What is the difference between believing...?

[Peter_Plato]

Besides certain church traditions, what evidence is there that shows that the Gospels were written by eye-witnesses or their operatives?

So let me get this straight. You are asking, basically, "What hearsay evidence (testimonies from non-eye witnesses) is available to demonstrate the reliability of what the most comprehensive eye witness accounts report as first hand evidence? In this case less is more.

This is like asking for non-involved individuals to step forward who were not at the scene of an accident to corroborate the reports of four or five individuals who claim to have directly witnessed the accident and on their own behalf can provide cogent, complete and consistent versions of what happened and fully corroborate each other’s testimonies? What would be the motive for going beyond eye witness reports and expect, in their stead, inherently less reliable hearsay evidence to be more trustworthy?

Surely your motive would be the belief that those who actually claimed to witness the events were not being truthful. Correct?

 

[DavidFilmer]

Again, how many of the stories of those martyrs come down to us solely from Christian sources sometimes many years after the alleged events?

All ancient Roman historians were Romans. All ancient Greek historians were Greek. You don’t find Greeks writing about Persia, except when Persia tries to invade Greece.

ALL history is this way. By your criteria, you don’t accept any history at all.

Heck, by your criteria, you don’t accept what you see on the news. Why should you believe what some Greek reporter in Greece says about the Greek currency crisis?

I was told in school by a teacher (an American) that Abe Lincoln (an American) once gave a speech that started, “Four score and seven years ago…” That’s hearsay testimony (my teacher did not hear the speech firsthand) about something that happened 150 years ago, about an American leader, and an American was telling me about it, so I suppose I shouldn’t believe that.

 

[cornbread_r2]

So let me get this straight. You are asking, basically, "What hearsay evidence (testimonies from non-eye witnesses) is available to demonstrate the reliability of what the most comprehensive eye witness accounts report as first hand evidence? In this case less is more.

This is like asking for non-involved individuals to step forward who were not at the scene of an accident to corroborate the reports of four or five individuals who claim to have directly witnessed the accident and on their own behalf can provide cogent, complete and consistent versions of what happened and fully corroborate each other’s testimonies? What would be the motive for going beyond eye witness reports and expect, in their stead, inherently less reliable hearsay evidence to be more trustworthy?

I’m asking: What evidence is there that shows that the Gospel authors were eye-witnesses? In terms of your analogy: What evidence is there to establish that the people who are assumed to be independent eye-witnesses to your accident actually were independent eye-witnesses to your accident?

I found this response online from an article entitled Who Really Wrote the Gospels?, by Fr. William Saunders that, I assume, generally reflects the church’s position on the issue. At the end of that article Saunders concludes:

Perhaps some mystery surrounds these texts and the identify of the authors. Nevertheless, we hold them as sacred, as inspired, and as truly the Word of God.

Apparently then, there isn’t much beyond church tradition and faith in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That may good enough for believers, but I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you if others may require more.

Surely your motive would be the belief that those who actually claimed to witness the events were not being truthful. Correct?

If it turns out that the Gospels are actually a type of midrash, as more than a few reputable bible scholars have proposed, then I wouldn’t assert that they were “untruthful” any more than I would assert that A Canticle for Lebowitz was a “lie”.

---

It needs to be pointed out too that even if it is assumed that Matthew and John were actually written by eye-witnesses, there are events in their stories that were almost certainly not personally witnessed by them, e.g. the entire nativity story in Matthew; any of the private conversations between Jesus and the Devil, the Jewish and Roman authorities, Joseph of Arimathea and Pilate, etc…

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m asking: What evidence is there that shows that the Gospel authors were eye-witnesses? In terms of your analogy: What evidence is there to establish that the people who are assumed to be independent eye-witnesses to your accident actually were independent eye-witnesses to your accident?

It is the internal consistency of the testimonies themselves that is the evidence, no?

When any eye witness reports are assessed they have to explain the events that occurred consistently and comprehensively. We don’t rely on hearsay to discredit witness testimonies, we do rely on the internal consistency of each eye witness report, how well it corroborates other testimonies, the credibility of the witness and how well the report fits with and explains the indisputable facts surrounding the event in question.

We cannot go “outside” the testimonies if no other eyewitnesses are available. Who, besides eyewitnesses, can properly report what occurred?

Regarding the “independent” corroboration of the Gospel testimonies that you are asking for, who would these individuals be who could corroborate the testimonies besides other eyewitnesses? What would the evidence they could provide look like? If no other “anti-witnesses” come forward is that not prima facie corroboration of the versions in question?

It would seem that if Jesus went about performing miracles and rose from the dead, witnesses would either be convinced about the events and, thus, Christians, or they would be threatened by the events and antagonistic (Romans, Jewish authorities.) These latter would attempt to either suppress or discredit the testimonies. We don’t find historical attempts to discredit the testimonies when they could have been, within the few decades after Jesus’ death.

I cannot see a middle ground. Would it be possible to have been an intimate observer of the events who remained unbiased or unaffected given the nature of what transpired? Even if this were possible, sheer disinterest would not be a compelling motive for creating elaborate reports that would corroborate either side.

You might contend that once Christians gained power in Rome and the other communities, all negative evidence could have been destroyed. The problems with this explanation are

1. There is no evidence nor claims from any quarter that such a thing happened. Heretical and gnostic writings did not get destroyed in that manner.
2. If the testimonies were so obviously untrue, then the relatively large number of intimate insiders who not only “bought into” the story, and who would have been present themselves to witness the life and death of Jesus, were willing to disrupt their lives completely to “spread” a consistent and compelling version of the Gospel, is not explained, to say nothing concerning martyrdoms.

 

[cornbread_r2]

It is the internal consistency of the testimonies themselves that is the evidence, no?

When any eye witness reports are assessed they have to explain the events that occurred consistently and comprehensively. We don’t rely on hearsay to discredit witness testimonies, we do rely on the internal consistency of each eye witness report, how well it corroborates other testimonies, the credibility of the witness and how well the report fits with and explains the indisputable facts surrounding the event in question.

We cannot go “outside” the testimonies if no other eyewitnesses are available. Who, besides eyewitnesses, can properly report what occurred?

We don’t know who the purported Gospel-author eye-witnesses were so it’s impossible to assess how credible they were in general or even if they were in a position to observe the alleged events. (As already noted, some events that they allege happened could almost certainly not have been directly observed by them.) Since we wouldn’t know anything about the alleged events in question if it wasn’t for the testimony of the purported eye-witnesses, it can’t be claimed that “indisputable facts” exist before it’s established that the Gospel authors were eye-witnesses.

Regarding the “independent” corroboration of the Gospel testimonies that you are asking for, who would these individuals be who could corroborate the testimonies besides other eyewitnesses? What would the evidence they could provide look like? If no other “anti-witnesses” come forward is that not prima facie corroboration of the versions in question?

…]

What’s being questioned is how independent of each other the Gospel authors were. As far as I know, it’s not even controversial in the field of bible scholarship to acknowledge that the Gospel authors used each others’ works to compose their own works. It shouldn’t come as any surprise then that there is some consistency there (though perhaps not as much as might be expected).

 

[wanstronian]

The problem, for me, with thinking of anything as “implausible” is that I “as I” exist. That is the most implausible of all possible events.

How come?

Next to that, anything is a distinct possibility and the only motive I can see for dismissing any other particular possibility as “implausible” a priori is because of implications that “I” might find disagreeable.

So you’re using an instinctive reaction to a hypothesis as your yardstick for plausibility, rather than empiricism? That doesn’t seem to be a rational approach.

Next to coming into existence as a human being from genetic material that replicated and evolved over billions of years and being conceived in the womb of another human being, I don’t find “resurrection, walking on water, or turning water into wine with a wave of the hand” that frightfully implausible.

Really? Even though we have abundant evidence of the first of those scenarios, and none whatsoever of the remainder? Does evidence count for nothing in your “plausibility” checklist?

It is a question of perspective and I prefer not to place that much stock in a perspective as limited as my own to be the absolute determiner of what might be possible, just because I, personally, have not witnessed it. I, personally, have not attained even an inkling of what it takes to bring or keep the universe in existence, so I am eminently under-qualified to make determinations concerning things I know nothing about,

Indeed - we can only judge plausibility in reference to what we know, or can know. I don’t think it follows that ignorance leads naturally to credulity of all hypotheses. There are some things that, given our level of knowledge, seem more plausible than others. Plausibility is not an absolute other than in the face of overwhelming evidence.

When I have a more complete grasp on how the universe came to be I might be better qualified to rule on whether or not God is required to explain exponentially more implausible events such as an entire universe (matter, space, energy and time) popping to existence where none of these existed before and my own subjective existence in that universe.

Trouble is, “God did it” isn’t an explanation - it’s the avoidance of one.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Trouble is, “God did it” isn’t an explanation - it’s the avoidance of one.

I view it more as a direction pointer.

 

[wanstronian]

I view it more as a direction pointer.

How so? In which direction does it point? How does one set about testing the hypothesis?

 

[Peter_Plato]

How so? In which direction does it point? How does one set about testing the hypothesis?

It seems to me that limiting truth to what can be “tested” is an avoidance of looking for the whole truth.

Very important and meaningful human endeavors that involve courage, hope, commitment and caring do not rely upon testing hypotheses, but, rather, on personal engagement.

Any attempt to “objectify” the nature of personhood or subjectivity is an attempt to render meaning itself impersonal and, therefore, meaningless.

Certainly, if we want to know about the causal connections in the physical world, objectively testing hypotheses is the prescribed method to arrive at legitimate conclusions about the objective physical world.

By attempting to impose objectification on all reality, it is you who are engaging in avoidance - avoidance of the possibility that reality extends far beyond the physical, sensible, quantifiable and, therefore, measurable one that you wish to dogmatically claim is the ONLY one.

In effect, it is you doing the avoidance, since I am quite content to allow for verification where the method can be properly applied, but I am also open to the possibility that verification is, in principle, a limited means of arriving at all truth.

On the other hand, you contend that verification is the only means of arriving at truth, a proposition that cannot be verified by the very method you propose as the ONLY method. So, it is you who AVOID the conclusion that verification cannot be the de facto method for assessing truth.

 

[Peter_Plato]

We don’t know who the purported Gospel-author eye-witnesses were so it’s impossible to assess how credible they were in general or even if they were in a position to observe the alleged events.

We don’t have to know “who” they were, we just have to have certainty that they were, indeed, providing properly “eyewitness” accounts of the events.

(As already noted, some events that they allege happened could almost certainly not have been directly observed by them.) Since we wouldn’t know anything about the alleged events in question if it wasn’t for the testimony of the purported eye-witnesses, it can’t be claimed that “indisputable facts” exist before it’s established that the Gospel authors were eye-witnesses.

The fact that additional information from other sources was added to the eyewitness accounts does not serve, in itself, to discredit the accounts. The burden would still exist to show those additional events did not happen.

What’s being questioned is how independent of each other the Gospel authors were.

This is a two edged sword.

Where witness testimonies overlap there is always room for questioning how independent the witnesses were or whether a conspiracy is possible. On the other hand, we are talking about the same event, so a certain amount of overlap is expected and, indeed, required.

This is nothing more than a useless generalization on your part unless you can show precisely what aspects of the accounts are suspect.

Which you attempt to do here:

As far as I know, it’s not even controversial in the field of bible scholarship to acknowledge that the Gospel authors used each others’ works to compose their own works. It shouldn’t come as any surprise then that there is some consistency there (though perhaps not as much as might be expected).

Again, this kind of borrowing from each other’s memories or body of knowledge is expected. The Gospels were not police reports, but were intended to relate a shared experience of what happened when Jesus walked the Earth. If a Gospel writer’s memory or knowledge base was incomplete, a commitment to verification - of getting the facts straight - would be a legitimate reason for consulting others who shared the experience or were more involved in some aspects and, thus, the overlap.

I suggest you do some reading of the documents on coldcasechristianity.com/ for a more reasoned view of how eyewitness evidence is properly considered and assessed.

 

[cornbread_r2]

We don’t have to know “who” they were, we just have to have certainty that they were, indeed, providing properly “eyewitness” accounts of the events.

I’m struggling to figure out how any alleged eye-witness account can be judged, with certainty, to be “proper” without a name attached to it. How do we determine if the alleged eye-witness was anywhere near the alleged event, or might have some disqualifying bias, or doesn’t have a reputation for pathologically lying, or might have any number of other impeachable conditions if we don’t know the identity of the eye-witness? I’m reasonably certain that you would demand to know the identity of anyone I claimed to be an eye-witness against the Gospel accounts. If that’s true, I can only regard this explanation as a textbook example of special pleading.

The fact that additional information from other sources was added to the eyewitness accounts does not serve, in itself, to discredit the accounts.

With the exception of “Luke”, who claims to have used other sources – but without identifying them – none of the other authors even claims to have gotten supplementary information from other sources.

The burden would still exist to show those additional events did not happen.

The burden remains with the party claiming that they happened.

This is a two edged sword.

Where witness testimonies overlap there is always room for questioning how independent the witnesses were or whether a conspiracy is possible. On the other hand, we are talking about the same event, so a certain amount of overlap is expected and, indeed, required.

This is nothing more than a useless generalization on your part unless you can show precisely what aspects of the accounts are suspect.

Which you attempt to do here:

Again, this kind of borrowing from each other’s memories or body of knowledge is expected. The Gospels were not police reports, but were intended to relate a shared experience of what happened when Jesus walked the Earth. If a Gospel writer’s memory or knowledge base was incomplete, a commitment to verification - of getting the facts straight - would be a legitimate reason for consulting others who shared the experience or were more involved in some aspects and, thus, the overlap.

…]

If I’m a defense attorney and I know that the alleged eye-witnesses against my client have consulted with each other prior to offering their testimonies in order to fill in each others’ gaps in their supposedly personally-witnessed experiences, then I’d be moving to have all of their testimonies disallowed. If you were my defense attorney and didn’t so move, I’d fire you for incompetence.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If I’m a defense attorney and I know that the alleged eye-witnesses against my client have consulted with each other prior to offering their testimonies in order to fill in each others’ gaps in their supposedly personally-witnessed experiences, then I’d be moving to have all of their testimonies disallowed. If you were my defense attorney and didn’t so move, I’d fire you for incompetence.

Perhaps you view it this way precisely because you take an adversarial view towards the Gospels. To you they are not “Good News,” but rather a threat of some kind which requires you to muster a defense against them. This explains the defense attorney analogy.

Your signature line seems to capture the essence of your difficulty.

 

[cornbread_r2]

Perhaps you view it this way precisely because you take an adversarial view towards the Gospels. To you they are not “Good News,” but rather a threat of some kind which requires you to muster a defense against them. This explains the defense attorney analogy.

Your signature line seems to capture the essence of your difficulty.

If you think it’s inappropriate of me to frame my analogies in terms of the legal system, then perhaps it’s best if you don’t refer me to websites operated by ex cops who examine biblical evidence like cold case criminal files.

Credit where credit is due, though. It took you longer to abandon discussion of the issues and instead focus on me and your faulty perception of my views and motives than I thought it would. Since that’s a pattern that I’m not willing to keep repeating, however, please don’t be offended if I don’t respond to your posts in the future.

Have a good one.

 

[Linux]

We don’t have to know “who” they were, we just have to have certainty that they were, indeed, providing properly “eyewitness” accounts of the events.

How are we to know that outside of pure faith?

 

[NovusAugustus]

How are we to know that outside of pure faith?

How can we know that any historical account is true outside of pure faith? If I show you a book from the Golden Age of Greece that says Pericles was the elected leader of Athens for many years, would you accept it? Probably so. You would because you have faith in the veracity of the evidence, probably based on other sources verifying the statement and the general plausibility of the assertion that a rich man was elected as leader of Athens for many years.

I, and other Christians, believe we can assess the events described in the gospel for the same reasons. There are many Patristic writings on top of the canonical writings of the New Testament from the decades following the date of Christ’s crucifixion that affirm the events described–a Jew named Jesus performed miracles, built a following of many people, and was crucified by the Roman authorities outside Jerusalem. He rose from the dead and remained for a while longer before ascending into Heaven. We believe this based on the other sources that confirm it and the general plausibility of the events, just like we believe that Pericles was a leader in Athens.

You will probably respond that (a) the sources *cannot *be trusted because they were written primarily by Christians and (b) the events aren’t plausible for scientific reasons. To that I respond that you would not discount the account of Pericles simply because it was written by a fellow Athenian. You could validly object that it throws some doubt on the total veracity of the claims because, like an Athenian, Christians may be likely to exaggerate their claims about Jesus due to their bias. But without sources that counter the Christian sources by saying Jesus was nothing more than a rabble-rouser, what are you basing your doubt on? A simple emotional unwillingness to believe? To the second objection I counter that, if you accept the basic premises of Christian thought–Jesus is one with God and can thus do anything he pleases and can manipulate Nature according to his will–then the claims of the Gospels are not hard to believe at all. Obviously then the argument proceeds towards attempting to prove/disprove the existence of God and defining that God as the one we claim He is, the God of Abraham.

 

[Linux]

How can we know that any historical account is true outside of pure faith? If I show you a book from the Golden Age of Greece that says Pericles was the elected leader of Athens for many years, would you accept it? Probably so. You would because you have faith in the veracity of the evidence, probably based on other sources verifying the statement and the general plausibility of the assertion that a rich man was elected as leader of Athens for many years.

I, and other Christians, believe we can assess the events described in the gospel for the same reasons. There are many Patristic writings on top of the canonical writings of the New Testament from the decades following the date of Christ’s crucifixion that affirm the events described–a Jew named Jesus performed miracles, built a following of many people, and was crucified by the Roman authorities outside Jerusalem. He rose from the dead and remained for a while longer before ascending into Heaven. We believe this based on the other sources that confirm it and the general plausibility of the events, just like we believe that Pericles was a leader in Athens.

You will probably respond that (a) the sources *cannot *be trusted because they were written primarily by Christians and (b) the events aren’t plausible for scientific reasons. To that I respond that you would not discount the account of Pericles simply because it was written by a fellow Athenian. You could validly object that it throws some doubt on the total veracity of the claims because, like an Athenian, Christians may be likely to exaggerate their claims about Jesus due to their bias. But without sources that counter the Christian sources by saying Jesus was nothing more than a rabble-rouser, what are you basing your doubt on? A simple emotional unwillingness to believe? To the second objection I counter that, if you accept the basic premises of Christian thought–Jesus is one with God and can thus do anything he pleases and can manipulate Nature according to his will–then the claims of the Gospels are not hard to believe at all. Obviously then the argument proceeds towards attempting to prove/disprove the existence of God and defining that God as the one we claim He is, the God of Abraham.

But the gospels do not always run like a first person narrative, they are very story like with elements expressing things that the writer did not witness himself.

Also, its not about proving that God exists, or even if Jesus existed, but rather it is about whether or not the miracles occurred, and whether or not we are justified in believing that they did.

I accept the existence of Jesus, and i accept on faith that the miracles happened, but that does not mean the evidence available justifies that belief.

If there was evidence of the existence of a roman emperor, and that roman emperor was reported to be a God, should we believe he is a God?

I do not want to have a double standard. I do not want to reject one religion for the same reasons that i accept Christianity for.

 

[cornbread_r2]

…]

I, and other Christians, believe we can assess the events described in the gospel for the same reasons. There are many Patristic writings on top of the canonical writings of the New Testament from the decades following the date of Christ’s crucifixion that affirm the events described–a Jew named Jesus performed miracles, built a following of many people, and was crucified by the Roman authorities outside Jerusalem. He rose from the dead and remained for a while longer before ascending into Heaven. We believe this based on the other sources that confirm it and the general plausibility of the events, just like we believe that Pericles was a leader in Athens.

Since the Patristic writers were committed Christians who had access to the gospels, I don’t find it remarkable that they affirm the gospel stories. If you’re interested, here’s an article by Earl Doherty detailing some of the surprising things that some of the earliest Christian apologists write – and don’t write – about Christianity.

…]

You could validly object that it throws some doubt on the total veracity of the claims because, like an Athenian, Christians may be likely to exaggerate their claims about Jesus due to their bias. But without sources that counter the Christian sources by saying Jesus was nothing more than a rabble-rouser, what are you basing your doubt on?

…]

Who would take the time, energy and expense to investigate events that were alleged to have occurred in the distant past just to debunk a minor Palestinian religious sect?

By the time the gospels were in wide circulation, possibly not until the first quarter of the 2nd century, would it even have been possible to investigate and debunk events that were alleged to have happened nearly a hundred years previously?

Why would we think that any such disconfirming evidence would not be destroyed (or allowed to perish) by Christian zealots?

 

[steve53]

Back at it, eh Cornbread?

Done your reading yet?

You think that the people of 2000 years ago were ignorant savages when it comes to assessing ancient events and an appreciation for the basics of critical analysis. Nothing could be further from the truth. The average human 2000 years ago was probably far stronger and smarter than the average person today.

They had to survive, and no one was handing out government money (much).

To your point, look at the Gospels themselves, Luke specifically. A rich man, perhaps a Christian convert, named Theophilus, paid or otherwise encouraged Luke of Macedon to travel the ancient world in order to find out the truth about Jesus. Wherever he lived, Theophilus knew there was a lot of nonsense out there about Jesus, and that when talking about religion or the supernatural people will confabulate. So he had Luke, apparently a respected physician who presumably lived in a rational world, to get the real story.

Luke’s passion for the truth was probably on the same level as yours.

If Luke died with Paul in A.D. 64, that meant that Theophilus sent Luke out on his assignment probably in the 50’s A.D., only 20 years after Jesus’ execution.

So we will never know everything about what happened 2,000 years ago, but that doesn’t mean the people back then were blithering idiots.

 

[Peter_Plato]

By the time the gospels were in wide circulation, possibly not until the first quarter of the 2nd century, would it even have been possible to investigate and debunk events that were alleged to have happened nearly a hundred years previously?

Why would we think that any such disconfirming evidence would not be destroyed (or allowed to perish) by Christian zealots?

That is a very late dating for the Gospels, but it is mostly irrelevant since it ignores the fact that more crucial spoken testimony would have preceded the written accounts. The written testimony did not arise from thin air. Most of the initial converts came to believe because of cogent spoken testimony that would also have definitively claimed the resurrection of Jesus to be the extraordinary event that corroborated the extraordinary claims about who Jesus was - God become man.

Those Christian “zealots” did not start out as zealots, most of the first were Jews who came to be convinced about who Jesus was. How did they become convinced? Obviously, by the cogent testimony of the eyewitnesses who shared their accounts by word and courageous deed.

The fact that the writing only appeared later is inconsequential because the first hearers would have been convinced by the spoken testimony of the eyewitnesses at a time when disconfirming evidence WAS available for all. Why were these first converts not dissuaded from becoming zealous Christians before the disconfirming evidence could have been destroyed - within the few weeks and months following the crucifixion of Jesus?

Your explanation fails to explain the zealousness of the first Christians - a fact you attempt to bury behind a red herring. How did they become zealous to begin with? Zealousness does not arise in a vacuum or where abundant evidence exists to show the object of your zealousness is just plain nonsense. It would have been very difficult to create NEW zealous converts where readily available discomfirming evidence existed immediately after the first resurrection claims were made. Claims which were the effective means by which those new zealous converts came to exist.

The reason discomfirming evidence was not destroyed later is because there was no discomfirming evidence to begin with or it would have been raised after the crucifixion and resurrection when it would have been most effective to do so. Dating the written record is irrelevant since the first converts were not made by written testimony, but rather by cogent personal spoken testimony from those who witnessed the events and could completely answer any skeptics by completely coherent and consistent accounts.

 

[Peter_Plato]

How are we to know that outside of pure faith?

By reasonable inference from a complete and unbiased view of the historical events.