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Over ten years ago now (March 28, 2006) I had a debate with William Lane Craig, author of Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics and On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, at the College of the Holy Cross, on the question: “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?” Craig is a conservative evangelical Christian philosopher. Yes, a real philosopher — that is, he teaches courses in philosophy and writes about it; but from a very conservative Christian perspective.
Ehrman vs Craig – Our First Time Meeting
I never met Craig before the debate, and in places, the debate gets a little … lively. Even testy. Craig and I have had zero contact with each other ever since.
Craig provided a full transcript of the debate on his site Reasonable Faith here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman I would assume that since he posted the transcript he thinks he pretty much mopped me up. Maybe he did!
Please Note – Bart Ehrman Debate with William Lane Craig:
Please note: The video quality from the source is not great, since old-style equipment was used to record the event. We have added color and audio correction, but overall it is not up to our normal standards.
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I’m always baffled by the mindset of people who want to say there’s evidence of miracles.
If you need evidence, where’s your faith? Anything that can be proven can also be disproven. Faith is faith precisely because you can’t prove it. If you have proof, you don’t need faith. That’s the whole point of the story of Doubting Thomas. But here he is, poking his fingers into the wounds–why?
He doesn’t really believe. That’s why it personally irks him that anyone else doesn’t believe. Those with genuine faith respect the beliefs of others. Those without it substitute dogma for faith, and pretend it’s the same thing.
That antithetical way of contrasting faith and evidence is something of a modern construct, convenient for some polemics that seek to define faith in an extreme way, but it does not really advance understanding of the biblical ‘pistis’, which Greek word does not signal some kind of non-evidence-based attitude.
You make good points
I have always felt that faith is incongruent with things claimed to be provably true.
It is, for example, absurd to brag about ones faith in gravity; gravity requires no faith
Likewise if the resurrection is demonstrably true, it becomes redundant to claim faith in this truth
Therefore faith and demonstrable fact seem mutually incompatible
I think the way you define Miracles is very different to many others. I would personally say that without evidence it is impossible to believe in miracles. It’s very very important to begin with the same definition
Craig’s “evidence” for the resurrection is basically: why would the Gospel writers say that Jesus rose from the dead if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? That’s not evidence. That’s willful ignorance and wishful thinking masquerading as evidence.
@talmoore:
It’s also telling how quickly many apologists with dismiss Mormon witnesses and evidence. Signed testimonies that they saw the golden plates. Independent witnesses. Yet quickly and distainfully brushed aside by many Christian apologists. They can see the obvious problems, but they can’t apply that same kind of discernment to their own “evidence” of Jesus and the resurrection.
It’s the argument from incredulity, I think: “Why on earth would they have said so if it wasn’t true?!” As if there must be something wrong with you if you don’t see how ridiculous it is to think otherwise.
As Dr. Ehrman’s recent post on “How Do We Know What Most Scholars Think” was still fresh in my mind, I noticed all the times in this debate where Dr. Craig would say most scholars/historians agreed with his position, and I copied and pasted them all into a file which I hope Dr.Ehrman won’t mind me posting here.
William Lane Craig – Opening Statement:
-which is regarded by most philosophers today as demonstrably fallacious.
-Fact #1: After his crucifixion Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb. Historians have established this fact on the basis of evidence such as the following:
-Fact #2: On the Sunday after the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.Among the reasons which have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following: 1. The empty tomb is also multiply attested by independent, early sources.
-I could go on, but I think enough has been said to indicate why, in the words of Jacob Kremer, an Austrian specialist on the resurrection, “By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb”
-Fact #3: On different occasions and under various circumstances different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.
-This is a fact which is virtually universally acknowledged by scholars, for the following reasons:
-In summary, there are four facts agreed upon by the majority of scholars: Jesus’ burial, the discovery of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.
-So most historians haven’t been deterred by these sorts of objections.
William Lane Craig – Second Rebuttal
-Now here Dr. Ehrman says that I have dubious use of modern authorities. I agree that the citation of modern authorities doesn’t prove anything in and of itself. That’s why I gave the arguments under each of the points. He has to deal with the arguments. He says that I represent a minority opinion. Not about those four facts! I said that it is controversial whether the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation of those facts, but I can give him the names, the evidence, of people who hold to those four facts. That does represent the broad mainstream of New Testament scholarship. Insofar as Dr. Ehrman now chooses to deny the honorable burial, the empty tomb, the appearances, he is in the decided minority of New Testament scholarship with regard those facts.
William Lane Craig – Conclusion
The majority of scholars do agree with the arguments that I gave for Jesus’ honorable burial by Joseph of Arimathea, for the fact that the tomb was found empty, for the early appearances of Jesus to various individuals and groups, and for the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection.
Question and Answer
Answer from Dr. Craig:
But by contrast, most New Testament scholars, as Bart Ehrman knows, do believe that Jesus of Nazareth carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcisms
Answer from Dr. Craig:
-I am not constructing the case that I’ve given tonight on the basis of passages that would be like that or that would be disputable. I am constructing it upon these four fundamental facts which are, I think, credibly attested by multiple, independent attestation and the criterion of embarrassment and which most New Testament scholars would agree with.
Will you still be speaking at the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing tomorrow (1/26/17)? If anyone is interested it is a free lecture at 7:00 P.M., in the RCAH Auditorium.
sorry — I didn’t get to the question in time!
On a WL Craig related topic, I don’t know the date of this post ( http://www.reasonablefaith.org/faith-and-doubt ), but in the section with header: “Faith and Doubt – The necessity of cultivating Christian virtues”, WLC responds to a question posed by a young Christian regarding doubt with this:
“I firmly believe, and I think the Bizarro-testimonies of those who have lost their faith and apostatized bears out, that moral and spiritual lapses are the principal cause for failure to persevere rather than intellectual doubts. But intellectual doubts become a convenient and self-flattering excuse for spiritual failure because we thereby portray ourselves as such intelligent persons rather than as moral and spiritual failures.”
Now I’ve recently been reviewing my future plans by going through brochures on hell, and advertised perks include, along with elevated temperatures all year long, a guaranteed apologetics-free environment. Now that’s something that sounds eternally enticing to me.
Moral lapses. That’s a good one.
I realize the answer to this question varies from time to time and place to place–but do you think, in general, that the earliest Christians (most notably the disciples) faced grave danger by preaching the resurrection? Let’s say from about 30 until about 70 CE.
In most times and places, no.
The desperate prayers by Jesus in the Garden Of Gethsemane really speak against a “Trinity” interpretation of Jesus. If Jesus is one with The Father, why would he have to repeat the same desperate petitioning prayer three times in Gethsemane. Why would Jesus need to pray at all?
Jesus’ last actions in Mark also speak against the idea that Jesus was welcoming of his death so he could calmly complete his mission: “With a LOUD CRY, Jesus breathed his last (Mark 15:37).”
Whatever respect I might ever have had for Craig evaporated when I read or heard him expound on his view (à la Luther) on the ministerial rather than magisterial role of reason: that is to say, he feels that “the self-authenticating testimony of the Holy Spirit” trumps all else, so that even if for some historically contingent reason all the evidence should point against Christianity, he would still be justified in his belief.
I suppose he deserves some tepid credit for coming out and admitting it, but it makes it clear that everything he does is an effort to rationalise and persuade: he has announced up front that he will accept no contrary argument, however valiid and sound. Calling him a philosopher seems like giving him too much credit. An erudite philodoxer, perhaps.
Philodoxer! May I steal that?
I was about to say I’d be delighted, but out of some instinctive caution I googled it, and found that although I put “philodoxer” together from the Greek roots, it turns out I’d only rediscovered an existing word apparently used by Plato. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Philodoxer, https://pursuewisdom.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/what-are-philosophers-like/ …
Has anyone ever told you, you look like Billy Abbott (played by Billy Miller) from The Young and the Restless?
I think you won that debate by a landslide. I’m sure many more think so as well. I found Craig’s conservative views tiresome and boring. So much so that in the middle of the debate I found myself fast forwarding to your segments and listened to the audience’s questions at the end. If you ever debated him on the contradictory stories in the gospels, I think he would be stymied.
Bart, I watched the video on YouTube some years ago and concluded that neither side “won” the debate. Not that you didn’t have your moments, but because I believe that debating a die-hard believer is akin to having a debate with a piece of furniture — it’s simply a waste of time.
Craig confuses best evidence with best explanation, assuming they have equal historical value, and also takes ancient writings to be, well, gospel. For example, Papias described Judas Iscariot as a grotesque, pus-ridden behemoth of a man so physically deformed by impiety that his body wouldn’t fit the width of a city street. We have the word of the great church fathers Irenaeus and Eusebius that Papias was writing the truth, so according to Craig it must have happened. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on and becomes fact, and you can’t logically argue it down.
My Christian family members see the Bible as physical evidence of actual history, with the writings of Paul and the Gospel writers as multiply-attested proof comparable to eyewitness testimony in a court of law. No amount of contrary logic, data, or empirical evidence will ever sway them, so what’s the point?
Yeah, I wonder sometimes….
Fundamentalist have the fear of death that trumps rational reasoning on their side.
Pastors at Funeral services promise the grieving their loved ones are with Jesus in heaven and they will be reunited with loved one and live forever without pain or suffering. Easy to sell that message when you are hurting.
I would say the point is to help those who have not yet been taken in see that “really smart” apologists like Craig are skilled verbal gymnasts with near zero intellectual integrity.
I’m sure you know this, but debates are for the fence sitters and those willing to listen and consider the points. Great performance, Dr. Ehrman.
Looking forward to your talk at Clemson.
Those “statistical probabilities” were a hoot! Ditto that poor m.c. having to stand there, on camera, doing nothing, while you and Craig were answering questions off camera.
I realize the format was set – each of you had to give your prepared statements first, right? And only after that, the replies? But he’d presented his four “agreed-upon points” so forcefully that it would have had more impact if you’d been able to reply to them right away.
I think a good argument would be that if one assumes (as Craig clearly did) that Joseph of Arimathea had the body placed in his family tomb, he could have intended all along that the interment there be temporary – just a way to keep the remains in a safe place till after the Sabbath.
Suppose he did that. Let’s say his own rabbi had agreed to provide the permanent burial somewhere, on condition that his name be kept out of it. None of Jesus’s other followers knew about this; the women only knew about the tomb because they’d been following whoever put the body there. So when they later went back and found it empty, they jumped to the conclusion there’d been a miracle.
When Joseph was asked about it, he may have refused to comment – mortified that his involvement had become “public” even to that degree. Or he may have flat-out denied that the body had ever been in his family tomb! That part of the story wouldn’t have been passed on.
I think that would be a very plausible explanation of what happened – “more probable,” even if one was willing to accept a miracle as one of the possibilities to be considered.
And I keep thinking of another approach to this question…
If Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead, in (as it’s claimed) a newly indestructible body, why didn’t he DO ANYTHING?? Why didn’t he confront Pontius Pilate, reveal what he was, and dare anyone to try to kill him again? Why didn’t he miraculously transport himself to Rome, confront the Emperor, and convince everyone that the God he proclaimed was the one true God? It seems ridiculous that a supposedly omnipotent God would have chosen to have a “miraculous resurrection,” that could have changed the world, go unnoticed by anyone in power.
Lots of points to consider in this debate, I’d like to remark on one point. If a miracle is defined as something explainable only by supernatural intervention, then, if you exclude the possibility of supernatural intervention, then the possibility of a miracle is not even improbable, it is 0. This would blow up Craig’s probability equations. I actually agree that these equations make sense, the problem is finding the appropriate factors to put into the equations.
If you include the possibility of supernatural intervention then miracles are possible to happen all the time. Probability would be quite high. Anything could have a supernatural explanation. Why are we having a drought? Because the gods are angry at us. How did hijackers get past security to fly planes into buildings on 9/11? Allah willed it so it happened. Relying on supernatural explanations gets a nowhere in trying to understand either historic or scientific endeavors.
Something like the supposed resurrection of Jesus is worth looking into just to counter Craig and other biblical fundamentalists. Some of us have devoted quite a few words on this subject in the Historical Jesus section of your blog, though (speaking for myself) I don’t think we have the historic scholarship to fully address the context for answering the question of what is most likely to have really happened.
This was very difficult to watch. At the start I found Dr. Craig to be a bit pompous, condescending and smug. He also comes across more as an apologist than an historian. I thought you did very well!!
In answering the last question in the transcript, you mentioned that Josephus did not mention and empty tomb or claims of a resurrection. It seems that Josephus would have probably mentioned these resurrection claims if he had been aware of them. Does it seem strange that Josephus was aware that many claimed Jesus was the messiah and that he was crucified, but Josephus wasn’t aware of the resurrection claims? This makes me think that only a tiny fraction of the followers of Jesus actually believed in the resurrection. Most of the followers of Jesus must have decided that they were mistaken about Jesus after the crucifixion, and Josephus learned of Jesus through them instead of through Christians? If the empty tomb had happened three days later, then wouldn’t it be unlikely that Josephus would learn of the crucifixion without the empty tomb?
Yes, it is kinda strange. Not sure how to explain it all!
Josephus may have heard of the Jesus resurrection, but may not have wanted to convey an impression of being impressed or interested. Josephus is really only providing footnotes by way of his references to Jesus, nothing more than that. Josephus can also tend to render into very truncated form episodes that others would prefer in expanded form. You see that in how he and Philo handle similar episodes.
Craig is the poster boy for motivated reasoning. He is just so intellectually dishonest it is painful to listen to him. Your efforts at unmasking this charlatan are appreciated.
Craig has a Doctorate in Philosophy of Religions… he is not a real philosopher per se. And Craig is well known for misquoting and being very dishonest…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgxUTJmcWsM
I think you go too far. What makes one a real philosopher per se? If I have a PhD. (I don’t) in epistemology, another specialized philosophical discipline, am I also not a real philosopher per se?
My primary philosophy teacher used to say that philosophy is not something you have; it’s something you do. For him, it was the ongoing cross-examinations of our presuppositions about who we are. We all have starting points and a Christian, if we allow him his presuppositions could well do philosophy from that point on–that is, given his immovable beliefs. But he’s not cross-examining his most fundamental beliefs about man and divinity.
Thanks for posting this link. It seems Dr Craig believes the end justifies the means, and his means are, well, questionable.
” …in places the debate gets a little … lively. Even testy.” That’s what makes it fun to watch!
From Craig’s transcript: “And now we’re ready to see precisely where Dr. Ehrman’s error lies. So in the grand tradition of Hume’s Abject Failure, I give you: Ehrman’s Egregious Error.
Ehrman’s Egregious Error
Pr(R/B) × Pr(E/B&R)
Pr(R/B&E)=__________
[Pr(R/B) × Pr(E/B&R)] + [Pr(not-R/B) × Pr(E/B¬-R)]”
Do you see where your mistake is here Bart? I looked at this earlier but didn’t quite get it. Later, I drank two glasses of wine then looked at it again. Clear as a bell now.
Even though the math equation was nonsense, I think the evidence is in favor of both a burial and a resurrection. We can choose not to believe it, but there’s only so much proof that can be gleaned from antiquity. For a man that was a nobody, supposedly, and impoverished, possibly illiterate, and left behind only a handful of followers, we have a remarkable amount of information about him.
So that’s my problem? Not enough wine!
Haha Yes! Try it and see for yourself.
Abuse of probability and statistics is one of my petpeeves. Mythicists such as Richard Carrier, who is the direct antithesis of William Lane Craig, is also guilty of abusing statistics. The main problem with Craig’s equation — an outrageous attempt at Bayes’ Theorem — is that it essentially begs the question. He asks the question, What is the probability that Jesus rose from the dead? So he starts off by assuming that the probability that the disciples lied about the empty tombs must be zero. Then he assumes the probability that the disciples lied about seeing the risen Jesus is zero. And, voila, the probability that Jesus rose from the dead is conveniently 100%! As anyone with half a brain can see, that’s a completely circular argument. The probability that Jesus rose from the dead is 100% because there’s a 100% chance that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s a completely absurd, nonsensical answer.
If we REALLY want to talk probabilities, however, we can start off by asking the most obvious question: How many solidly documented, readily verifiable instances of resurrection are there? That would be 0 out of roughly 10,000,000,000 instances of human death, or 0%. So based on observations, what is the probability of a man rising from the dead? 0/1 or 0.0. Now plug that probability into Craig’s fancy equation, and the resulting probability becomes 0.0%.
Well if a miracle has a probability greater than zero, is it really a miracle?
I couldn’t hear the voices well on the video so read the transcript. My comments are as follows:
I’ve made this point before, but Mr. Craig and others like him must think God is a shmuck. Hundreds of thousands are gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover, and Pilate has brought additional troops into the city. According to Paul, the risen Christ was seen by a few and eventually 500. What an incredible moment this would be: Jesus—in human form but clearly indestructible—strolls into the great court of the Temple. Everyone sees that the crucified, murdered Jesus is in fact alive! Resurrected! Hundreds of thousands see him and can affirm that he has been raised. Everyone, awed, including Pilate and his soldiers, fall on their knees and acclaim the Son of God.
But no, God doesn’t do this. He allows the risen Christ to be seen by a handful and then by 500. What an opportunity God has missed. Think of it—what struggles, what wars might have been avoided if only God had had the good sense to show his power. But no, a handful think they have seen him, perhaps dined with him; a mere 500 in total can attest to his resurrection.
Mr. Craig thinks this is proof. What a feeble faith he has.
I have watched this several times and it is a great debate. The issues mainly revolve around whether Jesus was really buried in a tomb and, if so, did the tomb become empty, and, if so, is a Resurrection the most or least likely explanation for this empty tomb? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
P.S. You did not lose the debate.
OT, but because I don’t think you ever completed a previous thread…
Back on Dec. 15, re the question of whether “Cephas” and “Peter” were two different people, you reprinted an article you’d written years ago, which concluded: “When Paul mentions Cephas, he apparently does not mean Simon Peter, the disciple of Jesus.”
But you wrote: “As it turns out, I’m not sure I buy the argument anymore. I’ll explain why in simple terms in a later post.”
I don’t think you ever did!
Ah, right! I need to come back to that.
I noticed that too.
Me three
You mopped the floor with him.
Interesting seeing this again after so many years. I was just wondering what parts of that you would do/say differently now that time has moved on, apart from the ‘fact’ of the empty tomb perhaps. If there are a few things, maybe you could do a post on it. Thanks.
What I came to think after doing research for my book How Jesus Became God was that Jesus’ corpse was probably left on the cross for a few days and then deposited in some kind of common tomb.
“Jesus’ corpse was probably left on the cross for a few days and then deposited in some kind of common tomb”. Yes, Bart, as we have discussed before. Given the use of crucifixion by the Romans, I think even three days would be presumptive. The historical record seems to indicate that bodies were left to fully decompose on the cross.
So, has the opinion of a majority of historians changed on this?
Nope! Old views die hard!
Three points:
1. Re-miracles, two words: David Hume.
2. On being a Christian: what would he have been had he been born in, say, Saudi Arabia or Thailand?
3. Is it possible for a serious philosopher to be anything other than agnostic? Discuss.
On 3: yes, sure, there are plenty of Christian philosophers.
Re what I posted before, about Joseph of Arimathea and the empty tomb… I know you, Bart, don’t believe Joseph of Arimathea even existed. And I think your theory – that the entire “empty tomb” story was made up years later – is very likely correct. It too is much more probable than the “miracle.” But I wanted to make a case that *even if* Craig’s belief in the “empty tomb” was correct, there would be a very plausible “natural explanation.”
I agree.
Craig presented what he believed very clearly: his “four facts”, and that he believed the best explanation for those four facts was that Jesus really was raised by God. I don’t think he ever explained *why* he thought that was the best explanation. This was his whole case and he never gave the arguments for it? How can someone expect to win a debate without giving the arguments for their position? I would have been quite interested to hear why he thought that was a more probable explanation than anything else. Personally I think the debate was a bit of a let down on both sides, but it did what I believe is the sole purpose of any debate, it got me thinking about things.
I submitted a question to Dr. Craig on his website. I didn’t bother to read the detailed rules for questions, so I may not get an answer.
Whenever I hear this ‘4 facts’ argument in a debate, I always wonder why you and others allow them to get away with calling those ‘facts’. Just by letting them use that term (facts), you immediately give up critical ground. By doing so, he fairly effectively turns the question from ‘did the Resurrection happen?’ to ‘how do we explain the risen Jesus?’.
Why don’t you – and others – start out by simply making the point that those aren’t ‘facts’, they are simply theological conclusions?
The burden is clearly on him to provide evidence – beyond just the Bible – but he sheds that burden by changing the basic question posed in the debate from ‘did it happen’ to ‘how is it best explained?’.
Yes, I no longer think that the empty tomb is at all a fact, and if I debated him now I would strongly contest it.
This debate was over a decade ago, do you know if Craig still holds to the same arguments?
I’m sure he does.
I have listened to this debate 2-3 times, and of Craig’s apologetics, the Bayesian analysis is the most frustrating, because it demonstrates a debating tactic used by Christian apologists, including young earth creationists. The tactic is to present some complex concept or math which most people in the audience will not understand and then to mischaracterize it or to improperly apply it. It’s fairly easy to win a debate when you have no scruples about introducing a complex concept into a debate which takes little debating time to present wrongly and which takes a lot of debating time to show why it is wrong. Young earth creationists, for example, continue to perpetuate the falsehood that The Theory of Evolution violates the 2d Law of Thermodynamics. As a chemical engineer I can say “Nonsense,” but to explain the ramifications of dS=dQ/T, including the Clausius and Kelvin statements and that entropy in a system can decrease at the price of an increase in entropy in the surroundings, takes a lot more time than we would have during a debate, where young earth creationists are shotgunning large amounts false information. Craig prefers Bayesian analysis as a tool for obfuscation. Bayesian analysis is a way of updating probabilities in light of new facts. Here, Craig introduces a tight ball of lots of assumptions into a valid theorem in a short time and demands that his opponent spend a lot of time identifying and untangling the components of the ball. In his debates, Craig often uses the tactic of shifting the burden of proof of the nonexistence of supernatural beings and events to his opponent. This debate is no exception. His application of a valid formula is a sophisticated way of shifting the burden of proof. His strongest argument is that the resurrection COULD be more probable, even p=1, IF God exists (one assumption). The second unspoken assumption is that Craig’s god, who could exist, is a god who would want to raise Jesus from the dead (second assumption). Thus, Craig’s application of the formula is not to update probabilities of a predicted event based on updated facts (observations), but to update probabilities of an event based on further hypotheses, beliefs, and/ or assertions. This wrong use of Bayesian analysis could forestall actual calculations by continuing to require the input of hypothetical deities who might be for or against Jesus’ resurrection. What is the probability of the resurrection if both Yahweh and Satan exist? What is the probability that Satan has equal, half-, a third, the power to prevent resurrection as Yahweh has to raise Jesus. What is the probability that Zeus or Allah exist whether instead of or in addition to Yahweh? Craig never meets his burden of proof that there exists a god who would want to raise Jesus from the dead or could if he wanted to. He shifts the burden by suggesting that his opponent is in error, because he addresses only naturalistic ways to raise Jesus from the dead, not supernaturalistic ways. He requires his opponent to prove not only that there is no evidence that Jesus was resurrected but also that there are no supernatural entities that would have wanted to do it. And nobody ever asks these questions in science or other areas of inquiry. What is the likelihood that gravity existed yesterday, given a god that may have wanted gravity to be less to prevent a flood in a particular part of the world. What is the probability that autism will spread among Christian children, given a Christian god. So, not only does he shift the burden of proof, he is shifting the debate about evidence for the resurrection to a larger debate about the existence of God. Basically, he’s shifting the burden of proof, running the clock, and obfuscating.
Sorry that was so long… but it kind of requires a rant.
Interesting, and on target! Thanks.
Moreover, Craig is wrong about most of his argument concerning physics. String theory is so far a mathematical theory, not a fully scientific one, since THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE to show that it has any predictive power as a scientific theory.
The place where I did my doctorate in early Christian thought, though not an evangelical school, had a philosophy department chockfull of evangelicals, many of them quite accomplished. They were forever at war with my department, and almost without exception the root of the problem was that they could not fathom the contingent and often dubious nature of biblical texts. For them it was all propositional truth. It made any historical/theological discussion virtually impossible. I have begun to suspect that this problem is endemic.
Something that bugged my about William Lane Craig’s presentation is he kept accusing you of “methodological atheism”. Would a Jew conclude that the most probable scenario is that God raised Jesus from the dead? What about a Muslim? Or a Hindu? Or a Sikh? Not likely. In fact the only people who would come to that conclusion would be Christians. But they already believe that. So if the only ones who would conclude something historically are those who already believe it because of their faith, well that doesn’t sound like a historical method to me. It’s not “methodological atheism”, it’s about having historical presuppositions, not theological ones.
Good point!
doctor bart,
how would you reply to this :
The hypothesis that the disciples all fled from Jerusalem immediately after Jesus’s crucifixion is inconsistent with the claim that they announced his resurrection to people in the city soon after.
///
my question is, are the gospels trustworthy when they say that IMMEDIATELY after jesus DEATH (1 month later ?), the friends of jesus announced their belief in resurrection ?
was it really in JERUSALEM ?
Yes, if Matthew is right that Jesus’ disciples saw him only after taking the long trip on foot to Galilee, and by implication came back to Jerusalem some time later, then Luke cannot be right that they stayed in jerusalem and made their proclamation there right away.
apologists say
“I can not for the life of me figure out how a religion would have been formed over a man who was killed as a criminal UNLESS something happened”
but isn’t it true that even when jesus was alive and preaching he thought that judgement day was going to happen very soon in his time? isn’t it true that 1st century christians thought that redemption was coming near?
why do 1st century christians need a resurrection when day of judgement was around the corner?
isn’t it possible that imminent day of judgement would be enough to keep the religion alive rather than the resurrection of jesus?
I think early Christians saw these two as complementary — Jesus’ resurrection *showed* that the end was imminent.
dr ehrman
when we look at mark and matthew, it seems as if these authors did not know about any sightings of jesus in JERUSALEM . does the LACK of detail prove that the DEVELOPED stories about post ressurected jesus found in luke and john, did not exist when mark and matthew started to write?
craig and other apologists need the stories found in luke and john to be SPREAD in different communities very early and quickly
but LACK of detail in mark , matthew and paul SEEMS to DEBUNK the claim that the story FOUND in luke and john SPREAD very EARLY and quickly, do you agree?
even if the disciples of jesus returned to jerusaelm, what is the chance that they were spreading stories found in luke and john in the place where their pal was executed?
we know in marks version that peter would bull s when CAUGHT and then when he was safe, he cries and feels guilty.
what is the chance denier and liar like peter would go around in jerusalem spreading the stories found in luke and john ?
My hunch is that Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John were all living in different communities and all heard different stories about Jesus (and his resurrection). Matthew and Luke did both have access to Mark. Matthew expanded Mark’s resurrection narrative, and Luke provided a very different one based on what he had heard. Whether they go back to Peter or not — I rather doubt it.
carr wrote :
Paul says Christians were persecuted on the issue of circumcision.
Acts has an alleged letter from a Roman. It says Paul was charged with
nothing serious, apart from an internal Jewish dispute over Jewish
laws.
I guess the Jews were just too dumb to think of telling the Romans
that Paul was a follower of a criminal, who his followers claimed had
cheated death and was still alive.
If it had occurred to the Jews to have Paul charged with following a recently executed criminal, claimed to be still alive by his followers, then Paul’s defense that Jesus
really had been killed would hardly have saved him.
You can imagine the trial scene :-
‘You are charged with following a rebel who claimed to be king, and
who you claim still leads your movement. How do you plead?’
‘Not guilty. Jesus was crucified and is now in Heaven.’
‘Pathetic. If this criminal is still alive and leading your movement,
then he obviously can’t have been killed. Do you think we Romans
believe in people returning from the dead?’
But not even Acts claims Paul was ever charged with anything serious.
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doesn’t all of the above debunk the claim that the VERSION found in LUKE and JOHN was spread EARLY AND quickly? jesus appears for 40 days, yet no policing force wants to ask where is he and where have you followers of this guy hidden him ??
on your blog forum there are a few replies to your view i quote
quote :
How could the disciples have returned to Galilee, had visions which convinced them that Jesus had been resurrected and then returned to Jerusalem a few weeks later with a coherent story?
and
If the disciples had visions of Jesus in Galilee, why did they not stay and tell people there? Why return at all to Jerusalem? If they had fled for their lives immediately after Jesus’s arrest, wouldn’t they still be in danger a couple of months later?
///////////////
does your hypothesis require the fact that the resurrection story was not immediately spread and for quite a long time only known in galilee?
so when luke and john say that it was known in jerusalem, they are writing as apologists not as people who received information from peter and co
My sense is that it was first known in Galilee, but that hte disciples soon returned to Jerusalem (for some reason) and spread the message there as well.
is it true that james tabor believes that jay of a took the body and placed it in its FINAL resting place and he (tabor) sees historicity in johns version where the woman says ” they have taken his body and we don’t know WHERE they have put him”
so here , tabor assumes (if memory is correct) that mary’s reaction is to jay of a taking away the body
he believes no family member of jesus was preaching about jesus’ alleged resurrection in jerusalem and the visions started in galilee so no one would have even known where the body was placed because of jay of a
so when apologists say that jay of a would have KNOWN the location , they NEED to prove that the friends of jesus MADE CLAIMS about jesus IN jerusalem VERY early on.
they have no proof for . am i correct on tabors view?
I’m afraid I can’t recall: but he is on the Blog and maybe he can respond directly.
John Dominic Crossan thinks it could have been months or years before the resurrection beliefs developed in Galilee. He says “Easter Sunday” could have been as long as ten years.
quote :
The Acts Seminar concluded that the Christian church did not originally arise in Jerusalem, but in Galilee. Mark implies that Jesus was first “seen” in Galilee and Matthew makes that explicit. Luke changes that to Jerusalem in his Gospel, then follows that with an ascension on Easter Sunday. In Acts, Luke adds forty days before the ascension. Luke is the only evangelist who says there was an secondary ascension after the resurrection The Acts Seminar concluded that Luke wanted to move the origin of the church to Jerusalem and that he invented the ascension to seal off any more appearances or sightings.
John has appearances first in Jerusalem then in Galilee. The Galilee chapter seems to have been added later and not have been part of the original Gospel. John does seem to show a lot of knowledge of Luke’s Gospel and may have pulled the Jerusalem appearances from there.
Exactly how and where the resurrection belief developed is one of the central questions of Christian Origins, but it does appear that it developed first in Galilee and that the proto-orthodox church moved the first appearances to Jerusalem, perhaps to give the Jerusalem church more authority. Your point that followers of Jesus would have been in danger in Jerusalem, especially if they were preaching openly at the Temple, is a point that is also raised by scholars and without any clear explanation for it.
Thanks. Where are you getting “months or years” from in his statement?
Let us consider Method and the Resurrection appearances:
Historians try to establish what “probably” happened in the past. An historian would never claim a miracle “probably happened,” because a miracle is the “most improbable” thing that could happen, by definition. Only an apologist would fallaciously try to establish the historicity of a miracle, because sound historical reasoning rules out the “miraculous explanation” a priori.
Take this example: The pre Pauline Corinthian Creed claims something like the idea that the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas and the Twelve three days after Jesus died. This creed is very early and so the story may not be the result of legendary embellishment. So what happened? (a) Maybe the disciples were hallucinating out of grief. (b) Maybe Cephas and the twelve were inventing stories of the risen Jesus in hopes of lending divine clout to, and carrying on, Jesus’ ethical mandate of loving your neighbor and your enemy – an ethical cause they may have been willing to die for (like Socrates). Whatever the case, any reasonable secular explanation is historically preferable to a miraculous one.
In his debate with William Lane Craig, Bart Ehrman points out that even if we don’t accept a particular mundane explanation, it is still more probable than the miraculous explanation. In fact, in the case of an apparent miracle, even if we don’t know of any Aliens having cloaked ships and transporters that are doing “apparent” miracles on our planet (like in Star Trek: The Next Generation – Devil’s Due), this naturalistic explanation is still a more reasonable explanation than a secular historian claiming a miracle happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-FbZj9kPY
If anyone is interested, I explain this a little more fully in a blog post (along with the reader comments) here:
http://palpatinesway.blogspot.com/
Imagine a historian of antiquity trying to establish the historicity of one of the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana! They would be laughed out of the Academy. Only with Christian apologists do we see the rules of historical inquiry thrown out the window in trying to establish the historicity of a miracle story about Jesus.
Good point!
I couldn’t listen to the rest of the debate I was overwhelmed by WLCs arguments.
For me personally WLC is a gold medalist in verbal gymnastics.
The mathematical equation he mentions is problematic for me.
I’m wondering if he’s been listening to any of Nassin Nicholas Taleb’s presentations on probability theory and if that’s where WLC came up with the idea of using the mathematical equation to support his claim of the likelihood of the resurrection of Jesus?
Craig lost me at the Swinburnian thing. Arbitrarily coming up with theological probabilities for miracles is about as far from pure math as you will ever get. And not understanding (or pretending not to understand) why Mark would have inserted women into the resurrection story is obtuse and shows a complete ignorance of narrative structure. Maybe he should have taken a few more English Lit courses.
I think Craig won the debate because:
1. He was clever in use of statistics with his target audience, Christians. Someone always wins the lottery despite prohibitive odds against any one ticket. Christians won the biggest lottery of all! Resurrection doesn’t have to be likely to actually happen.
2. He asks the audience if they experienced Jesus in their lives. For many, perhaps most, Christians, the answer is yes, which makes the resurrection not only possible, but certain.
3. He managed to equate being a historian to really just being an atheist with an agenda, especially with his patronizing style.
Just for the record, I always believed the resurrection was a matter of faith, not fact.
I used to believe in the resurrection until I realized that Jesus did not bring anything to the Jews they did not already have. At best he was a Gandhi type person of his era. He failed completely his promise of being the Jewish messiah, and all that entails, in the lifetime of his followers. He doesn’t seem to have promised anything else.
Yeah, the thing about debates is that unless there are actual judges, there aren’t actual winners. The funny thing is that after a public debate, almost always, the one person things s/he really destroyed the other fellow….
Looking back on this debate, I do think Craig makes a very good point that largely goes unaddressed. He notes that the probability of something (e.g. resurrection) depends on your metaphysical worldview: if you think naturalism is true, then the probability is 0 or close to it. But if you think naturalism is false, then the probability is much higher, since an outside force (e.g. God) can occasionally violate the natural order.
Now historians like to say that they are agnostic regarding metaphysics, that they are staying away from philosophy and just doing history. But in that case, they really shouldn’t be commenting on the probability of miracles at all. To say, as Bart does, that “…miracles are so highly improbable that they’re the least possible occurrence in any given instance” is to assume metaphysical naturalism. For it is only under that worldview that miracles are in fact “highly improbable.”
So to me, the historian who wants to say this has two options: 1. Make an independent case for why naturalism is more likely to be true, thus providing a firm foundation for one’s assessment of probability, or 2. Refrain from commenting on probabilities citing the limitations of historical method.
Yup, he’s a smart guy! Here’s my sense of the matter:
If someone says that anything can happen if God makes it happen (i.e. you reject a scientific view of cause and effect and the universal application of the laws of physics, on teh grounds that God might intervene), then what would be the relative probability of what would happen if you hold a can of tomato soup at arms length and let go? Will it fall? If you reject a naturalist point of view I suppose you would have to say “Maybe so, maybe not.”
My sense is that some (not all!) religious people hold to scientific views until they come to something they want to believe that contradicts them; otherwise the views solid as iron. I think that’s fine: but if someone *does* have such an extraordinary view (e.g., that on this one occasion the can of soup did not fall to the floor but defied the law of gravity) than I think they need to have extraordinary *evidence* (not just relatively OK evidence) that the laws of nature, in this instance, didn’t hold. Someone later *telling* you that the can did not fall is not what I would consider to be extraordinary evidence.
Just my view!
I wouldn’t say that it’s a matter of “rejecting the scientific view” on occasion, but rather having adopted a different philosophical position from the outset. In any case, I don’t think the tomato can analogy holds, for dropping a can is a repeatable event. We could drop the can a million times in a row, whereas we cannot do the same for the death and resurrection of Jesus: if it happened, it happened once and only once. Therefore, we cannot make any probability claim like “we’ve seen Jesus not be resurrected a million times in a row, so it is unlikely it happened this time.”
Nor will it do to respond “well, we’ve looked at millions of autopsies and concluded that 0 people were resurrected.” Even if we could prove this, the claim assumes that Jesus is just like any other person, which is question begging: the whole argument is whether Jesus was divine or just like any other person.
We might just have to agree to disagree on this one. Again, I appreciate you responding (how cool is it that a guy as busy as Bart responds to individual readers!)
Right! I didn’t mean that it was comparable as a scientific experiment. I meant it was comparable because both involve laws of physics. Once one invokes the supernatural by saying “God did it” then the laws of physics no longer apply. That’s true for Jesus as well as for cans of tomatoes. More important, once we move outside the realm of what can be shown within the natural realm, we hve moved outside the discourse of “history” and have moved into the discourse of “theology.” that’s more or less my point.
Here, I would question both the claim that debating metaphysical worldviews (naturalism, non-naturalism etc.) is (only) theology rather than philosophy, as well as the assumption that the historian is not doing any philosophy (but may choose to “move outside” history if they wish). To do history at all–to make judgements about what probably happened in the past–is to necessarily draw on philosophical presuppositions about what is possible. Thus, to assign a low or high probability to things like resurrection is already to “move outside” (or more precisely, to have never been squarely inside).
Thus, the historian has to either acknowledge and defend their worldview (e.g. naturalism) or remain agnostic as to the probabilities entirely. My main contention is that historians try to have it both ways without realizing it, claiming that the probability is low without defending the naturalism that would enable that claim to be true. The historian might try to assert that naturalism is the default position and doesn’t need defending (a question-begging claim), or point out that most top historians assume metaphysical naturalism (an argument from authority) but neither is satisfactory.
Yes, that’s right. Historians have presuppositions. One is that the probability of natural law, say, the law of gravity, being violated are next to nil. On the other hand, that is not really a presupposition. It is an empirical reality. If you are trying to evaluate whether it’s possible that someone released a ten pound weight from their hand at shoulder height and that rather than dropping to the floor it hovered in mid-air for a half hour, as, say, ten people claimed, then what are the probabilities that the ten are right? Historians would say next to zero. What are the probabilities that the ten people mistook what they saw and that if the weight actually was released it would have dropped to the floor. Empirically, that really is the higher probability. So the presupposition is that natural law can tell us what probably happened, and that since we are dealing with probabilities, one event is more probable than the other. I would say that any other judgment really is more wishful thinking than historical analysis. So is that a “naturalist” presupposition? I suppose it is. Is it therefore of no greater weight than any other presupposition — for example that gravity doesn’t necessarily work in every case and there are some people who can decide to defy it or to make ten pound weights defy it? I would say no. You have empirical demonstration on one side — you can do teh experiment ten million times with a ten pound weight and you will have the same exact result every time, and the claim that empirical evidence cannot establish probabilities on the other. I would take the latter to be the less likely assumption, and point out that if the presuppositions are of equal merit, then science is no longer possible. Science, of course, is a four-letter word for some people, but not the ones who know how gravity works.
Hey Bart, what is your take on Dr Gary Habermas and his argument for the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection?
*I’ve been searching to see if you had ever responded to any of his claims*
I don’t find them convincing at all, and am struck by the fact that they are convincing almost exclusively to those who are already convinced and want ammunition to convince others. I know hundreds of historians, and not one of them would give the arguments the time of day. He’s a smart fellow, but in my view he is doing theology, not history.
Hi, Dr Ehrman! I really like your lectures and debates so this question is not coming as an attack. I’m in discussion with someone who says that you didn’t allow release of the debate (transcript or video) to Holy Cross and Dr Craig on their websites after the debate. Is it true and if yes then why? As I see today it’s released on all of your channels but it seems to have been released with a considerable time margin (6 to 10 years after the debate).
No, not true so far as I know. I don’t have access or the rights to the transcript, and I don’t recall anyone ever asking me. Who is this erson and I’m wondering why s/he would say somethign that simply isn’t true? Is this something recent? Why would I disallow something that I can’t allow, and that is publicly accessible easily anyway?
Thanks for the answer! He is a guy in a comment section but he was so adamant about it that I got curious if there was any truth to it. Thanks for taking the time to answer! I can’t wait for you debate with Dr Licona!
I’m not sure if you want to spend anymore time with this topic but this claim is based on Ed Babinski’s blog who claims it’s from Dr Craig (dangerous idea, Monday, June 05, 2006)
‘William Lane Craig wrote:
Since Ehrman is not permitting the publication of this
debate, could you help to make this address known,
perhaps providing such a link at any websites you are
involved with?
Thanks,
Bill’
Weird. Isn’t it publicly availale on Youtube? In any event, I frankly don’t remember a conversation I had with William Lane Craig sixteen years ago!
Dr. Ehrman,
Question! Craig argues that the majority of NT scholars believe the empty tomb is a historical fact.
My question is: Do the majority of critical NT scholars believe the empty tomb is a historical fact or is this just conservative scholars Craig is referring to?
Also, from my understanding, even Gary Hebarmas (who is famous for coming up with the “75% of NT scholars believe in an empty tomb” has seemed to abandon this “fact” in his minimal fact approach. I don’t know if he still believes it is a fact, but he is shying away from it in a lot of his recent publications/approaches. Do you know anything about that and are more and more scholars beginning to abandon the “empty tomb” as a historical fact (or at least doubt it as a fact)?
I don’t know, but my guess is that most think it was empty. I don’t know how they explain it, but even most critical scholars believe in some form of the resurrection, even when they (as usual) admit it’s not a historical claim that can be demonstrated on teh basis of historical inquirey.
How anyone comes up with a percentage of scholars who believes this that or the other thing (41% think….) is beyond me! Habermas certainly himself thinks it is a “fact” that the tombe was empty.
Dr. Ehrman,
When someone says the majority of NT scholarship believes something, aren’t the stats already skewed since the majority of NT scholars are Christian and work at universities or institutions where they must agree to faith statements? Am I correct in this assumption?
I mean, I could say most Islamic scholars believe Muhammed is the true prophet and his miracles are historical. Is that really proving anything?
As an aside, I did hear someone say that you are pretty much the only person with scholarly credentials who denies an honorable burial and an empty tomb and that’s only because you realize the power of the minimal fact argument (ha!). Is this true (the first part about you being the only true scholar who believes the burial and empty tomb traditions aren’t historical), or are there other scholars out there who argue that the honorable burial and empty tomb were not actually historical?
Do you mind naming off some? I’m trying to convince people you aren’t the only scholar who believes these are legends.
Yes, “most scholars” is usually code for “believe me.” I myself use it to talk aobut “most critical scholars” by which I mean scholars who take a historical rather than a faith stance, but in those cases it’s not hard to know — e.g., do “most critical scholars” hold to Markan priority and doubt that Paul wrote 1 Timothy and that there are non-historical materials in the Gospels? Absolutely, no question about it.
And no, I didn’t come up with the idea that Jesus was not buried on the day of his crucifision. It’s a minority view, but the first to propagate it rather vigorously was John Dominic Crossan.
Dr. Ehrman,
What have other “critical scholars” thought about the data pointing to the conclusion that Jesus was probably not even given an honorable burial? Aside from you and John Dominic Crossan, do other well-respected historians and scholars take this position seriously?
I realize it’s currently not the majority view, but does it have any kind of representation among critical scholars and historians, or is it just a fringe view that Crossan, you, and a few others take?
Good question. I don’t know!
Dr. Ehrman,
Even if one assumes that the “minimal facts” of William Lane Craig’s argument are correct, are there other explanations that explain his four “facts” that don’t invoke the supernatural that you or others have developed to just give as alternative possibilities and explanations, even if his four “facts” are true?
Of course, There are lots of explanatoins for all sorts of fact that don’t involve a belief that “God had to do it.” And technically speaking, most any explanation that doesn’t involve a miraculous intervention is more plausible virtually by definition (disciples lied; disciples mistook what htey saw; rumors started weeks later; bodies were eaten by dogs; bodies were misplaced; no one was there to see any of it — all of these are highly problematic. But they all involve things that happen *all* the time. So if you’re gauging probabilities in part on what happens a lot versus what otherwise happens never, how is it much of a competition of which is more probable? Does Craig think all the other miracles in all the other religious traditions — including alternative Christain religious traditions — probably happened because they are attested and are hard to explain otherwise? Absolutely not. And why would that be???
Dr. Ehrman,
I don’t believe the four “facts” of Craig’s argument can even be established as facts. Even so, taking all four of his “facts” (burial, empty tomb, postmortem appearances, and conviction of the apostles), it seems easy explanations emerge.
Since the guards at the tomb were likely a later legend, it could have been random thieves or graverobbers (who were neither disciples nor enemies) who stole the body of Jesus. The next day, the women go to the tomb and it’s empty. Joseph of Arimathea consults the tomb to also find it empty. They report this to Peter. Peter shortly thereafter starts to wonder what could have happened and he has a bereavement hallucination. This hallucination leads to him believing he really saw Jesus which in turn leads to others (perhaps Mary and James) having some kind of experience or vision. Before you know it, the story gets out and people begin to believe it.
This explains (1) Jesus was buried; (2) The tomb was empty; (3) the appearances, (4) the conviction.
Am I missing something? This quick explanation seems to account for everything Craig says can’t be accounted for. Isn’t this a possible explanation that adequately answers his “facts?”
Yup, it’s far more likely than a miracle that has never happened before or since to god knows how many billions of people who have ever lived, if, like the apologists,m you really, for some reason, want to put it in terms of historical “probability.” How many times have rumors started in the world?
How many times have dead people been raised (not NDE’s — genuine raised to die ever again?) It’s zillions of examples to, at best, one.
So what’s the relative probability. The MISTAKE is for them to think in terms of historical probability.
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Dr. Ehrman,
In 1 Corinthians 15, do you believe that when Paul says Jesus appeared to him “last of all,” is he talking about chronological order or do you believe he is talking about his status in terms of who Jesus appeared to?
Chronology. The adverbs he uses are typically used of time. (And then…)
Dr. Ehrman,
Does this mean that the creed has to pre-date Paul’s conversion since he lists himself as last? In other words, would this put this week at least within 3 years of the death of Jesus?
No, not at all. Everyone seems to misunderstand that. A “pre-Pauline tradition” is one that was available to Paul from another source before he wrote it in his letter. It doesn’t mean it predated Paul’s conversion. It’s a technical term that for some reason even some people who call themselves scholars don’t appear to understand….