say Christian belief has always existed (i.e., never began, or arose). This is far more implausible than pretty much any origination hypothesis.

Then I should be clearer what I mean by origin of Christian belief. What Craig means (and it seems to me Wright too) is that: Jesus’ disciples came to believe that he rose from the dead in spite of every reason to deny this belief and every predilection to the contrary. This third point doesn’t just mean that at some point someone began to believe Christianity rose, but that the earliest generations of Jesus’ followers believed that he rose.

 

[danserr]

People who would deny this would be those of the nineteenth century who have dismissed Christianity as a late rising myth. It is a very uncommon position today (though oddly enough, it may be held by Bart Ehrman).

So, I would say that your argument (reject any evidence that implies a hypothesis that is highly improbable on our background information), would entail that you must deny too the (early) origin of Christian belief. If you do this, though, this list of absurdities to which you commit yourself by deny the evidence (empty tomb, appearances of risen Christ, origin of belief) grows longer and multiples.

But what if you try to avoid this by accepting the (early) origin of Christian belief? Well, then you are also in a tough position because as NT Wright points out, the origin of Christian belief strongly implies the empty tomb and appearances of the risen Christ. Hence to accept the origin of Christian belief could commit you to accepting the empty tomb and appearances of the risen Christ!

Further, if you insisted on accepting the origin, but denying the empty tomb and appearances (which by now would look like cherry-picking), then you add to that list that I gave the obscene improbability that Jesus’ disciples would have believed that he rose from the dead without either an empty tomb or appearances! I don’t know anyone who would defend that position.

I’m not sure how you got this calculation, but the list will be shorter since I do not reject the rise of Christianity.

I gave a list of 10 highly improbable positions to which rejecting the three facts would commit us. For illustration, assume a 0.1 probability of each position. Since, our rejection of those three facts would commit us to all those positions. Then the probability that all should be the case would be 0.0000000001

Against this you propose to give the probability of the Resurrection as: 0.00009. Hence, it is clear that rejecting the three facts would commit us to absurdities that are far more improbable than even you admit the Resurrection to be.

Two notes: That list of 10 positions could easily be doubled and probably more, so I think rejecting the empty tomb, appearances, and origin of belief would actually commit us to even more improbable positions than listed. Second, you propose granting the origin of belief, but granting this while rejecting the empty tomb and appearances entails the highly improbable positions that:

• Jesus’s followers came to believe he rose without an empty tomb.
• Jesus’ followers came to believe he rose without appearances.
  So, even trying to accept the origin of Christian belief may help you a bit, not nearly enough (and we could list more improbabilities which rejecting the empty tomb and appearances alone would commit us to).

So, it seems plain that rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would commit us to a proposition (all of them together) far more improbable than even you grant Jesus’ Resurrection on background info to be. So we should not reject those three facts.

Hm, it’s more like:

1. If the Empty Tomb [or Post-Mortem Appearances], then either x, y, or z is probable.
2. But, neither x, y, nor z is probable.
3. Therefore, ~Empty Tomb [or Post-Mortem Appearances].

1. If the media report of the winning lottery number is 10,11,12,34,23,21,18, then it probably is.
2. but that it is the winning number is 10,11,12,34,23,21,18, is highly improbable (even more so that the probability that the media is lying)
3. Therefore that number is not the winning number/the media is lying deceived etc.

This is my problem. You have presented this as how we ascertain probability in daily life, but there is nothing in Bayes theorem to imply what you are saying:

Pr(H on E) = Pr (H) x Pr (E on H)
--------------------------------
Pr (H) x Pr (E on H) + Pr(not H) x Pr(E on not H)

I don’t see what part of this entails rejecting E on the basis on a low Pr (H on B). We might reject H if Pr (H on B is low), but not E. On the contrary, as the lottery example shows, we do not reason as you are asking us to.

Furthermore, rejecting that number as the winning number would not commit us to a more improbable situation but a less improbable one, since it is more probable that the media is lying than that that number is actually the winning number.

If P(H|k) = 0.0, then no evidence can confirm H. But, I disagree that we can’t rationally reject H without considering the rest of Bayes’ theorem, given that H has a low enough prior. This would mean that I’d have to hold my breath before rejecting evidence for solipsism or that I’m a brain in a vat. But, I nor anyone else should do so.

But as Bayes theorem shows, you do have to consider the whole theorem, otherwise you would reject a hypothesis simply because of its intrinsic probability without accounting that this hypothesis could be probable given the evidence. As to solipsism, rejection of it is simply implied by epistemological particularism (necessary because of problems with methodism, I think), but you can’t jump from this to rejecting other hypotheses based on their supposed low Pr (H on B).

 

[danserr]

I’d like to come back to why the empty tomb isn’t as likely as you said, given that Jesus rose. For now, I’d like to address the case for the appearances. You suggest that Jesus would want to appear to his followers to show them that he resurrected.

First, as I noted earlier, it’s difficult to tell how strongly Jesus would desire this, even granting that he would. Lastly, it does not follow even from an overriding desire to let his followers know that he rose, that he’d appear to them. There are an infinite amount of ways Jesus could’ve achieved this goal without appearing to them. So, I think we should maintain that the appearances aren’t very likely given that Jesus resurrected.

Sorry, forgot to respond to this.

As to the empty tomb being virtually certain on the Resurrection, I have heard some other claims that basically boil down to “maybe the Resurrection actually meant something that it didn’t mean.” i.e. maybe resurrection could have meant a non-physical body or else that could have meant a totally new body. These all have their own problems, including that there is little basis in Jewish belief for them, and positive evidence that the risen body would be a transformed version of the old body.

I am still puzzled by your attempt to deny the explanatory power of the Resurrection, since as I keep saying, this is widely admitted. I also can’t think of any way of convincing his followers and allowing his followers to convince others that he rose as effective as appearing to them. Considering the background info that Wright goes over on beliefs in life after death in the ancient world, I don’t see another option that works nearly as well.

 

[Perplexity]

Well, the points are not totally separate since one of your considerations for point 2 is “why would God want to raise some 2nd temple Jew,” which I think implicitly draws on other similar Jews and says that since God didn’t raise them etc. Now the point is not a second temple Jew, but this second temple Jew.

It might, I hadn’t thought of that. For me, I just don’t see why Jesus’ life teaching, beliefs, claims or old Testament context would inspired God to raise Jesus at all. They might have some effect on YHWH, but unless you can show that God is probably YHWH, I don’t think any of these considerations can raise the probability that God would raise Jesus to 0.5.

Note, I gave the resurrection’s prior 0.00009 on the assumption that P(Theism|k) = 0.90. First, this was the bare-theistic God we’re talking about. Things would change if we move to YHWH. Second, since I’m an atheist, this prior would be even lower.

This third point doesn’t just mean that at some point someone began to believe Christianity rose, but that the earliest generations of Jesus’ followers believed that he rose.

Ah, gotchya. Well, my argument would only imply that I should reject the rise of Christianity if I found P(Jesus’ earliest followers believed that he rose|k) sufficiently low. But, I find it probable that they did, given that this is multiply and independently attested by early sources, and folks believe all sorts of religious doctrines all the time. i.e., I don’t think someone is wrong when they tell me they believe X [God exists].

You suggest that to do this, I may also need to believe in the appearances and empty tomb, how else would they come to this belief? But, this assumes that unless I can account for why someone believes a religious proposition, I, at least, shouldn’t concede that they do. But, we can’t account for why any number of folks (whom we’ve never met before) believe religious propositions, yet take their word for it.

For illustration, assume a 0.1 probability of each position. Since, our rejection of those three facts would commit us to all those positions. Then the probability that all should be the case would be 0.0000000001

The only formula within the probability calculus that’d allow us to multiply 0.1 as you have above requires that 0.1 represents the prior probability of each hypothesis. But, there’s no way I’d give most of those items anything near 0.1. Take your first example, “1. Most obviously, we would committing to hold that The tomb was not empty.”

Your claim then is that P(~Empty Tomb|k) = 0.1, entailing that P(Empty Tomb|k) = 0.9.

But, my argument is that P(Empty Tomb|k) is so low, that it’s a negligible position. So, there’s no way I could grant your calculations.

I’m beginning to think we’d have to cover a host of issues before we could get to these calculations .

1. If the media report of the winning lottery number is 10,11,12,34,23,21,18, then it probably is.
2. but that it is the winning number is 10,11,12,34,23,21,18, is highly improbable (even more so that the probability that the media is lying)
3. Therefore that number is not the winning number/the media is lying deceived etc.

Thanks for these objections, they’ve greatly clarified my position. My argument can’t be that since the priors for the empty tomb and appearances are so low, we should make an a priori judgment about the evidence. It must rather be an a posteriori judgment about the priors and likelihoods involved. You’re right.

The probability in premise one is the probability that 10,11,12,34,23,21,18 is the winning lottery number given that the media reported it to be so.

The second premise is the prior probability that 10,11,12,34,23,21,18 is the winning lottery number.

You and I both think that while this prior is really low, it is overcome. i.e., we both trust the media when they announce the winner. This is because we find it far more likely that 10,11,12,34,23,21,18 is the winning lottery number than that it isn’t, given that the media reported it to be so. i.e., we take the media’s report to be strong enough evidence to overcome this prior.

My argument requires that we don’t make such a judgment about the evidence for the resurrection.

It seems to me that we’d have to cover such a vast amount of ground to do this justice that we may be better off addressing your support for the empty tomb or appearances in your initial posts or something?

 

[danserr]

It seems to me that we’d have to cover such a vast amount of ground to do this justice that we may be better off addressing your support for the empty tomb or appearances in your initial posts or something?

Sure. Is there one of the three facts we are basing an argument for the Resurrection on that you are skeptical of?

1. The empty tomb
2. appearances of the Risen Christ
3. Origin of Christian belief. (The disciples came to believe that Jesus rose from the dead).

Individually, the tend to be accepted as historically probable, but is there some reason you doubt any of them, or think that there is some reason that we can’t say that these three facts are historically probable? That’s probably a good first step.

 

[Non_sum_dignus]

The fact that I believe in a transcendent, omnipotent being who may be holding the entire universe within a corner of His consciousness, skews the probabilities of resurrection for me.

 

[itullian]

The fact that I believe in a transcendent, omnipotent being who may be holding the entire universe within a corner of His consciousness, skews the probabilities of resurrection for me.

why?

 

[Scapegoat]

I know I’m going to get flamed for this but could the Shroud of Turin being used as evidence?

 

[Non_sum_dignus]

why?

Since I accept the idea of a being who could create the entire universe, every other possibility is pretty easy to accept.

 

[danserr]

I know I’m going to get flamed for this but could the Shroud of Turin being used as evidence?

If it could be shown to be legit, yes. In this case, it would not be direct evidence of the Resurrection, but evidence that Jesus’ tomb really was empty. This fact of the empty tomb would be used to support the Resurrection (in combination with other facts).

That being said, evidence for the Shroud is mixed. Carbon testing dated it to the 13th/14th century, but there is other evidence that it is legit and some people have given reasons that the test was flawed.

 

[Perplexity]

danserr: Let’s start with the empty tomb.

So, apart from my OP argument against the empty tomb, I think there is good reason to think the empty tomb is improbable. My argument will be as follows:

1. If Paul probably did not believe in the empty tomb, then the empty tomb is improbable.
2. Paul probably did not believe in the empty tomb.
3. Therefore, the empty tomb is improbable.

Why should we accept premise 1? Well, Paul is practically one of the founding fathers of Christianity. Traveling thousands of miles across decades, Paul spent a good chunk of his life converting folks and instituting Churches. He knew the life, teachings and events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth far, far better than we do. He was well acquainted with Jesus’ closest and earliest followers, having learned many such things from them.

If Paul didn’t believe in the empty tomb, it’d be either because he wasn’t aware of it, or he was but wasn’t convinced of it. Obviously, if the former is the case, then neither were the Apostles aware of it, since Paul would have certainly heard of it from them at some point. If the latter is the case, we can believe everyone of importance agreed with him since we don’t have the slightest indication from anyone that this was controversial amongst Christians during Paul’s life-time. (i.e., we’d expect him to be debating those he considered dissenters, especially if it was one of the 12).

So, P(Empty Tomb|Paul didn’t believe Empty Tomb) << 0.5.

Why believe premise 2?

Here I want to expose an assumption which without the empty tomb couldn’t function as evidence for the resurrection. The idea is that when someone resurrects, the body they die with transforms into a new body. Given this assumption, if someone is buried in a tomb, resurrects and is seen outside of the tomb, the tomb must necessarily be empty (of them at least).

If Paul held this assumption (as apologists need him to), it’s shocking that he doesn’t mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor. 15 (I’ll come back to this). If he didn’t hold this assumption, that is, if he thought resurrection involved the person transferring bodies so that the corpse remained behind and the person acquires an entirely new body, we may shrug the empty tomb from the case for Christ. Not just because this would mean the empty tomb was improbable, but because it’d be irrelevant. Rather than get into why I think we should believe Paul did not hold this assumption, I’ll try to show that 1 Cor. 15 should not look like it does if he did.

To do this, I need to note this text’s primary purpose and show how the empty tomb would’ve greatly secured this purpose.

It seems rather clear to me that the reason Paul wrote 1 Cor. 15 was to refute a notion he believed some folks within the Corinthian Church were asserting.

1 Cor. 15:12, “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (NASB)

It’s unclear to me whether Paul knew someone within the Church was actually saying this or whether he’s simply addressing hypothetical interlocutors as a literary device.

Anyways, Paul seems to hurl all kinds of arguments against this contention he can throughout the 58 verses of 1 Cor. 15. In fact, I counted 7 reductio ad absurdum arguments, and I’m sure there are more.

Verses 35-49 clearly illustrate the point in Paul’s writing 1 Cor. 15. There you’ll find a discussion in answer to v. 35’s question: “But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?”

Would the empty tomb have served this end? I think we can all agree that it would. It seems easy to imagine the Paul of Gal. 1 (in his scathing manner) ridiculing the dissenters of Corinth by challenging them to explain where Jesus’ body went, since there is no resurrection of the dead.

What better way to disprove the Corinthian error than saying, if Jesus didn’t bodily resurrect, why was his tomb empty? Produce the body!

The odd thing is that he does not mention it. And this is all the stranger given that he enlists weaker arguments than the empty tomb would’ve been. e.g., check out his reductio in v. 29.

Some try to argue that he strongly implies it, but this isn’t enough, especially given the amount of time he devoted to weak-sauce arguments (by comparison) like that of v. 29.

So, it seems reasonable to me to say P(Paul believed in the Empty Tomb|1 Cor. 15 & k) << 0.5, and that P(Paul didn’t believe in the Empty Tomb|1 Cor. 15 & k) >> 0.5. Therefore, I think we should accept (3).

 

[prodigalson2011]

danserr: Let’s start with the empty tomb.

So, apart from my OP argument against the empty tomb, I think there is good reason to think the empty tomb is improbable. My argument will be as follows:

1. If Paul probably did not believe in the empty tomb, then the empty tomb is improbable.
2. Paul probably did not believe in the empty tomb.
3. Therefore, the empty tomb is improbable.

Why should we accept premise 1? Well, Paul is practically one of the founding fathers of Christianity. Traveling thousands of miles across decades, Paul spent a good chunk of his life converting folks and instituting Churches. He knew the life, teachings and events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth far, far better than we do. He was well acquainted with Jesus’ closest and earliest followers, having learned many such things from them.

…

So, P(Empty Tomb|Paul didn’t believe Empty Tomb) << 0.5.

Why believe premise 2?

Here I want to expose an assumption which without the empty tomb couldn’t function as evidence for the resurrection. The idea is that when someone resurrects, the body they die with transforms into a new body. Given this assumption, if someone is buried in a tomb, resurrects and is seen outside of the tomb, the tomb must necessarily be empty (of them at least).

If Paul held this assumption (as apologists need him to), it’s shocking that he doesn’t mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor. 15 (I’ll come back to this). If he didn’t hold this assumption, that is, if he thought resurrection involved the person transferring bodies so that the corpse remained behind and the person acquires an entirely new body, we may shrug the empty tomb from the case for Christ. Not just because this would mean the empty tomb was improbable, but because it’d be irrelevant. Rather than get into why I think we should believe Paul did not hold this assumption, I’ll try to show that 1 Cor. 15 should not look like it does if he did.

To do this, I need to note this text’s primary purpose and show how the empty tomb would’ve greatly secured this purpose.

It seems rather clear to me that the reason Paul wrote 1 Cor. 15 was to refute a notion he believed some folks within the Corinthian Church were asserting.

1 Cor. 15:12, “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (NASB)

It’s unclear to me whether Paul knew someone within the Church was actually saying this or whether he’s simply addressing hypothetical interlocutors as a literary device.

Anyways, Paul seems to hurl all kinds of arguments against this contention he can throughout the 58 verses of 1 Cor. 15. In fact, I counted 7 reductio ad absurdum arguments, and I’m sure there are more.

Verses 35-49 clearly illustrate the point in Paul’s writing 1 Cor. 15. There you’ll find a discussion in answer to v. 35’s question: “But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?”

Would the empty tomb have served this end? I think we can all agree that it would. It seems easy to imagine the Paul of Gal. 1 (in his scathing manner) ridiculing the dissenters of Corinth by challenging them to explain where Jesus’ body went, since there is no resurrection of the dead.

What better way to disprove the Corinthian error than saying, if Jesus didn’t bodily resurrect, why was his tomb empty? Produce the body!

The odd thing is that he does not mention it. And this is all the stranger given that he enlists weaker arguments than the empty tomb would’ve been. e.g., check out his reductio in v. 29.

Some try to argue that he strongly implies it, but this isn’t enough, especially given the amount of time he devoted to weak-sauce arguments (by comparison) like that of v. 29.

So, it seems reasonable to me to say P(Paul believed in the Empty Tomb|1 Cor. 15 & k) << 0.5, and that P(Paul didn’t believe in the Empty Tomb|1 Cor. 15 & k) >> 0.5. Therefore, I think we should accept (3).

This particular argument is riddled with fallacy, the most glaring being the all too common argument from ignorance. We all know “absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence.” You are choosing one particular written letter of Paul to make your case. The high expenses of transcription at that time are well known, and spoken word was the common means by which any intricate or detailed history or discourse were transmitted. Paul’s epistles were not intended to be comprehensive theological treatises, but to address specific issues within individual church communities, and it is likely that the empty tomb was a point of common discussion and equally common doubt, and hence likely to have been addressed outside of his letters. What you portray as Paul’s “weak sauce” arguments seem to me to be questions directed at those who claim Christian belief and practice its rituals, yet deny the very foundations of those practices. These are decisively more personal questions directed at a very specific audience.

This post is a bit of a “chicken or egg” dilemma to me, as it’s hard to divide the prevalent fallacies that it’s built upon: assumption, argument from ignorance, argument from silence… but, regardless, they are all plainly present. The entirety of this argument rests on assumptions about what Paul probably believed based not upon evidence, but an absence of it, and makes assumptions about what Paul would have said if he did did believe particular things, which is a classic case of the “psychologist’s fallacy” (wherein one projects their own personality or thought patterns onto another person.)

 

[Perplexity]

This particular argument is riddled with fallacy, the most glaring being the all too common argument from ignorance. We all know “absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence.”

Yes, we’ve all heard this old chestnut, but I don’t think anyone should (nor does) accept this. See, there is a species of inference known as ‘noseeum’ inferences that this precludes. Th noseeum inference goes: 1. I don’t see X. 2. Therefore, there is no X. We make this inference, for instance, when before crossing the street, we form the belief that there are no cars and infer from this that there are none, proceeding to cross. As the skeptical theists weren’t shy to point out though, this isn’t always reasonable. E.g., i can’t look up at the sky and infer there is no galaxy X simply because i can’t see it. They suggested that this inference, which we make all the time, is only reasonable if we should expect to see X if it was there. Thus, absence of evidence is evidence of absence when we should expect there to be something where there is not.

You are choosing one particular written letter of Paul to make your case. The high expenses of transcription at that time are well known, and spoken word was the common means by which any intricate or detailed history or discourse were transmitted. Paul’s epistles were not intended to be comprehensive theological treatises, but to address specific issues within individual church communities

The only way this can address my argument is if you could show these reasons make it unlikely that Paul would mention the empty tomb, but they don’t. These reasons didn’t deter Paul frommaking any of those points helpful to his purpose of writing.

and it is likely that the empty tomb was a point of common discussion and equally common doubt, and hence likely to have been addressed outside of his letters.

Not only is this precisely what’s in dispute, so it begs the question, but you’ve given no reason to agree.

What you portray as Paul’s “weak sauce” arguments seem to me to be questions directed at those who claim Christian belief and practice its rituals, yet deny the very foundations of those practices. These are decisively more personal questions directed at a very specific audience.

Granted, but how is this relevant? Paul is pulling every trick out of the bag…except one of his strongest arguments?

You didn’t really support your objections and claimed there were many fallacies in my argument but only mentioned a few. Unless you list them, I can’t interact with your claim.