How would you possibly know that a particular text did not reflect the truth of the content of what actually occurred? As far as I know, you have no criteria whatsoever for making such a judgment. If we separate the text totally away from the event, how do you establish the truth of falsity of what occurred, of the content, of any event? You don’t seem to address that question.”
This is merely an attempt to shift the burden of proof. The responsibility to provide valid criteria is on the one making the claim not the one questioning it. How could he possibly know that that a particular text does reflect the truth of the content of what actually occurred? Simply because it is near in time to the events that might have occurred? What does “near in time” mean? Well Paul is writing about the resurrection 20 years or so after Jesus’ death. He is relying on personal visions for his theology and consciously distancing himself from Jesus’ closest companions (by his own admission Paul thinks the folks who knew the historical Jesus best got it wrong). He relates second hand stories of unknown provenance about the resurrection appearances. He never met Jesus and knows practically nothing about his life pre-Easter. If Prof Ehrman’s thesis is correct Paul believed Jesus was a pre-existent divine angel who was incarnated into human flesh. And this is our earliest account of who Jesus was!
What about “might have occurred”? There is a certain circularity in the argument here. Before you can establish that a text is near to the event you need some other criteria to establish that the event occurred. A claim that an event occurred is not evidence that it occurred.
Hope this helps.
Yes very helpful. I particularly like the shifting of the burden. there are still lingering issues like how “nearness to event” can be construed as legitimizing the truth of the NT texts. As with Bart, I too accept that they are historical documents that seem to support an historical Jesus,his crucifixtion, death and the following that it generated thereafter. I don’t accept the Resurrection because there is no evidence(other than the claims made by the Gospels themselves).We have no eyewitnesses to this event unless you believe what the NT says itself. To say that we have documents written within 50-100 yrs after his death doesn’t entail that what we are reading is reliably transmitted,or truthful from the original source.Perhaps it is all made up.
The very notion of what constitutes “original text” is itself dubious. When Paul dictated Romans to Tertius can we as Ehrman makes clear on his blog,say that this is the “original” or is it after the dictation and after Paul proofread’s (presumably) what was written down? It gets very sticky when you start thinking about this whole concept of”original text” and what that means;and to say we have 98% of the original text or something very close to that. How would anyone even begin to guess-timate that? It assumes that someone somewhere has access to the originals and as far as i know,they don’t.
What bothers me more is his assumption that the text and the event are intractably intertwined and that because scribes copied down mostly oral traditions,we are to believe and accept on faith that what they wrote is reliable and historically accurate. It seems to me to be just blind trust without ever questioning what modus operandi the scribes may have had or what ulterior purposes or vested interests were behind all the scribal textual variants etc… The history of humanity has always been the ole cliche,”what’s in it for me”.I don’t think that has ever changed.
He also maintains that there is very little evidence of Greco-Roman mythology on Christianity.I seriously doubt that and I believe Bart has stuff on that topic in his blog archives. The other thing is that when i bring up the inherent contradictions in the Gospels like Matt 28:19,MK 16 & John 8:7 he fires back at me that we don’t know whether these alternate readings are forgeries,he says that is pure speculation. He then goes on to state that they don’t appear in the earlier and best texts and this is reason most Bibles leave them out.
The last point are his comments here>>>
Thx again Stephen,feel free to add to this.
bigalster I mean no real disrespect to your friend but this is a perfect example of a person so committed to a position that they resort to all manner of mental gymnastics to hold onto it. I have to confess I think you are wasting your time trying to reason with him. Nevertheless…
Your friend doesn’t grasp the difference between a claim and evidence for that claim. A claim is not evidence. “Luke tells us he did…” So what? Mohammad claims to have received dictation from Allah. Can’t get any nearer to the event than that. Is your friend prepared to become a Muslim?
The scholar S T Joshi has published newly revised and corrected texts for the fantasy/horror stories of H P Lovecraft. These texts are as accurate as they will ever be. But I don’t see too many folks believing Lovecraft’s monsters are real. Accuracy of text has nothing to so with historicity of events.
One other point. We have no access to the inner thought processes and motivations of the New Testament writers. Annoying but true. So any theory that presupposes such knowledge is D.O.A. as far as I’m concerned. Case in point: Did the writer of Mark really believe that Jesus’ last words were “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” and thought he was reporting historical fact, or, did he assume his audience was sophisticated enough to understand he couldn’t possibly know what Jesus actually said (how could he) and placed those words in Jesus’ mouth as a literary device to raise the entire series of associations that would come to mind by quoting the first line of Psalm 22? You pays your money and makes your choice. But the honest answer is, we’ll never know.
Good luck.
Stephen, thx .I think he knows the difference,he’s no dummy.MA in philosophy and two STM’s it’s just that at 70 yrs old he is old school and believes that we can look and treat the NT texts as genuine historical doc’s.I agree we can but that doesn’t mean what they are saying is either historically true or accurate.We’ve known each other since 1970,he taught me philosophy and i went on to degree in that so we go back long time. We are good friends but bitter theological counterparts! I enjoy challenging what he says not with the view in mind of getting him to change his views, but rather to convince him that there are two sides to a coin. Many thx again.I’m in process of responding to his last email. Thx again.
Just so you know, I’m an atheist and one of my best friends is a minister who I’ve known since High School. We have similar good natured but fundamentally serious arguments too. We’re the same age and I guess I see him and his life as the “road not taken” and he sees me as a sincere seeker who is taking the circuitous route to the truth. Friendship transcends these differences as it should. At my age I am more concerned with correctly articulating my position than trying to convert anyone.
Stephen: “At my age I am more concerned with correctly articulating my position than trying to convert anyone.” That describes exactly where I am as to religion, politics, various interests or tastes. It’s challenging if one is continuously open to learning and new experiences, rendering a position in constant flux! Appreciate your contributions here.
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