"There were eye-witnesses"

[Zzyzx]

.
Some bible stories are claimed to be truthful "because there were eye-witnesses". Does that establish the truth of the story?

If a person claims to have run a mile in two minutes and says "there were eye-witnesses" does that establish the claim as legitimate – if the witnesses cannot be identified – if no statements from witnesses are available – if credibility of the witnesses is unknown?

If there actually was a witness report of the water-to-wine incident, is there any assurance that what they saw was not an illusion (keeping in mind that illusionists even today can perform "magical" feats that convince many observers)?

If the claim defies what we know of the real world, does witness testimony (or claim "there were witnesses") override real world considerations? Is a two-minute-mile any less believable than "arose from the dead" or "walked on water" or "calmed storms by command?"

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 47 by Danmark]
Yes, danmark,
I agree with that definition of peer review. Notice the "[be]for[e] publication" part.

"In academia peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication."

Notice the "often" part.

[Dantalion]

Let's drop the whole 'peer review' thing and focus on the crux of the matter shall we ?

Evidence for eye-witnesses, regardless of the evidential quality of an eyewitness account .

[Student]

Hello Korah,
If I have correctly understood your offsite posting (Ur-Marcan Priority), you claim that John Mark, Andrew, Nicodemus, Peter, Matthew, Simon (Jesus’ brother/cousin) and John were all eye-witnesses, and, that their eye-witness accounts were incorporated into the New Testament. Having scanned your hypothesis I must admit to struggling to follow your line of reasoning. For example, I am still unable to identify where you present evidence to support of your claims, let alone evidence that might convince me, or anyone else, of the validity of your hypothesis.

Perhaps you might re-present your proofs here, in a better structured, simpler fashion.

[Korah]

Hello Korah,
If I have correctly understood your offsite posting (Ur-Marcan Priority), you claim that John Mark, Andrew, Nicodemus, Peter, Matthew, Simon (Jesus’ brother/cousin) and John were all eye-witnesses, and, that their eye-witness accounts were incorporated into the New Testament. Having scanned your hypothesis I must admit to struggling to follow your line of reasoning. For example, I am still unable to identify where you present evidence to support of your claims, let alone evidence that might convince me, or anyone else, of the validity of your hypothesis.

Perhaps you might re-present your proofs here, in a better structured, simpler fashion.

You have an excellent gift for analysis and synopsis, Student. Yes, in one sentence you have stated exactly what I contend.
As I have already "exposed" (in what my detractors have seized upon for its political incorrectness), I realized in 1969 (1964 actually) that the four gospels were authentic, even John. However, it was not until 1979 that I read Howard M. Teeple's Literary Origin of the Gospel of John, 1974. With an atheist's indifference to the consequences for Christian institutions, he identified the strata in John by minute verbal analysis. The resulting Source, Discourse-Germ, Editor, and Redactor turned out to facilitate identifying the authors (with my essential modifications) as John Mark and Andrew, Nicodemus, and John the Apostle (I have no clue yet who was the Redactor).
I wrote up my results in 1980 and was accepted for publication in Biblical Theology Bulletin, but my article happened to get bumped.
That Peter and Matthew wrote eyewitness sources for the Synoptics is nothing new, but in the 1980's I realized that the other man besides Cleopas on the road to Emmaus was his son Simon, later the second Bishop of Jerusalem.

That's a brief statement of the how I got my results. You have already read my work-up of it. You can engage me there or wait until tax season is over after April 15 when I have time to re-invent the wheel here. (I'm an MBA/CPA type, but for your purposes here the degree that matters is my M. A. in [World] History that I got in 1969.

[Danmark]

I wrote up my results in 1980 and was accepted for publication in Biblical Theology Bulletin, but my article happened to get bumped.

I wonder why such an important article 'got bumped,' never to be published.
Is it possible it did not survive peer review?

[Zzyzx]

[Replying to post 55 by Korah]

A great deal of attention is focused on writing you did forty years ago.

Has it been shown to have merit by being widely accepted and cited by scholars, theologians, others?

If not, why not?

[ElCodeMonkey]

[Replying to post 55 by Korah]

A great deal of attention is focused on writing you did forty years ago.

Has it been shown to have merit by being widely accepted and cited by scholars, theologians, others?

If not, why not?

I'm not sure why people are so hung up on peer review and the opinions of others. Group think has for an awfully long time prevented truth from being known. Truth can be truth whether accepted by others or not. Religion is a prime example of how the opinion of others is meaningless.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 58 by ElCodeMonkey]
OK, let's focus on Howard M. Teeple. His views have been peer-reviewed, and they're out there for forty and more years. He was never a professor, so academia could (and largely did) ignore him. I'm still unaware of any serious attempt to refute him. The two scholars who were critical (Dwight Moody Smith and Robert Kysar) changed their minds decades later and now speak only well of him.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 55 by Korah]

A great deal of attention is focused on writing you did forty years ago.

Has it been shown to have merit by being widely accepted and cited by scholars, theologians, others?

If not, why not?

I'm not sure why people are so hung up on peer review and the opinions of others. Group think has for an awfully long time prevented truth from being known. Truth can be truth whether accepted by others or not. Religion is a prime example of how the opinion of others is meaningless.

At first this point of view may appear to have merit, and certainly from a creative standpoint it is true. Originality certainly represents a value.

However, peer review is important at least for examining the process, the level of professional scholarship. It helps separate fluff pieces of intellectual meandering that fail to meet academic standards including the value of critical thinking. Everyone has an opinion, but in a country like the United States, where 40 to 50% of the adult population not only believe in creationism, but in 'Young Earth' creationism, most opinions are worthless. Thanks to peer review and similar processes, I don't have to wade thru every piece of junk fiction hoping to find another The Sun Also Rises.

[ElCodeMonkey]

[Replying to post 60 by Danmark]

When something can be objectively measured, then peer review is likely quite awesome. If it's fiction, then "good" is subjectively measured by the majority anyway in which case peer review of many people is also awesome even if some people would be disappointed to find out that a particular book was never published that they specifically would have enjoyed.

In regard to religion, however, the peer review would likely be based upon whether or not it agrees with the reviewers' positions rather than on the process and the soundness of the argument. But even the process can be incorrectly perceived as bad in religion depending on assumptions. My arguments are based off a definitely corrupt Bible and my own opinion of what is factual and what is not. That would quite immediately be regarded as a bad process. But how can anyone say I'm right or wrong in this matter? Peer review would kill me before I even had a chance to speak simply by alluding to the Bible's imperfection and my own ability to know truth from fiction. And yet I could still be right! It's a perfect valid standpoint to base religious belief off of. Just because I cannot be proven correct, that doesn't mean I'm not. I could be right on the money and one could really only agree with, "Yeah, that sounds plausible and I like the idea. I'll believe it" rather than based on any actual logical conclusions. It's not any more grounded or unfounded than Christianity is today, but I sure like my message a whole lot better and it at least has supporting potential and internal consistency if not logical proof (which is a lot more than I can say for some other religious beliefs floating around).

If you disagree and still think peer review wouldn't necessarily shut me out immediately, then perhaps I will indeed write that book I've been thinking about writing. Who should I send it to for review who will do so with pure objectivity? .