Is the resurrection of Jesus supported...

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Goose

Is the resurrection of Jesus supported...

Post #1

Post by Goose »

Chaosborders and I have agreed to a head-to-head. Chaosborders has suggested the question for debate as well as the thread title and I have agreed. The question for debate will be:

"Can the resurrection of the man commonly referred to in English as Jesus Christ be sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence that it should be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes?"

I will affirm the positive and Chaosborders will affirm the negative.

We have agreed to a maximum of ten rounds (twenty total posts).

I will post first.

Comments welcomed here.

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Post #21

Post by ChaosBorders »

Round One
Goose wrote: Because of the way the question is framed I will argue another way. And that is to find an event from around the period of Jesus that is already accepted as sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence. The presumption is that it is sufficiently substantiated, as far as secular history classes are concerned, because it is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event. Then compare the evidence for the resurrection to this event. If the evidence for the resurrection is at least as good then we can say it has met a similar evidentiary burden as an event already accepted and taught as factual. In this case there would be no evidentiary/historical reason to reject the resurrection from being taught as a factual event in secular history classes. Finally, if one were to reject the resurrection from being taught because of lack of evidentiary support, even though the evidentiary support is as good as another already accepted event, then one must also reject the other already accepted historical event as well. If one does not, in this case, then one is commiting a fallacy by applying the criteria unfairly.
And I will be arguing that Goose is leaving out significant portions of the criteria used to judge historical evidence and determine whether it is sufficient to accept as a literally factual event. If he is cherry picking criteria, then it doesn’t matter whether the criteria he chooses to use would indicate the resurrection has greater evidence than another event, because he is making an incomplete comparison.

Looking at the question:
Can the resurrection of the man commonly referred to in English as Jesus Christ be sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence that it should be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes?

First it needs to be established what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes.

Perhaps my opponent thinks otherwise, but I would assert that history, defined as the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes the past, is what should be taught in history classes. Now in fairness, the exact nature of history and the methodology used to analyze it is a subject of debate. But currently the National Research Academy defines history as a social science. Social Science is split into two general groups, positivists and antipositivists. Antipositivists don’t deal with literal accuracy, so it makes more sense to work from a positivist perspective, which use methods based on natural science. These methodologies have collectively come to be known as the historical method. The historical method is “comprised of the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in form of accounts of the past.� What the nature, or even possibility, of a sound historical method is, is something raised in the philosophy of history. Because no singular method has been established as sound, nor was any singular method agreed upon before the debate, so only selecting a few criteria and ignoring all of the rest tells us nothing about whether any particular event should actually be considered as literally factual.

Now looking at Goose’s argument and the criteria he is using:
Goose wrote: Argument A:

1. If the historical evidence supporting the resurrection* of Jesus is at least as good** as the historical evidence for another historical event that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event, then the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
2. The historical evidence supporting the resurrection* of Jesus is at least as good as the historical evidence for another historical event that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event.
3. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well (via modus ponens).
*By resurrection I mean returning to life after being dead. I am not making any claims as to the causal agent of Jesus' return to life after being dead.
**By good I mean in terms of a criteria such as, but not limited to,:
  • 1. How early is the evidence after the event in question?
    2. Is it written by eyewitnesses?
    3. Is there multiple attestation to the event?
    4. Is there enemy attestation?
Though he says the criteria is not limited to the ones he has stated as good, he has rejected all of the criteria that suggest detraction from evidence in the affirmative. Another way of putting it is that the historical method weighs the evidence in favor of believing an event is literally factual against the evidence suggesting we should not believe, but Goose’s criteria ONLY considers evidence in favor of believing an event.

To understand the absurdity of just using the positive case, let’s look at some of the things that can be called history:
The founding of Memphis, Egypt is generally credited to Menes, held to be the first pharaoh of Egypt. The only support of anyone named Menes founding Memphis is Herodotus, a man who lived almost 2500 years after the event.

So by Goose’s argument, the burden of proof that should be sufficient for stating something should be taught as literally factual in a history class is now a little greater than a guy saying so 2500 years later.

“In the year 54 B.C. there was a man named Bob Henry who built a road.� Now if my friend Justin says so too, then I have just provided a greater amount of evidence that Bob Henry built a road in 54 B.C. than Herodotus provided that Menes founded Memphis around 3100 B.C. because I have multiple attestations to the event.

But why stop there? We can teach every Big foot sighting with more than two witnesses as historically factual. And every UFO sighting, as well as pretty much any and all revealed religions, including the mutually exclusive ones. Why not?

Because that’s not how history works. The following are a list of criteria (all from the wiki on Historical Method for the sake of brevity, though that is not a comprehensive list by any means) that Goose ignores, either in full or part:
Procedure
When two sources disagree (and there is no other means of evaluation), then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

Eyewitness Testimony
How did the author report?, and what was his ability to do so?
1. Regarding his ability to report, was he biased? Did he have proper time for reporting? Proper place for reporting? Adequate recording instruments?
2. When did he report in relation to his observation? Soon? Much later? Fifty years is much later as most eyewitnesses are dead and those who remain may have forgotten relevant material.
3. What was the author's intention in reporting? For whom did he report? Would that audience be likely to require or suggest distortion to the author?
4. Are there additional clues to intended veracity? Was he indifferent on the subject reported, thus probably not intending distortion? Did he make statements damaging to himself, thus probably not seeking to distort? Did he give incidental or casual information, almost certainly not intended to mislead?
When did he report in relation to his observation? Soon? Much later? Fifty years is much later as most eyewitnesses are dead and those who remain may have forgotten relevant material.
Do his statements seem inherently improbable: e.g., contrary to human nature, or in conflict with what we know?
Though you consider it just an additional ‘consideration,’ the statement regarding probability and doubt that you rejected while ignoring the rest of the list I made previously comes from Louis Gottschalk in his book Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method. (http://louisville.edu/history/lewis-r-g ... tures.html) Louis Gottschalk was a noted historian who authored seven books, served as president of the American Historical Association in 1953, and taught at the university of Louisville from 1923 to 1927 at which point he moved to the university of Chicago. I can think of few people whose ‘considerations’ are more authoritative regarding what should be considered history.
Further, almost the entire section of Historical reasoning is ignored, which is the part of the historical method primarily used to form and establish hypothesis regarding what actually happened opposed to what people just said happened:

Argument to the Best Explanation:
1. The statement, together with other statements already held to be true, must imply yet other statements describing present, observable data. (We will henceforth call the first statement 'the hypothesis', and the statements describing observable data, 'observation statements'.)
2. The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory scope than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must imply a greater variety of observation statements.
3. The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory power than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other.
4. The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly than any other.
5. The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs.
6. It must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, when conjoined with accepted truths it must imply fewer observation statements and other statements which are believed to be false.
7. It must exceed other incompatible hypotheses about the same subject by so much, in characteristics 2 to 6, that there is little chance of an incompatible hypothesis, after further investigation, soon exceeding it in these respects.
Statistical Inference:
1. There is probability (of the degree p1) that whatever is an A is a B.
2. It is probable (to the degree p2) that this is an A.
3. Therefore (relative to these premises) it is probable (to the degree p1 × p2) that this is a B.
I will show that if Goose did not Cherry pick his criteria, he would realize the two events he chose are not directly comparable, and that by not excluding criteria, there is greater reason to exclude the resurrection as a literally factual event than there is reason to accept it as such.
Goose wrote: Despite Chaosborders lengthy complaints over the last two pages about how I have not chosen to argue the way he thinks I should, Argument (A) is valid. The only remaining issue is that of soundness. If the argument is valid and the premises of argument (A) can be shown to be true, then the argument is sound. If the argument is sound Chaosborders is obligated, logically, to accept the conclusion as true.
I would have to accept it, were you able to show it as sound. I guess I’m in luck a couple of centuries of academics working on developing historical methodologies are against it.
Goose wrote: The first written account of Julius Caesar's assassination is by Nicolaus of Damascus in Life of Augustus (c. 14 AD) where he writes:
Meanwhile the assassins were making ready...[Caesar] fell, under many wounds, before the statue of Pompey, and there was not one of them but struck him as he lay lifeless, to show that each of them had had a share in the deed, until he had received thirty-five wounds, and breathed his last.(ch. 24)
Pretty sure Cicero talked about it in his letters condemning Mark Antony in 43 B.C.
Goose wrote: Let's see how the assassination of Julius Caesar fairs.
For criterion 1: The earliest written account from Nicolaus of Damascus comes approximately 60 years after the assassination of Caesar. The next written account by Plutarch comes approximately 114 years after the assassination. The third written account by Suetonius comes approximately 164 years after the assassination.
Except for the references by Cicero coming less than a year after-wards…
Goose wrote:
For criterion 2: No. We have no extant eyewitness testimony of Caesar's assassination.
For criterion 3: Yes. The assassination of Julius Caesar is multiply attested.
For criterion 4: No. I'm not aware of enemy attestation as all the early sources are Roman.
So we got two no’s, and disregarding Cicero we have a sixty year gap. What was that about me “perhaps unwittingly, set[ing] the bar quite high?� It does not seem like your argument requires much of a challenge to ‘prove’ your conclusion after all.
Goose wrote: Now for the resurrection of Jesus. Let's look at some non-Biblical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus to see how it measures up to the assassination of Caesar in regards to evidentiary support.

Clement in his first letter to the church in Corinth (1 Clement c. 95AD) writes:
Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead.(ch. 24)
Having therefore received a charge, and having been fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed in the word of God with full assurance of the Holy Ghost.(ch. 42)
Pope Clement I , the first Apostolic Father of the Church, writing a letter confirming Apostolic authority of the bishops/presbyters as rulers of the church, is being compared to a historian? Let’s see what other criteria you apparently ignore…

Core Principles:
The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
If it can be demonstrated that the witness (or source) has no direct interest in creating bias, the credibility of the message is increased.
Does a historian have a motivation for creating a bias towards believing someone was killed, opposed to just died? Perhaps, if they thought it were more interesting or some such. Certainly I could see someone inventing surrounding details for political reasons. But the book wasn’t written until the people who would have had a political interest in creating bias regarding the event were already dead, so there seems little reason to assume Nicolaus would purposefully make up the event.

On the other hand, one of the head leaders of a religion for which the resurrection is a fundamental belief, while writing a letter establishing Apostolic authority, has a rather strong motive for creating bias towards believing the resurrection actually occurred.
Goose wrote: In Polycarp's letter to the Philippians (c. 110AD) he writes:
...our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sins suffered even unto death, [but] ‘whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the bands of the grave.’(ch. 1)
Polycarp , Bishop of Smyrna, being compared to Plutarch, another historian? Same criteria problem.
Goose wrote: In Ignatius’ letter to the Trallians (c. 110AD) he writes:
Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and ate and drank. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead...(ch. 9)

Another Bishop? I was clearly unaware that religious authorities were objective sources devoid of bias towards the promotion of their beliefs.
A thousand Imams writing Jesus was raised into the heavens does not make it true. They have a belief, they promote it. Why should Bishops be considered any more credible regarding the truth of their beliefs?
Goose wrote: Further, Tacitus, who could be seen as an enemy source, in his Annals(c. 116AD) writes:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.(bk. 15)
We shouldn't expect Tacitus to affirm the resurrection of Jesus. However, here Tacitus is providing us evidence that the Christian movement was squelched with Jesus' execution. But then, for some reason, it broke out again in Judea where it all started and spread despite the persecution that ensued.
“Some reason� does not mean the dead guy came back to life. That is a total non sequitur. It would basically be saying that anytime anyone’s persecuted for what they believe, if they keep believing it, then it’s because it’s true. The whole point of enemy attestation is that if there is agreement on something between two groups of people who don’t normally agree on things, the probability one group is making it up is decreased. Tacitus could be seen as support for the existence of Jesus, and for the execution of Jesus, but he is not in the least bit support for the resurrection of Jesus.
Goose wrote: For criterion 1: The earliest written account affirming the resurrection outside of the NT comes from Clement (c. 95AD) and is approximately 60 years after the resurrection - similar to Caesar's assassination. There are also two further accounts affirming the resurrection of Jesus from Polycarp and Ignatius that are within 100 years of the resurrection. Polycarp and Ignatius accounts of the resurrection are at least as early, if not earlier, than the accounts of Plutarch and Suetonius for Caesar's assassination.
Except for Cicero, who wrote a year after the assassination. Further, every one of your sources has a clear bias towards promoting the belief in question. Hardly objective evidence.
Goose wrote: For criterion 2: No. Excluding any writing contained in the New Testament(NT) we have no extant eyewitness testimony of the resurrection - just like Caesar's assassination.
Even if you tried to argue in favor of New Testament containing eyewitness testimony, I’d just overturn it with the last hundred years of source criticism. So it’s going to be a no on this criterion no matter what you use.
Goose wrote: For criterion 3: Yes. The resurrection is multiply attested - like Caesar's assassination.
Except the resurrection is multiply attested by people with clear biases towards promoting the belief. Caesar’s assassination is multiply attested to by historians.
Goose wrote: For criterion 4: Possibly. It could be argued we have tacit indirect attestation from Tacitus that at least something significant happened after Jesus' death. Significant enough to be a catalyst for the Christian movement to return and spread despite persecution.
Catalyst does not remotely imply resurrection. If it could, the same sort of argument could be used for every single revealed religion on Earth. It is not sufficient for you to get enemy attestation from that.
Goose wrote: Summary: In these respects the historical evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus is at least as good as the historical evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
Hardly. Even just using the positive case of what qualifies as sufficient evidence, yours does not pass muster for some of the most basic historical methodology there is! Even just using your criteria, you fail because you neglect Cicero and try to usher in Tacitus fallaciously.

So currently your argument fails on three fronts:

A) Your argument as a whole neglects pretty much the entire part of the historical method that addresses the creation of hypotheses, and anything suggesting a greater burden of proof is necessary for some events than others (which is equivalent to saying ‘all events are equally probable’).
B) Your evidence neglects all historical methodology that detracts from the value of individual pieces of evidence (which is the equivalent of saying ‘if someone said it, they must be telling the truth’).
C) You tried to use evidence that does not even meet your own criteria and have ignored evidence that would make the assassination win on one of the criteria (which is the equivalent of saying ‘my evidence is good enough because I said so’).

At this point, introducing further evidence on why the resurrection fails when considering all criteria just seems like overkill. I’m going to give you another round to better prove your argument using your cherry-picked criteria, since thus far you have failed to do even that.
Unless indicated otherwise what I say is opinion. (Kudos to Zzyzx for this signature).

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.� -Albert Einstein

The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
- C.S. Lewis

Goose

Post #22

Post by Goose »

First, I would like to thank Chaoborders for the time he has spent on his last post.
Chaosborders wrote:First it needs to be established what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes.
Chaosboders states it needs to be established what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes. But does he do this? Not really...
Chaosborders wrote:Perhaps my opponent thinks otherwise, but I would assert that history, defined as the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes the past, is what should be taught in history classes.
Chaosborders begins by stating a truism.
Chaosborders wrote:Now in fairness, the exact nature of history and the methodology used to analyze it is a subject of debate. But currently the National Research Academy defines history as a social science. Social Science is split into two general groups, positivists and antipositivists. Antipositivists don’t deal with literal accuracy, so it makes more sense to work from a positivist perspective, which use methods based on natural science. These methodologies have collectively come to be known as the historical method.
The positivist approach relies heavily upon the scientific method. The scientific method can not be used to determine history as history is strictly speaking not observable, repeatable, and testable. The limiting criteria of the scientific method itself precludes it from establishing history. Even the source Chaosborders cites agrees that the social sciences are not inclusive of the natural sciences, and presumably it's methods, when it states, "Social science is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These fields include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history..."
Chaosborders wrote:The historical method is “comprised of the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in form of accounts of the past.� What the nature, or even possibility, of a sound historical method is, is something raised in the philosophy of history.
We have Chaosborders perspective on what he prefers as the method. But I'm still left wondering exactly "what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes." I get the impression this preamble is little more than an subtle attempt to erroneously smuggle the scientific method into historical enquiry.
Chaosborders wrote:Because no singular method has been established as sound, nor was any singular method agreed upon before the debate, so only selecting a few criteria and ignoring all of the rest tells us nothing about whether any particular event should actually be considered as literally factual.
Chaosborders has overstated his case by asserting that selecting a few criteria and ignoring the rest tells us nothing about whether an event should be considered factual. I only need to show that the criteria I've selected tells us at least something about whether that event should be considered factual to prove his assertion false. And I've done at least that if not much more.

Further, and most importantly, Chaosborders concedes the exact nature of the methodology used to analyse history is debatable and no singular method has been established as sound. If no singular method has been established as sound it does not logically follow that using a collection of all the various methods not established as sound would therefore constitute a sound method. Which, in essence, is what Chaosborders appears to be arguing. So Chaosborders incessant instance that I use wikipedia's compilation of various unsound methods because it is in some way fallacious not to is absurd. The fact that Chaosborders feels my criteria is not sufficient because it ignores what he feels are important criteria is totally irrelevant.


Chaosborders wrote:Now looking at Goose’s argument and the criteria he is using:
Goose wrote: Argument A:
Though he says the criteria is not limited to the ones he has stated as good, he has rejected all of the criteria that suggest detraction from evidence in the affirmative.
Once again, Chaos misunderstands my argument by asserting that I have rejected all criteria that suggest detraction from evidence in the affirmative. This is simply false. Probably he is hung up on the word "good" and assumes this means we only accept arguments that show the evidence is good. But he is free to detract from the credibility of evidence all he wants. In fact, he tries to do just that in a moment by introducing the criterion of bias.
Chaosborders wrote: Another way of putting it is that the historical method weighs the evidence in favor of believing an event is literally factual against the evidence suggesting we should not believe, but Goose’s criteria ONLY considers evidence in favor of believing an event.
If you have evidence that suggests we should not believe the event in question, you should present it and stop whining about the criteria in my argument.
Chaosborders wrote: To understand the absurdity of just using the positive case, let’s look at some of the things that can be called history: The founding of Memphis, Egypt is generally credited to Menes, held to be the first pharaoh of Egypt. The only support of anyone named Menes founding Memphis is Herodotus, a man who lived almost 2500 years after the event.

So by Goose’s argument, the burden of proof that should be sufficient for stating something should be taught as literally factual in a history class is now a little greater than a guy saying so 2500 years later.
Chaosborders is attempting to knock down a straw man here on several levels. My argument states that the event by which the resurrection is to be compared is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event. The founding of Memphis by Menes is NOT taught as a literally factual event. What is taught as literally factual is that the founding of Memphis is credited to Menes by Herodotus.
Encyclopedia Britannica.com wrote:In addition to crediting Menes with the unification of Egypt by war and administrative measures, tradition attributes to him the founding of the capital, Memphis, near present-day Cairo. (highlight added by me)


But Chaosborders has provided a good example, with the alledged founding of Memphis by Menes, to back my assertion earlier:
in post 18 Goose wrote:An event that "only has a single semi-credible source" supporting it would not likely be taught as a "literally factual event."


Further, in order to avoid anachronistic fallacies in the preamble to my argument I have specifically stipulated that we "find an event from around the period of Jesus" by which to compare the resurrection. Menes c. 3000BC is hardly from the period of Jesus. Neither are UFO and Bigfoot sightings.
Chaosborders wrote:But why stop there? We can teach every Big foot sighting with more than two witnesses as historically factual. And every UFO sighting, as well as pretty much any and all revealed religions, including the mutually exclusive ones. Why not?
Chaosborders is fallaciously trying to compare ancient historical claims to relatively modern ones. We have a different evidentiary expectation for modern claims than for ancient ones because of, but not limited to, such things as modern technology, low literacy rates of the ancient world, and the problems (such as accurate transmission and preservation of texts) that are associated with events from antiquity. Which, again, is why I have stipulated we "find an event from around the period of Jesus" to keep the comparison as free as possible from the type of anachronistic fallacy you are committing here and with the Menes example.


Chaosborders wrote:
<...wiki's hodge-podge of historical methods snipped for brevity...>
Chaosborders is free to present an argument that shows the resurrection does not pass the method he personally prefers if this is how he would like to argue. But please, for crying out loud, stop complaining that I haven't included all this in my argument.



Chaosborders wrote:I will show that if Goose did not Cherry pick his criteria, he would realize the two events he chose are not directly comparable, and that by not excluding criteria, there is greater reason to exclude the resurrection as a literally factual event than there is reason to accept it as such.
From what you've shown below I don't see that you've established this at all. In fact, I think we'll see that if we apply Chaosborders criterion fairly to the assassination we have no better reason to find the evidence for the assassination of Caesar more credible.
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote:The first written account of Julius Caesar's assassination is by Nicolaus of Damascus in Life of Augustus (c. 14 AD) where he writes:
Meanwhile the assassins were making ready...[Caesar] fell, under many wounds, before the statue of Pompey, and there was not one of them but struck him as he lay lifeless, to show that each of them had had a share in the deed, until he had received thirty-five wounds, and breathed his last.(ch. 24)
Pretty sure Cicero talked about it in his letters condemning Mark Antony in 43 B.C.
"Pretty sure"? Where does Cicero give an account of Caesar's assassination? Please quote it with a reference to the where it can be found. Are you sure you aren't merely interpreting what Cicero wrote about Caesar though the lens of what later writers such as Nicolaus and Plutarch wrote?
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote:For criterion 2: No. We have no extant eyewitness testimony of Caesar's assassination.
For criterion 3: Yes. The assassination of Julius Caesar is multiply attested.
For criterion 4: No. I'm not aware of enemy attestation as all the early sources are Roman.
So we got two no’s, and disregarding Cicero we have a sixty year gap. What was that about me “perhaps unwittingly, set[ing] the bar quite high?� It does not seem like your argument requires much of a challenge to ‘prove’ your conclusion after all.
Chaosborders is now implying that Caesar's assassination is not taught as a literally factual event and is not sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence. Maybe he'll be telling us soon that he doesn't believe Caesar was assassinated.



Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote:Now for the resurrection of Jesus. Let's look at some non-Biblical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus to see how it measures up to the assassination of Caesar in regards to evidentiary support.

Clement in his first letter to the church in Corinth (1 Clement c. 95AD) writes:
Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead.(ch. 24)
Having therefore received a charge, and having been fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed in the word of God with full assurance of the Holy Ghost.(ch. 42)
Pope Clement I , the first Apostolic Father of the Church, writing a letter confirming Apostolic authority of the bishops/presbyters as rulers of the church, is being compared to a historian?
Yes, a church father and historian are being compared. Your reasoning below for why this would be unacceptable is problemtic.
Chaosborders wrote:Core Principles:
The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
If it can be demonstrated that the witness (or source) has no direct interest in creating bias, the credibility of the message is increased.
Does a historian have a motivation for creating a bias towards believing someone was killed, opposed to just died? Perhaps, if they thought it were more interesting or some such. Certainly I could see someone inventing surrounding details for political reasons. But the book wasn’t written until the people who would have had a political interest in creating bias regarding the event were already dead, so there seems little reason to assume Nicolaus would purposefully make up the event.
This reasoning is problematic on many levels.

1. It would be naive to assume that only sixty years after Caesars death there were no people alive who would have had a political interest and therefore a bias regarding the assassination.

2. In order to argue Nicolaus is not writing from with bias because he is writing later Chaosborders is actually having to argue against his method which prefers the source to be written early. It is preferred that a text is written early and at least during the lifetime of possible witnesses as it is assumed at least the eyewitnesses are available to correct erroneous claims made by the writer. Even the historical method Chaosborders cites from wiki acknowledges the preference of an early source.

3. Just a minute ago you were perfectly willing to accept Cicero, a biased politician jockeying to gain power and writing during the political upheaval that followed Caesars' death, as a credible, and presumably unbiased, source. So there seems to be a double standard being applied here.

4. Nicolaus likely got his data from Marc Antony as he was apparently the tutor of Marc Antony's children. Antony was sympathetic to Caesar and struggling to take power himself after Caesar's death. So Marc Antony potentially had motive to at least fabricate the surrounding details of a story that would implicate his political rivals in murder. Being in the employ and presumably loyal to Marc Antony gives us reason to think Nicolaus was biased toward promoting an assassination conspiracy. At the very least we have good reason to think Nicolaus recieved his data from a biased source, namely Marc Antony.

5. The criteria of bias is very subjective and difficult to prove or disprove as most writers don't come right and say, "Hey everybody, I want you to know I'm biased because..." The criterion of bias generally boils down to speculation.

6. The presence of a bias in some way or another is universal. It doesn't follow that because a writer had a bias towards promoting a particular belief that he therefore lied about it or can not be at all trusted. No bias present only means the credibility is increased. It doesn't mean the source is inadmissible unless there is no bias. No writer is entirely unbiased.
Chaosborders wrote:On the other hand, one of the head leaders of a religion for which the resurrection is a fundamental belief, while writing a letter establishing Apostolic authority, has a rather strong motive for creating bias towards believing the resurrection actually occurred.
Your method states "Tendencies [to be biased] should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations." It would be erroneous to cite the bias of Christian writers without also taking into account the fact that these men were persecuted for being Christian. They were Christian because of what they believed. A core belief of these men was in the resurrection. Persecution sufficiently counters any motivation they may have had for an unacceptable amount of bias in promoting what they believed about the resurrection.

Further, being part of a religion where its founder advocated being truthful is additional motivation to counter any bias that may be present. To assume otherwise is to assume that these men flippantly disregarded the moral teachings regarding not lying of a personal they believed was the Son of God.


Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: In Ignatius’ letter to the Trallians (c. 110AD) he writes:
Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and ate and drank. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead...(ch. 9)
Another Bishop? I was clearly unaware that religious authorities were objective sources devoid of bias towards the promotion of their beliefs.
You've created a straw man against the very method you are so keen on. There is no requirement in the method you advocate for a source to be "devoid of bias towards the promotion of their beliefs." In fact, I challenge you to produce a single ancient writer that can be conclusively shown to be an "objective source devoid of bias towards the promotion of their beliefs." No writer from antiquity (or modern times for that matter) reaches this impossible standard.

Chaosborders wrote:A thousand Imams writing Jesus was raised into the heavens does not make it true. They have a belief, they promote it. Why should Bishops be considered any more credible regarding the truth of their beliefs?
I'm not arguing that because someone believes something is true it is therefore true.

Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: Further, Tacitus, who could be seen as an enemy source, in his Annals(c. 116AD) writes:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.(bk. 15)
We shouldn't expect Tacitus to affirm the resurrection of Jesus. However, here Tacitus is providing us evidence that the Christian movement was squelched with Jesus' execution. But then, for some reason, it broke out again in Judea where it all started and spread despite the persecution that ensued.
“Some reason� does not mean the dead guy came back to life. That is a total non sequitur.
No kidding. I'm not arguing that "some reason" necessarily meant the dead guy came back to life.
Chaosborders wrote:It would basically be saying that anytime anyone’s persecuted for what they believe, if they keep believing it, then it’s because it’s true. The whole point of enemy attestation is that if there is agreement on something between two groups of people who don’t normally agree on things, the probability one group is making it up is decreased. Tacitus could be seen as support for the existence of Jesus, and for the execution of Jesus, but he is not in the least bit support for the resurrection of Jesus.
Tacitus supports the idea that the Christian movement was temporarily grounded with the execution of Jesus then "broke out" again where it started despite what happened to the leader of the movement and persecution to the movements members. We need a powerful explanation for why there was this quick resurgence, despite persecution, after Jesus' death.
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: For criterion 1: The earliest written account affirming the resurrection outside of the NT comes from Clement (c. 95AD) and is approximately 60 years after the resurrection - similar to Caesar's assassination. There are also two further accounts affirming the resurrection of Jesus from Polycarp and Ignatius that are within 100 years of the resurrection. Polycarp and Ignatius accounts of the resurrection are at least as early, if not earlier, than the accounts of Plutarch and Suetonius for Caesar's assassination.
Except for Cicero, who wrote a year after the assassination. Further, every one of your sources has a clear bias towards promoting the belief in question. Hardly objective evidence.
I hate to be the one to break this to you but everybody in the ancient world (and modern for that matter) wrote/writes with a bias and was/is therefore not objective.
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: For criterion 2: No. Excluding any writing contained in the New Testament(NT) we have no extant eyewitness testimony of the resurrection - just like Caesar's assassination.
Even if you tried to argue in favor of New Testament containing eyewitness testimony, I’d just overturn it with the last hundred years of source criticism. So it’s going to be a no on this criterion no matter what you use.
Even if I were using the NT I don't think you would be able to overturn it without me also overturning most other ancient texts as well by applying the same criteria. See this thread: Are the Gospels hopelessly anonymous?
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: For criterion 3: Yes. The resurrection is multiply attested - like Caesar's assassination.
Except the resurrection is multiply attested by people with clear biases towards promoting the belief.
Of course they were biased, they believed it. Because they believed it, they promoted it. There's no good reason to think, however, bishops were just making up the resurrection because they believed and promoted it.
Chaosborders wrote:Caesar’s assassination is multiply attested to by historians.
Roman historians which each have their own biases towards promoting the belief that Caesar was assassinated as well. You can't argue that Roman historians and politicians were without bias towards the assassination. It doesn't fly.
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: For criterion 4: Possibly. It could be argued we have tacit indirect attestation from Tacitus that at least something significant happened after Jesus' death. Significant enough to be a catalyst for the Christian movement to return and spread despite persecution.
Catalyst does not remotely imply resurrection. If it could, the same sort of argument could be used for every single revealed religion on Earth. It is not sufficient for you to get enemy attestation from that.
If Tacitus had affirmed the resurrection of Jesus we'd probably be arguing over whether it was a Christian interpolation. Or if Tacitus had affirmed it he'd probably be considered a believer and therefore accused of bias toward promoting the belief of the resurrection. So what I get from Tacitus is all I expect to get from an enemy source regarding the resurrection. That is a tacit acknowledgement that their was something which caused the Christian movement to return quickly after the death of it's founder despite persecution. I would argue it was the resurrection of Jesus. You'll no doubt argue it was something else. We'll see which explanation has the most scope and power.
Chaosborders wrote:
Goose wrote: Summary: In these respects the historical evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus is at least as good as the historical evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
Hardly. Even just using the positive case of what qualifies as sufficient evidence, yours does not pass muster for some of the most basic historical methodology there is! Even just using your criteria, you fail because you neglect Cicero and try to usher in Tacitus fallaciously.
I'll wait to see what you produce from Cicero before commenting further. And I haven't fallaciously ushered in Tacitus as I have only argued we shouldn't expect Tacitus to affirm the resurrection and that his comments leads us to necessarily find an explanation for why the Christian movement returned quickly, despite persecution, in the area is was squelched.
Chaosborders wrote:So currently your argument fails on three fronts:

A)Your argument as a whole neglects pretty much the entire part of the historical method that addresses the creation of hypotheses, and anything suggesting a greater burden of proof is necessary for some events than others (which is equivalent to saying ‘all events are equally probable’).
Neglecting (in your view) part of the historical method doesn't fail my argument as my argument makes no direct claim regarding the historical method. We've been over this. To eliminate an event before evaluating the evidentiary support because we don't personally think it is probable is fallacious. To say some events require a greater burden of proof is moving in the fallacious direction of Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Chaosborders wrote:B)Your evidence neglects all historical methodology that detracts from the value of individual pieces of evidence (which is the equivalent of saying ‘if someone said it, they must be telling the truth’).
False. Why do you continually assert this erroneous thing? If you wish we can incorporate a 5th criterion for good: Was the writer biased? Or we can add any other criteria you feel is pertinent. The only condition is that we will apply that criterion equally to the assassination of Caesar.
Chaosborders wrote:C)You tried to use evidence that does not even meet your own criteria and have ignored evidence that would make the assassination win on one of the criteria (which is the equivalent of saying ‘my evidence is good enough because I said so’).
I don't think you've established this just yet. You said you are "pretty sure" and linked us to wikipedia.

But more on this last point (C). Let's say for the sake of argument Cicero does give a detailed account of the assassination similar to later writers. The assassination still would not have better evidentiary support overall. Cicero would be a win as far as a very early source within a few years of the event. It would arguably be a tie for Nicolaus and Clement in proximity to the respective event in terms of time frame. Ignatius' and Polycarp's letters are both written during the life of possible witnesses and are earlier than Plutarch and Seutonius to the respective events. In this respect, the resurrection has two wins here with Ignatius and Polycarp. So the resurrection wins the overall series in terms of early sources with two wins, a tie, and a loss.

The other way we could assess it is this. Assuming again we allow Cicero the assassination has two sources written within the life of possible witnesses affirming the assassination - i.e. Cicero and Nicolaus. Plutarch is too late here and writing beyond the life of possible witnesses. The same with Seutonius. The resurrection has three non-Biblical sources written within the life time of possible witnesses - i.e. Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp. Again, the resurrection would have at least as good evidentiary support in this criterion.
Chaosborders wrote:At this point, introducing further evidence on why the resurrection fails when considering all criteria just seems like overkill. I’m going to give you another round to better prove your argument using your cherry-picked criteria, since thus far you have failed to do even that.
My argument is doing just fine as it is thank you. Feel free to present more criteria against the evidence for the resurrection. I'll then measure the criteria against Caesar's assassination as I've done with the criteria of bias. I think we'll find that the resurrection will fair just as well and my argument remain sound.

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Post #23

Post by ChaosBorders »

Round Two:
Goose wrote:First, I would like to thank Chaoborders for the time he has spent on his last post.
Thank you for the acknowledgment. Unfortunately, though this one took longer, it is no where near as complete as I would have liked it to be. But since you seem to be anxious I think I will give you a round to respond to the comparison of sources made at the end and make objections, then respond to your objections and move on to the process of internal criticism in the next round.
Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:First it needs to be established what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes.
Chaosboders states it needs to be established what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes. But does he do this? Not really...
Events that qualify as history by the definition of history used in an academic setting, based upon the criteria used by academics, opposed to events that qualify as history using alternative definitions of the word or qualify using cherry picked criteria.

Is that clearer?
Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:Perhaps my opponent thinks otherwise, but I would assert that history, defined as the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes the past, is what should be taught in history classes.
Chaosborders begins by stating a truism.
I would have thought it was a truism as well, but your decision to ignore the accepted standards of what makes up history in an academic setting is such that I have to question whether you are even using the same basic definition of history. So I have restated it to see if you disagree. So, do you disagree that the definition of history that we are discussing is “the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes the past?� If you agree that is the definition we are discussing, then my analysis below is applicable.
Goose wrote:The positivist approach relies heavily upon the scientific method. The scientific method can not be used to determine history as history is strictly speaking not observable, repeatable, and testable. The limiting criteria of the scientific method itself precludes it from establishing history. Even the source Chaosborders cites agrees that the social sciences are not inclusive of the natural sciences, and presumably it's methods, when it states, "Social science is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These fields include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history..."
The alternative is the antipositivist approach, which for the most part does not even attempt to deal with whether events literally happened, but rather deals with more subjective qualities of societies. In the second paragraph of the article it states “The enhanced positivism presented by Durkheim would serve to found modern academic sociology and social research.� Historical enquiry, from an academic perspective, is part of that social research.

And you are correct, the positivist approach does generally rely on things cohering with the basic principles of science as established by the scientific method. It is for this reason that researchers like Steven Friesen, the Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, a holder of a Ph.D. from Harvard University, an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a B.A. from Fresno Pacific College, state in their lectures that miracles are not history. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, but by academic standards they are not history.
Fortunately for you, the only requirement for the question as stated is that Jesus died and came back to life. No time span was given, nor was it established that Jesus was necessarily crucified (though I would say that is certainly more evidenced than the resurrection). Given that, you do not have to try and argue that he came back to life after rotting for three days or being tortured to death.

As such, the positivist approach does not automatically exclude the resurrection, given it is not impossible for someone to drop dead and then have their heart restart if something like CPR were performed within a minute or two.
But the methodologies developed from it certainly require an assessment of plausibility, and by no means treat all events as equally likely to have occurred. Something as simplistic as trying to count up pieces of evidence in favor on personally selected criteria, without considering whether the event in question coheres to what we know about other academic fields such as science, sociology, psychology, etc. When all of the evidence is weighed (or as much as is feasibly possible), it is the events that have greater reasons to believe them than disbelieve them that are ultimately accepted as being accurate from a historical perspective.
Goose wrote: We have Chaosborders perspective on what he prefers as the method. But I'm still left wondering exactly "what events should be taught as literally factual in secular history classes." I get the impression this preamble is little more than an subtle attempt to erroneously smuggle the scientific method into historical enquiry.
Though history, as you said, cannot be purely assessed using the scientific method, the incorporation of its basic principles in the historical methodology accepted by academia is so pervasive that less than three hours after reading you’re your claim that its use is erroneous I ran across this lovely little tidbit while reading for a completely unrelated class:

Shermer, M. & Grobman, A. (2000). Denying history: Who says the Holocaust never happened and why do they say it? Berkeley: University of California Press
Shermer and Grobman believe the best interpretations of history come from a method they call “historical science.� Among other things, this method involves peer review; strives for objectivity in an effort to control bias and/or forthrightly acknowledges biases; couches claims in terms of probabilities and the likelihood of error; and builds arguments on the convergence of evidence.

The reason that methods such as this are used in academia are to limit biases as much as possible, and to exclude deceptions that might otherwise be convincing. It is not a matter of personal perspective, it is the accepted standard of academic historians. The ones that do not accept these standards are rarely trying to provide a take on what should be accepted as literally factual.
Goose wrote: Chaosborders has overstated his case by asserting that selecting a few criteria and ignoring the rest tells us nothing about whether an event should be considered factual. I only need to show that the criteria I've selected tells us at least something about whether that event should be considered factual to prove his assertion false. And I've done at least that if not much more.
I suppose I should be more specific and say literally factual.

Goose wrote: Further, and most importantly, Chaosborders concedes the exact nature of the methodology used to analyse history is debatable and no singular method has been established as sound. If no singular method has been established as sound it does not logically follow that using a collection of all the various methods not established as sound would therefore constitute a sound method. Which, in essence, is what Chaosborders appears to be arguing.


No. No historian of any merit would pretend that there is any way to be absolutely certain that history as written is objectively accurate. But academic historians try to be as objective and accurate as possible, and the methodology they have developed attempts to achieve that. I am not suggesting a conglomeration would constitute a sound method, but having not agreed beforehand on a particular one, it is more reasonable that using a conglomeration of methods would help make up for the weaknesses in any given one. This is contrast to your cherry picking criteria that allows you to prove your argument better.

Goose wrote:The founding of Memphis by Menes is NOT taught as a literally factual event. What is taught as literally factual is that the founding of Memphis is credited to Menes by Herodotus.

Further, in order to avoid anachronistic fallacies in the preamble to my argument I have specifically stipulated that we "find an event from around the period of Jesus" by which to compare the resurrection. Menes c. 3000BC is hardly from the period of Jesus. Neither are UFO and Bigfoot sightings.


Though I am sure I could find sources where the “claim� qualification is not added regarding Memphis, and other sources where it is added regarding the assassination of Julius Ceaser, I’ll agree that Memphis was not the best example.
However, your argument as written, regardless of any statements in your preamble, does not actually require the events in question to be of roughly the same time period. If you wish to modify your argument’s premise to include this clause, it would certainly make it somewhat harder to overturn using this particular method, but if you do not modify it then I will simply find a slightly better example that leads to the same general conclusions.


Goose wrote: Chaosborders is fallaciously trying to compare ancient historical claims to relatively modern ones. We have a different evidentiary expectation for modern claims than for ancient ones because of, but not limited to, such things as modern technology, low literacy rates of the ancient world, and the problems (such as accurate transmission and preservation of texts) that are associated with events from antiquity. Which, again, is why I have stipulated we "find an event from around the period of Jesus" to keep the comparison as free as possible from the type of anachronistic fallacy you are committing here and with the Menes example.


Though I can probably find some relatively modern examples that have just as low an evidentiary expectation, if you rephrase your argument to include your preamble’s time clause then I will concede this particular objection as irrelevant. In the meantime, I do not withdraw it, and will reinforce it if needed. (I politely ask that you concede your premise needs the time clause written in, as reinforcing this argument would take significant amounts of time and would just result in you doing something I don’t think you really disagree with anyways. If you wanted to, you could resist the change and force me to bring forth sufficient evidence to make you, thus making me spend a lot of time on that instead of using it for other arguments, but I would appreciate it if you were courteous enough not to make me do that.)


�Goose� wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:I will show that if Goose did not Cherry pick his criteria, he would realize the two events he chose are not directly comparable, and that by not excluding criteria, there is greater reason to exclude the resurrection as a literally factual event than there is reason to accept it as such.
From what you've shown below I don't see that you've established this at all. In fact, I think we'll see that if we apply Chaosborders criterion fairly to the assassination we have no better reason to find the evidence for the assassination of Caesar more credible.


That is because I realized that your argument could scarcely be said to pass muster even by your own criteria, and having spent five hours on my response by that point already and not having any more time to spend on it for about a week after that, I decided to wait to present my counter-argument this post. Unfortunately my counter-argument in its entirety is extensively lengthy and your anxiousness is such that I will only get to the first segment on it, which also most relates to your own argument, so I think it will work out nicely with you making objections to it and then me responding and continuing on. So you are correct in that what I had below was not sufficient evidence.

Goose wrote:�Pretty sure"? Where does Cicero give an account of Caesar's assassination? Please quote it with a reference to the where it can be found. Are you sure you aren't merely interpreting what Cicero wrote about Caesar though the lens of what later writers such as Nicolaus and Plutarch wrote?


The second oration against Marc Antony
When Cæsar was slain, says he, Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name, and congratulated him on liberty being recovered. Why on me above all men? Because I knew of it beforehand?


He continues on, with it pretty clear that his audience all believes that Caesar was slain, claim to disapprove of the killing after it happened, but in actuality had the inclination themselves before Caesar was killed.

Goose wrote:
Chaosborders is now implying that Caesar's assassination is not taught as a literally factual event and is not sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence. Maybe he'll be telling us soon that he doesn't believe Caesar was assassinated.


No, I’m implying that the criteria you have selected does not require a very high evidentiary standard, despite your claims that you like a challenge.

Goose wrote: This reasoning is problematic on many levels.
1. It would be naive to assume that only sixty years after Caesars death there were no people alive who would have had a political interest and therefore a bias regarding the assassination.


Perhaps, but can you provide evidence of anyone having such a bias?

Goose wrote: 2. In order to argue Nicolaus is not writing from with bias because he is writing later Chaosborders is actually having to argue against his method which prefers the source to be written early. It is preferred that a text is written early and at least during the lifetime of possible witnesses as it is assumed at least the eyewitnesses are available to correct erroneous claims made by the writer. Even the historical method Chaosborders cites from wiki acknowledges the preference of an early source.


And were Nicolaus the earliest writer on the subject, this would certainly be a problem.

Goose wrote: 3. Just a minute ago you were perfectly willing to accept Cicero, a biased politician jockeying to gain power and writing during the political upheaval that followed Caesars' death, as a credible, and presumably unbiased, source. So there seems to be a double standard being applied here.


Cicero might be biased in that he was jockeying for power, but precisely how do you draw the conclusion that he would have a bias in favor of claiming Caesar was assassinated if this was not in fact the case? In particular, it seems like it would be a particularly idiotic thing of him to claim given that among those he was addressing are many of the conspirators, who presumably would be aware he was making stuff up, were that the case.

Goose wrote: 4. Nicolaus likely got his data from Marc Antony as he was apparently the tutor of Marc Antony's children. Antony was sympathetic to Caesar and struggling to take power himself after Caesar's death. So Marc Antony potentially had motive to at least fabricate the surrounding details of a story that would implicate his political rivals in murder. Being in the employ and presumably loyal to Marc Antony gives us reason to think Nicolaus was biased toward promoting an assassination conspiracy. At the very least we have good reason to think Nicolaus recieved his data from a biased source, namely Marc Antony.


So a guy who received his information from Marc Antony, and a guy who completely hates Marc Antony, both agree Caesar was murdered. Thanks, you just gave me enemy attestation. Either there is no reason to believe Nicolaus was biased, or there is reason to believe that two mortal enemies agreed the event happened.


Goose wrote:
5. The criteria of bias is very subjective and difficult to prove or disprove as most writers don't come right and say, "Hey everybody, I want you to know I'm biased because..." The criterion of bias generally boils down to speculation.


So does most of history, what’s your point?

Goose wrote: 6. The presence of a bias in some way or another is universal. It doesn't follow that because a writer had a bias towards promoting a particular belief that he therefore lied about it or can not be at all trusted. No bias present only means the credibility is increased. It doesn't mean the source is inadmissible unless there is no bias. No writer is entirely unbiased.


I agree, however, if there are significant reasons to assume bias, the evidence is certainly of much less weight than a source for which there is no reason to assume significant bias.

Goose wrote: Your method states "Tendencies [to be biased] should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations." It would be erroneous to cite the bias of Christian writers without also taking into account the fact that these men were persecuted for being Christian. They were Christian because of what they believed. A core belief of these men was in the resurrection. Persecution sufficiently counters any motivation they may have had for an unacceptable amount of bias in promoting what they believed about the resurrection.


This reasoning can be applied to every single leader of any persecuted religion in existence. I can almost guarantee you do not believe the majority of those religions are true just because the followers continue to believe and promote it despite persecution. Exactly what makes this case different?

Goose wrote: Further, being part of a religion where its founder advocated being truthful is additional motivation to counter any bias that may be present. To assume otherwise is to assume that these men flippantly disregarded the moral teachings regarding not lying of a personal they believed was the Son of God.


No, to assume otherwise is to have an understanding of how beliefs about truth were different than they are now. Ironically, you are now committing the same anachronistic style fallacy you accused me of earlier. In the interest of time I’ll save presenting the research on this for when you challenge this assertion. (I have it handy, but typing it all up is going to take some time).

Goose wrote:No kidding. I'm not arguing that "some reason" necessarily meant the dead guy came back to life.


Then Tacitus is merely a red herring and has no evidentiary value regarding the resurrection.

Goose wrote: I hate to be the one to break this to you but everybody in the ancient world (and modern for that matter) wrote/writes with a bias and was/is therefore not objective.


It is not a matter of having no bias, it is a matter to what degree of bias. Religious leaders talking about central tenants of their religion have a greater reason to be biased than historians recording history. That does not mean that historians are totally unbiased because that certainly is not the case, but as a rule of thumb they are more inclined towards trying to seek out what objectively happened.

Goose wrote: Even if I were using the NT I don't think you would be able to overturn it without me also overturning most other ancient texts as well by applying the same criteria. See this thread: Are the Gospels hopelessly anonymous?


The matter of the current debate is not particularly concerned with other ancient texts, so you overturning their presumed authorship is not any concern of mine.

Goose wrote:Roman historians which each have their own biases towards promoting the belief that Caesar was assassinated as well. You can't argue that Roman historians and politicians were without bias towards the assassination. It doesn't fly.


Can you bring forth evidence that these historians were biased?

Goose wrote:If Tacitus had affirmed the resurrection of Jesus we'd probably be arguing over whether it was a Christian interpolation.


If there was reason to believe it was. But he didn’t affirm it, so he is no use as an enemy attestation.

Goose wrote:Neglecting (in your view) part of the historical method doesn't fail my argument as my argument makes no direct claim regarding the historical method. We've been over this. To eliminate an event before evaluating the evidentiary support because we don't personally think it is probable is fallacious.


Were I totally eliminating it, I would agree that would be the case. However:

Goose wrote: To say some events require a greater burden of proof is moving in the fallacious direction of Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence


Linking me to a thread were you assert that extraordinary claims requiring a greater standard of evidence is fallacious does not actually make it fallacious. Requiring a greater standard of evidence for improbable claims is a basic tenant of just about any academic field I can think of that makes any attempt to deal with literal facts. That you fail to either recognize or acknowledge this does not make it a fallacy.

Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:B)Your evidence neglects all historical methodology that detracts from the value of individual pieces of evidence (which is the equivalent of saying ‘if someone said it, they must be telling the truth’).
False. Why do you continually assert this erroneous thing? If you wish we can incorporate a 5th criterion for good: Was the writer biased? Or we can add any other criteria you feel is pertinent. The only condition is that we will apply that criterion equally to the assassination of Caesar.


Whether the writer was biased affects the strength of the criteria, it is not a separate criterion in and of its own right, at least not in the manner you seem to be trying to apply criteria, as if they are all completely equal and all you need is a yes or no checkmark next to each.

And regarding your statement that we can add any other criteria, that is blatantly false or you would not make such a fuss about using historical methodology. Were you actually willing to do that, you would not have spent so much of the last couple pages arguing against it.

Goose wrote: But more on this last point (C). Let's say for the sake of argument Cicero does give a detailed account of the assassination similar to later writers. The assassination still would not have better evidentiary support overall. Cicero would be a win as far as a very early source within a few years of the event. It would arguably be a tie for Nicolaus and Clement in proximity to the respective event in terms of time frame. Ignatius' and Polycarp's letters are both written during the life of possible witnesses and are earlier than Plutarch and Seutonius to the respective events. In this respect, the resurrection has two wins here with Ignatius and Polycarp. So the resurrection wins the overall series in terms of early sources with two wins, a tie, and a loss.


You are acting as if all sources are equal. Cicero wrote about it only a year or so after it happened. You cannot pretend that people writing decades afterwards outweigh that. Furthermore, one of his letters to Trebonius, reported as one of the conspirators, began “How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March,� (Wiki Cicero) so not only did he talk about it in speeches to the senate (many of whom are reported as the conspirators), he was also referencing it in a personal letter to one of the conspirators. That is far stronger than people writing during the life of “possible witnesses�.

Now let’s see what happens when we don’t cherry pick criteria regarding sources:

Core principles

Human sources may be relics (e.g. a fingerprint) or narratives (e.g. a statement or a letter). Relics are more credible sources than narratives.


None for either, to my knowledge.

A given source may be forged or corrupted; strong indications of the originality of the source increases its reliability.


In the cases presented thus far I am aware of no evidence of forgery or corruption for either.

The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened.


The earliest mention of the resurrection of Jesus is believed to be in the first epistle to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures


This is dated to between 53 and 57 AD, at minimum two decades after the event is reported to have occurred.

This compared to Cicero mentioning it less than a year after the event. Hands down the assassination has the closer source.

A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source, that is more reliable than a tertiary source and so on.


Cicero is quite clearly a secondary source. Paul is at best a secondary, and the rest of the writers cannot be shown as such. In neither case is there a primary source.

If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.


The assassination as mentioned by Cicero, and the assassination as mentioned by Plutarch I have read nothing indicating they are not independent of each other. The writings on the resurrection can generally be argued as having come from one another. I would do so here, but in the interest of time, given I apparently now have a deadline, I will instead ask you to show any evidence that is not the case.

The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.


In the case of the assassination, you yourself have stated that Mark Antony likely spread the message of Caesar being assassinated as a way to gain sympathy, but Cicero (a mortal enemy of Antony) clearly thinks of the assassination as a good thing, and seems to be of the opinion that so does everyone else. In the case of the resurrection, there is the clear bias of religious leaders spreading their religion. Though you have stated they have the oppositional motivation of persecution, psychology studies indicate persecution can actually just cause a belief to become all the more entrenched and the believer all the more likely to stick to it.

When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most "authority" - - i.e. the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness.


I am unaware of any direct disagreement for either. Though Tacitus is of the opinion that Christians are merely superstitious, he never references the resurrection directly. As such he cannot really be considered an expert on the matter.

If it can be demonstrated that the witness (or source) has no direct interest in creating bias, the credibility of the message is increased.


Unfortunately, even if the religious event in question is true, by being religious leaders, there is an inherent interest in creating bias towards belief regarding the resurrection. In the case of Cicero, no bias towards getting people to believe in the assassination appears evident. In point, his language seems to pretty clearly indicate that his audience already believe in the assassination and his main point is that they shouldn’t pretend they didn’t want it to happen just as much as he did.

Procedures

If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.


Though Tacitus’ assessment of Christians being superstitious is insufficient to be taken in place of others, it is sufficient to keep the life of Jesus (resurrection included) being considered proved, in part as the result of the next criterion:

However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis


I would like to go more in depth on this, but in the interest of time I’ll do it in the next response when you inevitably challenge this.

Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred, especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.


Cicero can be said to be talking to some of the actual perpetrators of the event. Paul might claim to have seen the resurrected Jesus, but having never seen Jesus before his resurrection he cannot have any basis of comparison for knowing that anyone he saw claiming to be Jesus actually was.

If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably enhanced.


Cicero and Plutarch certainly qualify, but would like evidence presented showing that the sources for the resurrection are independent of one another.

When two sources disagree (and there is no other means of evaluation), then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.


Tacitus is of the opinion that the Christians are merely superstitious. For this particular criterion I’m inclined to disregard him given that he is not specifically referencing the resurrection, however the idea of superstition is quite important later on. Regarding the assassination, I am unaware of any sources suggesting an alternative to Caeser being assassinated.

A more in depth look at textual analysis later will reveal further why these criteria show the sources regarding the assassination are more credible than those regarding the resurrection, but for now I will leave this as is so you may state your objections so far, and in the next post I will address said objections and move on to internal criticism and hopefully historical reasoning.
Unless indicated otherwise what I say is opinion. (Kudos to Zzyzx for this signature).

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.� -Albert Einstein

The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
- C.S. Lewis

Goose

Post #24

Post by Goose »

Please note: I've moved a few of the points out of the original order into groups to keep more coherency. For example some of the points regarding bias I've moved under one heading. I hope this helps.
Chaosborders wrote:Round Two:
Goose wrote:First, I would like to thank Chaoborders for the time he has spent on his last post.
Thank you for the acknowledgment. Unfortunately, though this one took longer, it is no where near as complete as I would have liked it to be. But since you seem to be anxious I think I will give you a round to respond to the comparison of sources made at the end and make objections, then respond to your objections and move on to the process of internal criticism in the next round.
Again, thank you for the time you've taken. I have read your entire post and it's clear you have spent time and effort constructing it. However, please don't take my not addressing most of your opening points as avoiding or ignoring you. Most of your opening does not have an impact, in my opinion, on either my argument or the question for debate. So, in the interest of time I'll cut it down to what I see as relevant.

Chaosborders wrote:No. No historian of any merit would pretend that there is any way to be absolutely certain that history as written is objectively accurate. But academic historians try to be as objective and accurate as possible, and the methodology they have developed attempts to achieve that. I am not suggesting a conglomeration would constitute a sound method, but having not agreed beforehand on a particular one, it is more reasonable that using a conglomeration of methods would help make up for the weaknesses in any given one.
This of course becomes absurd as there is theoretically no end to the number of methods or combinations and you are then obligated to keep adding to the conglomeration every time a new method is introduced. If you argue we must use a conglomeration of methods as a way of making up for weaknesses in any one single method you must accept every method or combination known, including mine. To not do so would be Special Pleading regarding the methods you disqualify. Further, Wikipedia's version of the historical method doesn't comprise all methods known so my point stands that "Chaosborders incessant instance that I use wikipedia's compilation of various unsound methods because it is in some way fallacious not to is absurd."

And let's not forget that this squabbling over a historical method is really a Red Herring you've introduced as it is not stated in the question for debate that we use any particular method.
Chaosborders wrote:This is contrast to your cherry picking criteria that allows you to prove your argument better.
This cuts both ways. I could accuse you of having "cherry picked" criteria from wikipedia, as wikipedia's hodgepodge doesn't represent all historical methods, and allows you to prove your position better.

Lastly, this is really getting tiresome and is entirely unnecessary. I've already stated in my argument that the criteria for what constitutes credible evidence (or as I have called it - "good") is not limited to what I have selected. And I've stated elsewhere we can incorporate any other criteria you think is pertinent. So, will you please, please, PLEASE stop accusing me of ignoring the historical method and "cherry picking" criteria!

Regarding your request...
Chaosborders wrote:Though I can probably find some relatively modern examples that have just as low an evidentiary expectation, if you rephrase your argument to include your preamble’s time clause then I will concede this particular objection as irrelevant. In the meantime, I do not withdraw it, and will reinforce it if needed. (I politely ask that you concede your premise needs the time clause written in, as reinforcing this argument would take significant amounts of time and would just result in you doing something I don’t think you really disagree with anyways. If you wanted to, you could resist the change and force me to bring forth sufficient evidence to make you, thus making me spend a lot of time on that instead of using it for other arguments, but I would appreciate it if you were courteous enough not to make me do that.)
No problem.
Goose's revised argument for the benefit of Chaosborders wrote: Argument A:

1. If the historical evidence supporting the resurrection* of Jesus is at least as good** as the historical evidence for another historical event*** that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event, then the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
2. The historical evidence supporting the resurrection* of Jesus is at least as good as the historical evidence for another historical event that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event.
3. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well (via modus ponens).


*By resurrection I mean returning to life after being dead. I am not making any claims as to the causal agent of Jesus' return to life after being dead.
**By good I mean in terms of a criteria such as, but not limited to,:

1. How early is the evidence after the event in question?
2. Is it written by eyewitnesses?
3. Is there multiple attestation to the event?
4. Is there enemy attestation?
5. Was the writer biased?

***an event from around the period of Jesus

Is that better?



Regarding Cicero as a source for the assassination of Caesar:

Goose wrote:�Pretty sure"? Where does Cicero give an account of Caesar's assassination? Please quote it with a reference to the where it can be found. Are you sure you aren't merely interpreting what Cicero wrote about Caesar though the lens of what later writers such as Nicolaus and Plutarch wrote?
Chaosborders wrote:The second oration against Marc Antony
When Cæsar was slain, says he, Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name, and congratulated him on liberty being recovered. Why on me above all men? Because I knew of it beforehand?


He continues on, with it pretty clear that his audience all believes that Caesar was slain, claim to disapprove of the killing after it happened, but in actuality had the inclination themselves before Caesar was killed.
I still think you are interpreting Cicero through the lens of later writers. Being killed does not necessarily imply an assassination. Caesar could have been killed in many different ways for a variety of reasons none of which need be an assassination conspiracy involving multiple senators.

In the portion of the second Philippic you cite above Cicero is repeating the allegation made by Mark Antony that he was an accomplice...
Cicero wrote:But recollect, I pray you, how that clever [Mark Antony] convicted me of being an accomplice in the business.
Next Cicero repeats the nature of the allegation by stating what Antony has said about Brutus and himself. We just need to add the quotes to give it some context...
Cicero wrote:"Caesar was slain," says [Marc Antony], "Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name, and congratulated him on liberty being recovered."
Cicero is repeating the allegation made by Mark Antony and then defending himself. So, Cicero is not necessarily making a statement of fact here regarding how Caesar died.

Later in the second Philippic, predictably, Cicero turns around and accuses Mark Antony of having previously plotted against Caesar and implies Mark Antony is an accomplice in Caesar's death. Cicero and Antony were caught in a classic political power struggle following the death of the leader. Cicero had substantial motive to use Caesar's death to his advantage by fabricating an assassination plot that implicated his political rivals, such as Mark Antony. Just as Mark Antony had motivation to fabricate an assassination plot and implicate Cicero. I just don't know who to believe anymore. After all, everybody knows politicians are liars, right?

However, despite these potential strong motives for bias we can infer from Cicero that Caesar was assassinated. It would be unreasonable to dismiss Cicero as a source purely because he had motive to lie.




More on the issue of bias:

Goose wrote:This reasoning is problematic on many levels.
1. It would be naive to assume that only sixty years after Caesars death there were no people alive who would have had a political interest and therefore a bias regarding the assassination.
Chaosborders wrote:Perhaps, but can you provide evidence of anyone having such a bias?
How about anyone that idolized Julius Caesar and/or wished to make a martyr of him? Nicolaus himself calls Julius "the great Caesar" and speaks glowingly of him. He also portrays Caesar and Antony's relationship favourably and cites Antony as one of the avengers of Julius.

Octavian Augustus, who was Julius Caesar's adopted son, heir to the Roman Empire, and ally of Mark Antony would have had a political interest and bias towards promoting the assassination. Or how about Augustus' step-son Tiberius? The people loved Julius. Promoting the assassination of Julius would have been an effective way to gain sympathy from the people and keep the heirs of one's political rivals in check.

Or how about anyone that favoured a Republic? What a great way to keep any would be tyrants in check by perpetuating the belief that Caesar was assassinated. A sort of subliminal way of saying, "Hey, buddy, watch out. Didn't you hear what happened to Julius Caesar? Well, the same could happen to you."

There are many people that could have used the promotion of the assassination of Caesar to further their own political interests around the time Nicolaus was writing. Again, it would be naive to think otherwise.


Goose wrote:2. In order to argue Nicolaus is not writing from with bias because he is writing later Chaosborders is actually having to argue against his method which prefers the source to be written early. It is preferred that a text is written early and at least during the lifetime of possible witnesses as it is assumed at least the eyewitnesses are available to correct erroneous claims made by the writer. Even the historical method Chaosborders cites from wiki acknowledges the preference of an early source.
Chaosborders wrote:And were Nicolaus the earliest writer on the subject, this would certainly be a problem.
You miss the point. This doesn't change the fact that in order to argue Nicolaus had no reason to be biased you are arguing for the benefits of a text being later when the method you cite prefers the text to be written early. So, it would appear you like the method when it helps your argument. But don't like it when it hurts your argument. You don't get it both ways here.

Goose wrote:3. Just a minute ago you were perfectly willing to accept Cicero, a biased politician jockeying to gain power and writing during the political upheaval that followed Caesars' death, as a credible, and presumably unbiased, source. So there seems to be a double standard being applied here.
Chaosborders wrote:Cicero might be biased in that he was jockeying for power, but precisely how do you draw the conclusion that he would have a bias in favour of claiming Caesar was assassinated if this was not in fact the case? In particular, it seems like it would be a particularly idiotic thing of him to claim given that among those he was addressing are many of the conspirators, who presumably would be aware he was making stuff up, were that the case.
I've given ample reason above to think Cicero was biased and at least had substantial motive to make things up including the assassination itself. But your argument here equally cuts both ways. Christian texts were in circulation and read aloud to audiences some of which would have been witnesses. So it would be equally an idiotic thing for Christian writers to write things to people who presumably would be aware that things were being made up. This is precisely why we prefer texts written during the life of possible witness. We would expect for the assassination, as we would for the resurrection, early written reports from witnesses denying the claims if they were known to be false. We have no early accounts for example writing, "Hey, Caesar wasn't assassinated, he died of natural causes." Likewise we have no early accounts denying the resurrection. This strengthens the claim.

Goose wrote:4. Nicolaus likely got his data from Marc Antony as he was apparently the tutor of Marc Antony's children. Antony was sympathetic to Caesar and struggling to take power himself after Caesar's death. So Marc Antony potentially had motive to at least fabricate the surrounding details of a story that would implicate his political rivals in murder. Being in the employ and presumably loyal to Marc Antony gives us reason to think Nicolaus was biased toward promoting an assassination conspiracy. At the very least we have good reason to think Nicolaus received his data from a biased source, namely Marc Antony.
Chaosborders wrote:So a guy who received his information from Marc Antony, and a guy who completely hates Marc Antony, both agree Caesar was murdered. Thanks, you just gave me enemy attestation. Either there is no reason to believe Nicolaus was biased, or there is reason to believe that two mortal enemies agreed the event happened.
But that's just it. All there really seems to be any concrete agreement on is that Caesar was killed. Cicero's language is very cryptic and he seems reluctant to come right out and give an account of the assassination. So if you want to count it as enemy attestation that Caesar was killed, fine. Being killed does not imply an assassination by multiple senators, however.

But more importantly this cuts both ways. If you can draw out enemy attestation between Cicero and Nicolaus then I can draw out enemy attestation for the resurrection as well. Leaders amongst the very early Christians that were allegedly in opposition to one another and jockeying for acceptance of their teaching agree on the resurrection. Opposing groups that held differing beliefs amongst the early Christian community affirm the resurrection as well. That gives me enemy attestation on many levels using your reasoning here and significant strengthening. I don't even need Tacitus anymore. Thanks.


Goose wrote:5. The criteria of bias is very subjective and difficult to prove or disprove as most writers don't come right and say, "Hey everybody, I want you to know I'm biased because..." The criterion of bias generally boils down to speculation.
Chaosborders wrote:So does most of history, what’s your point?
That we can't be at all sure of the degree of bias in a writer. Only that there is bias in all. It's a subjective hollow criterion merely thrown around as an attempted trump card. Oh, but we can't trust so and so as much because he was biased. It doesn't have any bearing on whether the claim itself is true and the objection of bias is ultimately rooted in the Genetic Fallacy.

Goose wrote:6. The presence of a bias in some way or another is universal. It doesn't follow that because a writer had a bias towards promoting a particular belief that he therefore lied about it or can not be at all trusted. No bias present only means the credibility is increased. It doesn't mean the source is inadmissible unless there is no bias. No writer is entirely unbiased.
Chaosborders wrote:I agree, however, if there are significant reasons to assume bias, the evidence is certainly of much less weight than a source for which there is no reason to assume significant bias.
But that is my entire point. There are reasons to assume bias from those that report both the resurrection and the assassination. And some very significant reasons to assume bias from those that claim Caesar was assassinated. Again, the issue of bias cuts both ways. If bias is a deal breaker for one it's equally a deal breaker for the other.

Goose wrote:Your method states "Tendencies [to be biased] should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations." It would be erroneous to cite the bias of Christian writers without also taking into account the fact that these men were persecuted for being Christian. They were Christian because of what they believed. A core belief of these men was in the resurrection. Persecution sufficiently counters any motivation they may have had for an unacceptable amount of bias in promoting what they believed about the resurrection.
Chaosborders wrote:This reasoning can be applied to every single leader of any persecuted religion in existence. I can almost guarantee you do not believe the majority of those religions are true just because the followers continue to believe and promote it despite persecution. Exactly what makes this case different?
Red Herring. The issue here isn't my belief regarding other religions. The issue here is having "opposite motivations" to minimize bias. Persecution is a powerful motivation to minimize the tendency to be biased. The point stands despite your Red Herring. Did the writers for the assassination have "opposite motivations" to minimize bias equal to that of Christian writers?

Goose wrote:Further, being part of a religion where its founder advocated being truthful is additional motivation to counter any bias that may be present. To assume otherwise is to assume that these men flippantly disregarded the moral teachings regarding not lying of a personal they believed was the Son of God.
Chaosborders wrote:No, to assume otherwise is to have an understanding of how beliefs about truth were different than they are now. Ironically, you are now committing the same anachronistic style fallacy you accused me of earlier. In the interest of time I’ll save presenting the research on this for when you challenge this assertion. (I have it handy, but typing it all up is going to take some time).
If you would like to argue that Christian writers had a different view of truth than we do or that Jesus did not teach his followers they should not lie, be my guest. This should be interesting. A diversion mind you, but interesting.

Goose wrote:I hate to be the one to break this to you but everybody in the ancient world (and modern for that matter) wrote/writes with a bias and was/is therefore not objective.
Chaosborders wrote:It is not a matter of having no bias, it is a matter to what degree of bias. Religious leaders talking about central tenants of their religion have a greater reason to be biased than historians recording history. That does not mean that historians are totally unbiased because that certainly is not the case, but as a rule of thumb they are more inclined towards trying to seek out what objectively happened.
Who has greater reason to be biased is your subjective opinion. Furthermore, you must falsely assume here that religious leaders would not or could not be inclined to seek out what objectively happened before joining the religion. Further, you are also assuming that Roman historians that were in the employ of Romans, writing for a Roman audience, using Roman sources, were more inclined to seek out what objectively happened. I'm not buying it.

Goose wrote:Roman historians which each have their own biases towards promoting the belief that Caesar was assassinated as well. You can't argue that Roman historians and politicians were without bias towards the assassination. It doesn't fly.
Chaosborders wrote:Can you bring forth evidence that these historians were biased?
Already given some regarding Cicero and Nicolaus in particular. I can provide more if needed but I don't see why when you have already acknowledged historians are biased. You wrote earlier, "That does not mean that historians are totally unbiased because that certainly is not the case, but as a rule of thumb they are more inclined towards trying to seek out what objectively happened."




Regarding my Argument A:

On Tacitus...

Goose wrote:No kidding. I'm not arguing that "some reason" necessarily meant the dead guy came back to life.
Chaosborders wrote:Then Tacitus is merely a red herring and has no evidentiary value regarding the resurrection.
Tacitus is a valuable piece of evidence. And I've argued why. But I no longer need him as enemy attestation anyway. You've given me that with opposing Christians and groups that agree on the resurrection. Again, thanks.

Goose wrote:If Tacitus had affirmed the resurrection of Jesus we'd probably be arguing over whether it was a Christian interpolation.
Chaosborders wrote:If there was reason to believe it was. But he didn’t affirm it, so he is no use as an enemy attestation.
Well, if it is a requirement that he must unequivocally affirm it then I would need to withdraw Tacitus as a possible (which was all I had given him anyway) enemy source. But of course I'll expect Cicero to unequivocally affirm Caesar's assassination for you to get enemy attestation between him and Nicolaus. I find it curious that you are allowed to infer that Cicero was alluding to Caesar's assassination when he wrote, "How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March." But, I can't infer that Tacitus was alluding to reports that had come down to him that Christians had claimed Jesus had risen from the dead when Tacitus writes, "a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out..." after Jesus execution. I see a double standard.


Regarding Chaosborders objections A-C that my argument (A) fails...

Goose wrote:Even if I were using the NT I don't think you would be able to overturn it without me also overturning most other ancient texts as well by applying the same criteria. See this thread: Are the Gospels hopelessly anonymous?
Chaosborders wrote:The matter of the current debate is not particularly concerned with other ancient texts, so you overturning their presumed authorship is not any concern of mine.
This could be a lengthy diversion. But you claimed if I introduced NT texts as containing eyewitness testimony you would overturn it with source criticism. My point was this again will cut both ways. I'll apply the same methods to any text you introduce for the assassination. For instance, how do you even know Cicero wrote the second Philippic as it is technically speaking anonymous? (you get the idea)

Goose wrote: To say some events require a greater burden of proof is moving in the fallacious direction of Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Chaosborders wrote:Linking me to a thread were you assert that extraordinary claims requiring a greater standard of evidence is fallacious does not actually make it fallacious. Requiring a greater standard of evidence for improbable claims is a basic tenant of just about any academic field I can think of that makes any attempt to deal with literal facts. That you fail to either recognize or acknowledge this does not make it a fallacy.
What is that "greater standard"? The fallacy is without quantifying and qualifying this extra evidence it is meaningless to demand more evidence or extraordinary evidence. It's just a way to put the goal posts on wheels. Further, to demand more or better evidence is tacit acknowledgement that sufficient evidence exists to establish the fact. If there wasn't sufficient evidence the claim itself could be failed simply by passing it through an historical method.

Chaosborders wrote:B)Your evidence neglects all historical methodology that detracts from the value of individual pieces of evidence (which is the equivalent of saying ‘if someone said it, they must be telling the truth’).
Goose wrote:False. Why do you continually assert this erroneous thing? If you wish we can incorporate a 5th criterion for good: Was the writer biased? Or we can add any other criteria you feel is pertinent. The only condition is that we will apply that criterion equally to the assassination of Caesar.
Chaosborders wrote:Whether the writer was biased affects the strength of the criteria, it is not a separate criterion in and of its own right, at least not in the manner you seem to be trying to apply criteria, as if they are all completely equal and all you need is a yes or no checkmark next to each.
And I reject your subjective application of the criterion of bias. You want to imply that religious writers had a greater bias than Roman politicians and writers. But that's your opinion. I say both events have biased parties reporting to varying degrees that we can't objectively establish. So who wins here on this subjective criterion of bias?

Chaosborders wrote:And regarding your statement that we can add any other criteria, that is blatantly false or you would not make such a fuss about using historical methodology. Were you actually willing to do that, you would not have spent so much of the last couple pages arguing against it.
I've already shown that I'm willing to add criteria. And let's be clear here. The last few pages are primarily the result of you complaining about my argument.

Goose wrote:But more on this last point (C). Let's say for the sake of argument Cicero does give a detailed account of the assassination similar to later writers. The assassination still would not have better evidentiary support overall. Cicero would be a win as far as a very early source within a few years of the event. It would arguably be a tie for Nicolaus and Clement in proximity to the respective event in terms of time frame. Ignatius' and Polycarp's letters are both written during the life of possible witnesses and are earlier than Plutarch and Seutonius to the respective events. In this respect, the resurrection has two wins here with Ignatius and Polycarp. So the resurrection wins the overall series in terms of early sources with two wins, a tie, and a loss.
Chaosborders wrote:You are acting as if all sources are equal. Cicero wrote about it only a year or so after it happened. You cannot pretend that people writing decades afterwards outweigh that. Furthermore, one of his letters to Trebonius, reported as one of the conspirators, began “How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March,� (Wiki Cicero) so not only did he talk about it in speeches to the senate (many of whom are reported as the conspirators), he was also referencing it in a personal letter to one of the conspirators. That is far stronger than people writing during the life of “possible witnesses�.
That's your opinion. And you are acting as if a politician Cicero who has reason to be biased and speaks cryptically about the assassination (if that's what he is even referring to here with Trebonius), writing to another alleged conspirator and the non-witness Nicolaus, writing 60 years later, outweighs the three independent sources (Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius) written, despite persecution, during the life of possible witnesses. Nope.

Once again, the resurrection fairs at least as well from an evidentiary stand point. And let's not forget, we haven't even referenced the Bible at this point.




Regarding Chaosborders use of wikipedia's hodgepodge historical method:

Note: Chaosborders has first introduced the Bible into this portion of the argument, not me. So he has given the green light for me to use it in this portion of his argument.

For the sake of time I'll only address the issues where Chaosborders argues there exists a shortfall for the resurrection in comparison to the assassination in the following criteria.


Chaosborders wrote:Now let’s see what happens when we don’t cherry pick criteria regarding sources:
The irony here of course is that Chaosborders has cherry picked wikipedia's cherry picked criteria.

Chaosborders wrote:Core principles
The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened.


The earliest mention of the resurrection of Jesus is believed to be in the first epistle to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures


This is dated to between 53 and 57 AD, at minimum two decades after the event is reported to have occurred.

This compared to Cicero mentioning it less than a year after the event. Hands down the assassination has the closer source.
Not so fast my friend. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 Paul is repeating an early Christian creedal passage and widely accepted as such even among critics. Some scholars, even some critical ones (I can provide a list if you wish), date this creedal passage to have originated within as little as a few months from the crucifixion. So at best we have a tie in terms of the earliest source. Certainly no "hands down" winner here.

This testimony from Paul is further strengthened by that fact Paul is a former enemy of the church. His conversion will need to be explained.


Chaosborders wrote:
If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.


The assassination as mentioned by Cicero, and the assassination as mentioned by Plutarch I have read nothing indicating they are not independent of each other. The writings on the resurrection can generally be argued as having come from one another. I would do so here, but in the interest of time, given I apparently now have a deadline, I will instead ask you to show any evidence that is not the case.
On this criterion the assassination does not fair anywhere near as well as the resurrection.

By citing Plutarch you make the baseline at 114 years after. So there are three independent sources for the assassination namely Cicero, Nicolaus, and Plutarch. Heck, we'd have to extend it out to 164 years from the assassination to allow Seutonius which would bring the total to four independent sources.

Now compare this to the resurrection. We have Paul, Mark (the earliest and most reliable manuscripts end affirming the resurrection 16:6-7), John, Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius all writing within approximately 80 years and within the lifetime of possible witnesses. I could further argue 1 Peter as another independent and early source. Also, I could argue that Matthew and Luke differ in their accounts of the resurrection and thus are independent in this regard.

So, we have three independent sources for the assassination within approximately 115 years compared to the six independent sources we have for the resurrection within approximately 80 years (possibly nine for the resurrection if we count Matthew, Luke and 1 Peter).

Even if we keep the time frame at 60 years after to allow Nicolaus, and thus at least one other independent source for the assassination, the resurrection still wins. There would be two independent sources for the assassination in Cicero and Nicolaus. There are four independent sources (not even including Matthew and Luke) for the assassination with Paul, Mark, John, and Clement all within approximately the same time frame.

Without question the resurrection has the larger number of independent sources containing the same message. In this respect the credibility of the message should be considered much stronger for the resurrection.


Chaosborders wrote:
The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.


In the case of the assassination, you yourself have stated that Mark Antony likely spread the message of Caesar being assassinated as a way to gain sympathy, but Cicero (a mortal enemy of Antony) clearly thinks of the assassination as a good thing, and seems to be of the opinion that so does everyone else. In the case of the resurrection, there is the clear bias of religious leaders spreading their religion. Though you have stated they have the oppositional motivation of persecution, psychology studies indicate persecution can actually just cause a belief to become all the more entrenched and the believer all the more likely to stick to it.
Nice try. Even if you could somehow show through psychology studies that persecution causes and entrenching of beliefs at best this would only account for why the beliefs may have become more entrenched over time. It doesn't explain the real issue which is the origin of the beliefs of these men and why they would promote something that was known to be untrue, if it was.

Chaosborders wrote:
If it can be demonstrated that the witness (or source) has no direct interest in creating bias, the credibility of the message is increased.
Unfortunately, even if the religious event in question is true, by being religious leaders, there is an inherent interest in creating bias towards belief regarding the resurrection. In the case of Cicero, no bias towards getting people to believe in the assassination appears evident. In point, his language seems to pretty clearly indicate that his audience already believe in the assassination and his main point is that they shouldn’t pretend they didn’t want it to happen just as much as he did.
I think we've hammered the bias thing enough. I'm noticing this seems to be your main, and dare I say only, point of serious contention. Cicero had interest in creating bias towards belief in the assassination. He could use it to implicate his political rivals. But we don't discount his testimony because of this strong motive. Likewise, we shouldn't discount the testimony of religious leaders or other writers because they had an interest in creating bias towards belief.

Chaosborders wrote:Procedures
If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.


Though Tacitus’ assessment of Christians being superstitious is insufficient to be taken in place of others, it is sufficient to keep the life of Jesus (resurrection included) being considered proved, in part as the result of the next criterion:

However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis


I would like to go more in depth on this, but in the interest of time I’ll do it in the next response when you inevitably challenge this.
I'm not sure what it is you are expecting me to challenge here.

Chaosborders wrote:
Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred, especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.
Cicero can be said to be talking to some of the actual perpetrators of the event. Paul might claim to have seen the resurrected Jesus, but having never seen Jesus before his resurrection he cannot have any basis of comparison for knowing that anyone he saw claiming to be Jesus actually was.
I don't need to argue that Paul was a witness here. It is sufficient that we know Paul had spent time talking with witnesses which he did (see the first two chapters of Galatians).

Chaosborders wrote:
If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably enhanced.
Cicero and Plutarch certainly qualify, but would like evidence presented showing that the sources for the resurrection are independent of one another.
Covered above. Paul, Mark, John, Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius.

Chaosborders wrote:
When two sources disagree (and there is no other means of evaluation), then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.
Tacitus is of the opinion that the Christians are merely superstitious. For this particular criterion I’m inclined to disregard him given that he is not specifically referencing the resurrection, however the idea of superstition is quite important later on. Regarding the assassination, I am unaware of any sources suggesting an alternative to Caesar being assassinated.
Likewise, there is no early source suggesting an alternative to the resurrection.


Again, even with the cherry picked wikipedia methodology the evidentiary support for the resurrection is at least as good, if not much better on some criterion, than the assassination. In fact, adding these criteria has only severed to strengthen my case in argument (A). My argument remains sound.

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Post #25

Post by ChaosBorders »

(Note: I did some of the work while the computer was not connected to the internet and was researching on a different computer. As a result, I’m afraid I may be missing links at some places I meant to put them in that I didn’t notice while editing. If it seems like that may be the case, please tell me and I will try to locate the link again in my email).

Round Three:
Goose wrote:Again, thank you for the time you've taken. I have read your entire post and it's clear you have spent time and effort constructing it. However, please don't take my not addressing most of your opening points as avoiding or ignoring you. Most of your opening does not have an impact, in my opinion, on either my argument or the question for debate. So, in the interest of time I'll cut it down to what I see as relevant.
My opening points address what "should be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes". I would think that it is quite a relevant issue regarding the question for debate.
Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:No. No historian of any merit would pretend that there is any way to be absolutely certain that history as written is objectively accurate. But academic historians try to be as objective and accurate as possible, and the methodology they have developed attempts to achieve that. I am not suggesting a conglomeration would constitute a sound method, but having not agreed beforehand on a particular one, it is more reasonable that using a conglomeration of methods would help make up for the weaknesses in any given one.
This of course becomes absurd as there is theoretically no end to the number of methods or combinations and you are then obligated to keep adding to the conglomeration every time a new method is introduced.
Is the suggestion there that there is no end to academic historians? If a new method is considered inherently better than an old one by academic historians, the old one is likely to be discarded in its entirety. If the new method merely helps make up for any deficiencies the old one may have had, then attempts at objectivity would benefit from being processed through that method as well.
Goose wrote: If you argue we must use a conglomeration of methods as a way of making up for weaknesses in any one single method you must accept every method or combination known, including mine. To not do so would be Special Pleading regarding the methods you disqualify.
No, it would be a refusal to accept methods by people who are not qualified to make them. Unless you are a historian with a PhD, you are not remotely qualified to create your own historical method. Even if you are a historian with a PhD, unless your method has been peer reviewed and found to be of value, there would still be little reason to accept it.
Goose wrote:Further, Wikipedia's version of the historical method doesn't comprise all methods known so my point stands that "Chaosborders incessant instance that I use wikipedia's compilation of various unsound methods because it is in some way fallacious not to is absurd."
The methods in Wikipedia are by credible and established historians and widely recognized. If you wish to find additional methods that are by established historians, I would certainly not object to their addition. Wikipedia was merely the most convenient source for getting accepted methods.
Goose wrote: And let's not forget that this squabbling over a historical method is really a Red Herring you've introduced as it is not stated in the question for debate that we use any particular method.
It is extremely relevant to the issue of what "should be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes". Perhaps we should have established this before the debate started, but it was not, and as such is of considerable importance to the debate at hand as it directly relates to the soundness of any argument made.
Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:This is contrast to your cherry picking criteria that allows you to prove your argument better.
This cuts both ways. I could accuse you of having "cherry picked" criteria from wikipedia, as wikipedia's hodgepodge doesn't represent all historical methods, and allows you to prove your position better.
If I were inclined to cherry pick, I would not be using entire wiki article, as there are criteria there where the resurrection actually wins. On the whole though, once we go through the methods regarding internal criticism and historical reasoning, the resurrection will be shown to have greater reason to disbelieve than to believe. If you wish to introduce further accredited methodology, you are more than welcome to. Given how busy I have been with finals and work, I suspect I will not get to Internal criticism this post after all and will have to end it after explaining the impact of textual analysis on the credibility of sources, which will somewhat lead into internal criticism the next post. If you wish to take the time to find more accepted methods, I can then address them at the same time as the wiki ones in the next post.
Goose wrote: Lastly, this is really getting tiresome and is entirely unnecessary. I've already stated in my argument that the criteria for what constitutes credible evidence (or as I have called it - "good") is not limited to what I have selected. And I've stated elsewhere we can incorporate any other criteria you think is pertinent.
And yet you’ve argued every single step of the way against actually incorporating such additional criteria. Further, even if you do concede to simply add the criteria, it would be of little meaning if the criteria are not properly applied. (Which, in fairness, may not be obvious how to do. It took me a couple of hours of research before I figured out that the historical methods on Wikipedia are actually addressing three distinct issues that all have to be addressed before an event in history is accepted as literally factual).

(Quote abbreviated for length)
Goose's revised argument for the benefit of Chaosborders wrote: Argument A:
1. If the historical evidence supporting the resurrection* of Jesus is at least as good** as the historical evidence for another historical event*** that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event, then the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
*By resurrection I mean returning to life after being dead. I am not making any claims as to the causal agent of Jesus' return to life after being dead.
***an event from around the period of Jesus
Is that better?


Adding the time period clause certainly makes it harder to reduce to the absurd through showing how many other religious events would ultimately be considered literally factual if your argument’s standards for what should be taught as literally factual were allowed to stand.

There are two ways I could approach it in its current form. I could attack the basic form of the argument by making a current comparison of events, but in the interest of time I think it will be faster to try and find a religious event from around the same time period.

I think Vespasian’s curing of a blind man by putting spit in his eyes is a good starting point. This can be found in Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, 4.81 (c 110 AD),—which is reprinted in: Levene, D.S.. Tacitus, The Histories (1997), pg. 228- 9.

Personally, I think this tale was just propaganda. Though whether it came before or after Mark’s telling of Jesus curing a blind man is much debated, if the latter is the case it would not surprise me if Tacitus was also making a tongue in cheek comment regarding the Christians.

But by your argument’s form, if there is an event that occurred that is taught as literally factual for which the only evidence is a single source that wrote over 40 years after the fact (as that is the only evidence for Vespasian curing a blind man of which I am aware) then this too should be taught as literally factual.
Simplest way of finding such an event is just using an earlier tome of Tacitus’ Annals. In the first one it is established that Tiberius was summoned home by an urgent letter from his mother circa A.D. 14 or 15.

I can think of a couple ways you could approach this:

A) You find more sources to support Tiberius was summoned home.
My response would be to find another event for which I can’t find supporting sources.

B) You state a single source is insufficient to establish something as literally factual and that in this case he is merely claiming this (or any other for which he is the only source) event.

My response would be to look up the textbooks for my school’s classes on Roman history, see if I can find them at the library, and find some examples to the contrary, then expound further on the fact that just because something is taught in a history class as literally factual does not mean it should be and any argument depending on the contrary is useless by itself. Then, for thoroughness, I would probably also try to find the books on pagan miracles I keep getting referred to and find some that are mentioned by more than a single source so that I have an even broader range of ‘literally factual’ events to compare to.

Goose wrote:I still think you are interpreting Cicero through the lens of later writers. Being killed does not necessarily imply an assassination. Caesar could have been killed in many different ways for a variety of reasons none of which need be an assassination conspiracy involving multiple senators.

In the portion of the second Philippic you cite above Cicero is repeating the allegation made by Mark Antony that he was an accomplice...
Cicero wrote:But recollect, I pray you, how that clever [Mark Antony] convicted me of being an accomplice in the business.
Next Cicero repeats the nature of the allegation by stating what Antony has said about Brutus and himself. We just need to add the quotes to give it some context...
Cicero wrote:"Caesar was slain," says [Marc Antony], "Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name, and congratulated him on liberty being recovered."
Cicero is repeating the allegation made by Mark Antony and then defending himself. So, Cicero is not necessarily making a statement of fact here regarding how Caesar died.


Paragraph 10:
But these are all old stories now. This charge, however, is quite a modern one: that Caesar was slain by my contrivance. I am afraid, O conscript fathers, lest I should appear to you to have brought up a sham accuser against myself (which is a most disgraceful thing to do); a man not only to distinguish me by the praises which are my due, but to load me also with those which do not belong to me. For who ever heard my name mentioned as an accomplice in that most glorious action? And whose name has been concealed who was in the number of that gallant band? Concealed, do I say? Whose name was there which was not at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, tho they had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed.


Just how explicit does he have to make it? After this he lists men involved, including his friend Trebonius. And yes, Mark Antony made the allegation that he was involved, but Cicero makes no attempt to claim the assassination didn’t happen, or that Brutus didn’t say those words when it did, but merely states that doesn’t mean he had foreknowledge of its occurrence (despite his repeatedly making it clear that if he did have such knowledge he would have gladly gone along with it, and was more than happy that it occurred).

Furthermore, an oration by Mark Antony on the matter, recorded as being delivered in the Roman forum, 44 B.C. is preserved by Dio Cassius in his “History of Rome�.

Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, hero, god, is dead; alas! Dead not by the violence of some disease, nor exhausted by old age, nor wounded abroad somewhere in some war, nor snatched away irresistibly by some supernatural force: but plotted against here within the walls-the man that safely led an army into Britain; ambushed in this city-the man who had increased its circuit; struck down in the senate-house-the man that had reared another such edifice at his own charge; unarmed, the brave warrior; defenseless, the promoter of peace: the judge beside the court of justice; the governor bedside the seat of government; at the hands of the citizens-he whom none of the enemy had been able to kill even when he fell into the sea; at the hands of his comrades-he who had often taken pity on them.
Where, Caesar, was your humaneness, where your inviolability, where the laws? You enacted many laws to prevent any one’s being killed by personal foes, yet see how mercilessly your friends killed you; and now slain you lie before us in that forum through which you, often crowned, led triumphal marches: wounded unto death you have been cast down upon that rostra from which you often addressed the people. Woe for the blood-bespattered locks of gray; alas for the rent robe, which you assumed, it seems, only to the end that you might be slain in it!

Goose wrote: Later in the second Philippic, predictably, Cicero turns around and accuses Mark Antony of having previously plotted against Caesar and implies Mark Antony is an accomplice in Caesar's death. Cicero and Antony were caught in a classic political power struggle following the death of the leader. Cicero had substantial motive to use Caesar's death to his advantage by fabricating an assassination plot that implicated his political rivals, such as Mark Antony. Just as Mark Antony had motivation to fabricate an assassination plot and implicate Cicero. I just don't know who to believe anymore. After all, everybody knows politicians are liars, right?


So both agree an assassination happened, despite pointing fingers at each other, but you’re of the opinion that they both made it up, despite their fellow ‘conspirators’ presumably knowing that they had nothing to do with any assassination if no such assassination had occurred? If you are trying to gain favor with the senate and lambast your opponent, I can think of no more stupid move than to implicate your fellow senators in an event they know didn’t even happen.

Goose wrote: How about anyone that idolized Julius Caesar and/or wished to make a martyr of him? Nicolaus himself calls Julius "the great Caesar" and speaks glowingly of him. He also portrays Caesar and Antony's relationship favourably and cites Antony as one of the avengers of Julius.


Meanwhile Cicero is practically gloating over Caesar being killed. His speech is hardly ‘make a martyr’ of him material.

Goose wrote: Or how about anyone that favoured a Republic? What a great way to keep any would be tyrants in check by perpetuating the belief that Caesar was assassinated. A sort of subliminal way of saying, "Hey, buddy, watch out. Didn't you hear what happened to Julius Caesar? Well, the same could happen to you."


Meanwhile Augustus is enjoying unrivaled power. So it is your opinion they have bias to promote the belief Caesar was assassinated to keep political figures in check, but it just so happens to backfire because Augustus can use the same bias to help him gain more power and popularity than any other Roman emperor to ever live? Do you have any evidence past your own speculation that this might be the case? The opinion of professional historians would certainly be appreciated regarding any of these potential sources of bias.

Goose wrote: You miss the point. This doesn't change the fact that in order to argue Nicolaus had no reason to be biased you are arguing for the benefits of a text being later when the method you cite prefers the text to be written early. So, it would appear you like the method when it helps your argument. But don't like it when it hurts your argument. You don't get it both ways here.


I don’t get it both ways. Nicolaus was later, but also had less reason to be biased. The same is not true of your sources, which were BOTH later and still had considerable reason to be biased. It is not that the source for Julius’ assassination is strong for both criteria; it is that the sources speaking of the resurrection are strong on neither point that is the issue of contention.


Goose wrote:I've given ample reason above to think Cicero was biased and at least had substantial motive to make things up including the assassination itself. But your argument here equally cuts both ways. Christian texts were in circulation and read aloud to audiences some of which would have been witnesses. So it would be equally an idiotic thing for Christian writers to write things to people who presumably would be aware that things were being made up.


Witnesses are not the same as perpetrators. If there was no resurrection, there were no real witnesses to the resurrection. If the people claiming to be witnesses were either making it up, or had been fooled, it is not the same thing as saying “this person did it�. Cicero specifically mentioned people involved in the conspiracy, one of whom was his friend whom he later wrote a letter to stating his wish to have been a part of said conspiracy (however you personally wish to interpret the letter). That is not the same as saying “five hundred people witnessed it�. If five hundred people didn’t witness it, there’s not going to be five hundred people saying “BS�. If the people didn’t assassinate Caeser, accusing them of it (especially when they have influence over your own political future) seems a rather stupid move; even more especially if they’re your political allies and your political enemy has large portions of the army at his disposal.

Goose wrote: This is precisely why we prefer texts written during the life of possible witness. We would expect for the assassination, as we would for the resurrection, early written reports from witnesses denying the claims if they were known to be false. We have no early accounts for example writing, "Hey, Caesar wasn't assassinated, he died of natural causes." Likewise we have no early accounts denying the resurrection. This strengthens the claim.


Technically we just have claims of the Christians being superstitious, gnostics saying Jesus didn’t die in the first place, and a questionable theological argument based on the textual analysis of Paul. We also have textual analysis providing us with more plausible answers. Even then, though I would expect someone being accused of assassinating Julius Ceaser to be writing frequently and vehemently something along the lines of “The dude died in his sleep, I wasn’t part of any conspiracy, and Mark Anthony and/or Cicero can go to hell if they’re saying I am,� whereas I would not really expect someone of that time period to be writing “Well, they say they saw a dead guy come back to life, but I certainly didn’t see him anywhere so it couldn’t have happened.�


Goose wrote:But that's just it. All there really seems to be any concrete agreement on is that Caesar was killed. Cicero's language is very cryptic and he seems reluctant to come right out and give an account of the assassination. So if you want to count it as enemy attestation that Caesar was killed, fine. Being killed does not imply an assassination by multiple senators, however.


Paragraph 11 lists senators involved.

Goose wrote: But more importantly this cuts both ways. If you can draw out enemy attestation between Cicero and Nicolaus then I can draw out enemy attestation for the resurrection as well. Leaders amongst the very early Christians that were allegedly in opposition to one another and jockeying for acceptance of their teaching agree on the resurrection. Opposing groups that held differing beliefs amongst the early Christian community affirm the resurrection as well. That gives me enemy attestation on many levels using your reasoning here and significant strengthening. I don't even need Tacitus anymore. Thanks.


Your assertion was that Nicolaus probably got his information from Mark Antony, thus was biased. I was pointing out that if that is indeed the case, it gives a strong case for enemy attestation. Now that I have Mark Antony’s oration, and textual analysis of Cicero’s speeches gives us Mark Antony’s accusation, I would actually prefer you give some sort of evidence that Nicolaus got his information from Antony since if he did not he is back to not having any demonstrable reason to be biased concerning this matter.

Furthermore, Mark Antony and Cicero agreeing on the matter is about as classic a case of enemy attestation as I can fathom. Early religious leaders disagreeing on some doctrinal details, on the other hand, are not good examples if they came to odds long after conversion. But if you care to list these opposing groups, I will address each case specifically to show why they are not good examples of enemy attestation when compared to Mark Antony and Cicero.

Goose wrote:That we can't be at all sure of the degree of bias in a writer. Only that there is bias in all. It's a subjective hollow criterion merely thrown around as an attempted trump card. Oh, but we can't trust so and so as much because he was biased. It doesn't have any bearing on whether the claim itself is true and the objection of bias is ultimately rooted in the Genetic Fallacy.


You should note the footnote on your website:
It should be noted that there are some cases in which the origin of a claim is relevant to the truth or falsity of the claim. For example, a claim that comes from a reliable expert is likely to be true (provided it is in her area of expertise).

A) Bias is considered an important criterion by the experts in the field of history, thus your personal opinion that it is a hollow is irrelevant.
B) Bias goes towards the establishment of whether the source is reliable.
That you dislike how historians determine what should be considered history is noted, but you have neither addressed how my explanation of what ‘should be taught as literally factual’ (which summarized is an application of the methodology created by experts in the field) is in error, or how your argument is somehow stronger.

Goose wrote:Red Herring. The issue here isn't my belief regarding other religions. The issue here is having "opposite motivations" to minimize bias. Persecution is a powerful motivation to minimize the tendency to be biased. The point stands despite your Red Herring. Did the writers for the assassination have "opposite motivations" to minimize bias equal to that of Christian writers?


You state that persecution is a powerful motivation to minimize the tendency to be biased. Certainly Justin Martyr thought so, it being stated as one of the primary reasons he converted. Certainly the belief that if a group is willing to suffer bias its beliefs are more likely to be true is a strong one, and is a large part of why people convert to any persecuted religion, but is it actually the case?

Persecution has been a recruiting tool throughout history for religions and causes. Looking at a more recent example of this mentality we can turn to Mormonism:
Although the religions of men are often tolerant of each other, they cannot abide the presence of living prophets and the truths of salvation. Their bitterness and opposition toward Mormonism are an essential witness of its truthfulness. Validity draws the fire…If Mormonsims were not true, it could be ignored. The fact that Satan and his cohorts cannot leave it alone is an evidence of its truthfulness.-Joseph Fielding McConkie


Unfortunately persecution cannot be taken as actual evidence as truth. Further, despite its appearance of minimizing bias, as the result of basic human cognitive biases the belief that it minimizes bias can actually backfire. Some of the main biases involved are confirmation bias, reactance (particularly in males), self-fulfilling prophecy, and belief bias. The theories on dissonance, self-perception, impression management, and self-affirmation all can actively influence commitment to a belief not only despite, but in fact because, of persecution.

One minor example was a study done on Chinese pastors who’d undergone extreme persecution. Though many had their faith damaged, some developed coping mechanisms that actually led to a strengthening of their faith. Kenneth Pargament has written a book The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice on the subject of how religion and coping interrelate.

So persecution can lead someone to falsely accepting a belief, and then intensify their commitment to that belief. Because of the latter, it should not be taken for granted as a powerful motivation for minimizing the tendency to be biased or it will only lead to more of the former.

Regarding the assassination, Cicero’s need for political support would seem a powerful motivation not to lie about senators participating in a crime that didn’t even happen.

Goose wrote:If you would like to argue that Christian writers had a different view of truth than we do or that Jesus did not teach his followers they should not lie, be my guest. This should be interesting. A diversion mind you, but interesting.


Though the second part about Jesus not teaching his followers not to lie would be an interesting avenue considering I am only aware of two verses in which Jesus directly touches on the subject of lying:

Matthew 15:19
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts…false witness…These are the things which defile a man.


John 8:44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.


Matthew is speaking specifically about false witnesses, which is to be understood as false accusations or testimony against ones neighbors and such, and the context of John has it that those not believing the truth are literally incapable of believing it because they do not belong to God. So I am unaware of anywhere that Jesus specifically teaches his followers not to lie in the sense of creating stories about him.

But my interest is not really in trying to show Jesus did not teach his followers not to lie, but rather to explain cultural differences from today about how things we might consider now to be lying were accepted and common practice then, as well as mention basic psychological issues that hold true throughout history, that make issues of veracity much harder to deal with.

The first is Pseudepigraphy was a common practice. Though we would now say writing under a different name is flat out lying, back then it was simply an accepted practice notable throughout Jewish history.

Next is that stories of that time were frequently changed and invented (either intentionally or as a result of cognitive biases and distortions) in order to convey greater ‘moral truths’. (Bart Ehrman in “A Brief Introduction to the New Testament� page 57). This has not actually changed all the much from today (think George Washington and the cherry tree and those inspirational videos circulating the internet) except that then it was even more likely to be accepted as true over time because of the much greater difficulty in disproving said stories. The result of this increased level of credulity was a cultural in which the acceptance of miracles was prevalent to the extent that thousands of pagan and Jewish ones having been recorded, with entire books describing such stories, one example being Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook for the Study of New Testament Miracle Stories (The Context of Early Christianity,1) by Wendy Cotter. If you would like more examples of early Christian groups altering texts, let me know.

Further is the distinction between lies of commission and lies of omission, with the latter hardly ever getting any serious attention by Judeo-Christian considerations (which leads to the unfortunate view by those who do more greatly consider lies of omission that Christians are often dishonest).

In addition are the considerations of misattribution, self-deception, and hypocrisy that have plagued humanity throughout its history regardless of whether the religion an individual follows promotes telling the truth.

Goose wrote:
Goose wrote:Roman historians which each have their own biases towards promoting the belief that Caesar was assassinated as well. You can't argue that Roman historians and politicians were without bias towards the assassination. It doesn't fly.
Chaosborders wrote:Can you bring forth evidence that these historians were biased?
Already given some regarding Cicero and Nicolaus in particular. I can provide more if needed but I don't see why when you have already acknowledged historians are biased. You wrote earlier, "That does not mean that historians are totally unbiased because that certainly is not the case, but as a rule of thumb they are more inclined towards trying to seek out what objectively happened."


Past your own personal speculation. Noted historians supporting your position that Cicero and Nicolaus had reason for bias would be appreciated. I can offer Ehrman, same source and roughly same page number off the top of my head for support of Christian writers having bias.


Goose wrote: Well, if it is a requirement that he must unequivocally affirm it then I would need to withdraw Tacitus as a possible (which was all I had given him anyway) enemy source. But of course I'll expect Cicero to unequivocally affirm Caesar's assassination for you to get enemy attestation between him and Nicolaus.


Paragraph 10

Goose wrote: I find it curious that you are allowed to infer that Cicero was alluding to Caesar's assassination when he wrote, "How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March." But, I can't infer that Tacitus was alluding to reports that had come down to him that Christians had claimed Jesus had risen from the dead when Tacitus writes, "a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out..." after Jesus execution. I see a double standard.


I wouldn’t be allowed without the second philanthropic. Because of his speech, inferring he is referring to the assassination is much more logical than trying to infer that Tacitus is referring specifically to the resurrection, particularly given that if you carefully examine his wording he is stating that the mischievous superstition was checked after Jesus execution, meaning he is not specifically referring to the resurrection given that Jesus cannot have resurrected before he died. Further, the true value of enemy attestation is that an enemy is specifically agreeing that a fact occurred. Even if Tacitus spoke about the claims of Christians that there was a resurrection, unless he himself agreed it occurred it is only evidence that there were claims. You can get enemy attestation from varying sources for the existence of Jesus as a person, pretty sure you can get it for Jesus being crucified, and you might even be able to get it for Jesus’ tomb being empty, but you have yet to show any enemy source agreeing that the resurrection is a fact. In short, you simply do not have enemy attestation for the resurrection. If you provide specific ‘opposition’ groups to the contrary, I will either show why they do not qualify as enemy attestation, or accept you as having some form of enemy attestation. Currently though, simply saying you have them is insufficient.

Goose wrote: This could be a lengthy diversion. But you claimed if I introduced NT texts as containing eyewitness testimony you would overturn it with source criticism. My point was this again will cut both ways. I'll apply the same methods to any text you introduce for the assassination. For instance, how do you even know Cicero wrote the second Philippic as it is technically speaking anonymous? (you get the idea)


Can you present a single credible historian who believes Cicero did not write the second Philippic? Hundreds of letters by Cicero have been preserved, and thanks to textual analysis we can be all but certain that he was the writer.

Goose wrote:What is that "greater standard"? The fallacy is without quantifying and qualifying this extra evidence it is meaningless to demand more evidence or extraordinary evidence. It's just a way to put the goal posts on wheels. Further, to demand more or better evidence is tacit acknowledgement that sufficient evidence exists to establish the fact. If there wasn't sufficient evidence the claim itself could be failed simply by passing it through an historical method.


If someone I know comes inside and tells me they saw a bird, I accept that as sufficient evidence they saw a bird. If they tell me they saw an alien spaceship, my knowledge of psychology tells me they are probably suffering from a cognitive bias of some sort, or trying to pull one over on me. Either way, eyewitness testimony was sufficient for one thing and not for another. I do not have to quantify or qualify just how much more evidence I need to believe his claim that he saw an alien spaceship to dismiss it as so unlikely that it almost certainly isn’t true (even if objectively he did actually happen to see an alien spaceship).
History as a subject is subjective, despite its attempts to be as objective as possible. It is noted that you do not like this facet of the subject and would prefer to dismiss the subjective factors of history as irrelevant when trying to determine the literal truth of something rather than grapple with their complexity, but that is faulty.

Goose wrote:And I reject your subjective application of the criterion of bias. You want to imply that religious writers had a greater bias than Roman politicians and writers. But that's your opinion. I say both events have biased parties reporting to varying degrees that we can't objectively establish. So who wins here on this subjective criterion of bias?


Not just my opinion, but also the opinion of distinguished individuals in the field such as Walter Bauer and Bart Ehrman. Unless you actually have accredited historians suggesting Cicero and the others have bias, your personal opinion that they do need not be taken seriously. Until you present such evidence, the sources in favor the assassination can clearly be taken as stronger, though fewer in number.

Goose wrote:I've already shown that I'm willing to add criteria. And let's be clear here. The last few pages are primarily the result of you complaining about my argument.


And you have failed to seriously address my criticisms of your argument beyond falsely proclaiming them irrelevant. Further, your continued attempts to downplay or disparage the criteria you are ‘willing to add’ casts doubt on your actual ‘willingness’.

Goose wrote: Not so fast my friend. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 Paul is repeating an early Christian creedal passage and widely accepted as such even among critics. Some scholars, even some critical ones (I can provide a list if you wish), date this creedal passage to have originated within as little as a few months from the crucifixion. So at best we have a tie in terms of the earliest source. Certainly no "hands down" winner here.


I certainly would like the list. But ushering in textual analysis in favor of it being a creed even more strongly allows for the oration of Marcus Antony to be considered valid, which gives two sources within a year of the assassination, and classic enemy attestation at that.


Goose wrote: This testimony from Paul is further strengthened by that fact Paul is a former enemy of the church. His conversion will need to be explained.

Paul has a stroke while traveling and is taken care of by a Christian, who tells him about his faith while he recovers. Standard memory biases and distortions take care of the rest. There are plenty of plausible explanations, which will be explored more whenever I actually get to historical reasoning.

Goose wrote: On this criterion the assassination does not fair anywhere near as well as the resurrection.
By citing Plutarch you make the baseline at 114 years after. So there are three independent sources for the assassination namely Cicero, Nicolaus, and Plutarch. Heck, we'd have to extend it out to 164 years from the assassination to allow Seutonius which would bring the total to four independent sources.
Now compare this to the resurrection. We have Paul, Mark (the earliest and most reliable manuscripts end affirming the resurrection 16:6-7), John, Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius all writing within approximately 80 years and within the lifetime of possible witnesses. I could further argue 1 Peter as another independent and early source. Also, I could argue that Matthew and Luke differ in their accounts of the resurrection and thus are independent in this regard.
So, we have three independent sources for the assassination within approximately 115 years compared to the six independent sources we have for the resurrection within approximately 80 years (possibly nine for the resurrection if we count Matthew, Luke and 1 Peter).


Firstly, Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp all reference the resurrection with only a couple of lines. They are also all Bishops. To assume they are actually receiving independent traditions, rather than referencing the same general view being given to them, seems like a stretch. In particular, if 1 Peter were taken as authentic (debatable) then a strong case can be made Clement got his information directly from Peter and would thus not be an independent source. Ignatius is considered a student of John the Apostle, so assuming his information is independent of John is extremely questionable. Polycarp may also well have been a disciple of John, making the independence of his statement also questionable.

The only truly undisputed independent sources you have presented are Mark, John, and possibly Paul.


Goose wrote:
However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis


I would like to go more in depth on this, but in the interest of time I’ll do it in the next response when you inevitably challenge this.
I'm not sure what it is you are expecting me to challenge here. [/quote]

Because you are correct that the resurrection has more sources overall, so now I will explain textual analysis (also referred to as Content Analysis) and why more sources is, in this case, extremely insufficient. Firstly, you have previously stated that I was trying to get the scientific method faultily introduced. However, the reality is that it is already present within the academic field of history as a part of contextual analysis:

Content analysis is a summarizing, quantitative analysis of messages that relies on the scientific method (including attention to objectivity, intersubjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and hypothesis testing) and is not limited as to the types of variables that may be measured or the context in which the messages are created or presented.


This analysis has led to Historical Criticism. Based upon Historical Criticism it can be determined that the author of the Gospel According to John almost certainly had no direct connection to the historical Jesus, further damaging its credibility of an independent source. It also makes the idea that the gospels and related writings were historically accurate descriptions in general almost absurd, in particular if you get into any real depth with Source Criticism.

The true importance of content analysis is its influence on internal criticism, which I had wanted to address in this post, but in the interest of time, I will have to push it back yet another post.

Goose wrote: I don't need to argue that Paul was a witness here. It is sufficient that we know Paul had spent time talking with witnesses which he did (see the first two chapters of Galatians).


If he is not a witness, and the witnesses he is talking to can be concluded to be the same ones as the other sources, they are not truly independent sources.

For now I am going to end this post since it would probably take another day to properly go through internal criticism and I want you to have something to respond to in the near future. I hope you take the time to try and actually back up your assertions of Cicero and the other writers on the assassination having bias with the opinion of experts in the field, rather than just present your own. Further, if you are going to still try and get enemy attestation it would be nice to provide actual sources. Past that, you still try and downplay the effect of bias on credibility and cast aside plausibility and entirely ignored my explanation of how the academic field of history works as irrelevant despite it being extremely relevant to the issue of what should be taught as literally factual in secular history class.
Unless indicated otherwise what I say is opinion. (Kudos to Zzyzx for this signature).

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.� -Albert Einstein

The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
- C.S. Lewis

Goose

Post #26

Post by Goose »

Goose wrote:Lastly, this is really getting tiresome and is entirely unnecessary. I've already stated in my argument that the criteria for what constitutes credible evidence (or as I have called it - "good") is not limited to what I have selected. And I've stated elsewhere we can incorporate any other criteria you think is pertinent.
Chaosborders wrote:And yet you’ve argued every single step of the way against actually incorporating such additional criteria.
I don't recall at any point arguing against actually incorporating such criteria. In fact, the criteria you've added so far from wikipedia has only served to bolster the resurrection (thanks by the way). What I have argued against every step of the way is your erroneous claim that my argument is faulty because I did not state what you feel is relevant criteria and have ignored the historical method.




Regarding my argument (A)...
Goose's revised argument for the benefit of Chaosborders wrote:

Argument A:
1. If the historical evidence supporting the resurrection* of Jesus is at least as good** as the historical evidence for another historical event*** that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event, then the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
*By resurrection I mean returning to life after being dead. I am not making any claims as to the causal agent of Jesus' return to life after being dead.
***an event from around the period of Jesus
Is that better?
Chaosborders wrote:Adding the time period clause certainly makes it harder to reduce to the absurd through showing how many other religious events would ultimately be considered literally factual if your argument’s standards for what should be taught as literally factual were allowed to stand.

There are two ways I could approach it in its current form. I could attack the basic form of the argument by making a current comparison of events, but in the interest of time I think it will be faster to try and find a religious event from around the same time period.

I think Vespasian’s curing of a blind man by putting spit in his eyes is a good starting point. This can be found in Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, 4.81 (c 110 AD),—which is reprinted in: Levene, D.S.. Tacitus, The Histories (1997), pg. 228- 9.

Personally, I think this tale was just propaganda. Though whether it came before or after Mark’s telling of Jesus curing a blind man is much debated, if the latter is the case it would not surprise me if Tacitus was also making a tongue in cheek comment regarding the Christians.

But by your argument’s form, if there is an event that occurred that is taught as literally factual for which the only evidence is a single source that wrote over 40 years after the fact (as that is the only evidence for Vespasian curing a blind man of which I am aware) then this too should be taught as literally factual.
Simplest way of finding such an event is just using an earlier tome of Tacitus’ Annals. In the first one it is established that Tiberius was summoned home by an urgent letter from his mother circa A.D. 14 or 15.
Here is Tacitus' account of the blind man being healed via Vespasian. How does this reduce my argument to the absurd? Are you arguing it is absurd that a man regained his sight when he wasn't totally blind in the first place as Tacitus reports? Are you arguing a miracle is absurd? Are you arguing the supernatural is absurd? Are you arguing the existence of God or gods is absurd? What exactly is absurd? If Vespasian's healing a blind man had enough evidentiary support to be taught as a literal fact it wouldn't falsify my argument. Nor would it reduce my argument to the absurd. Nor would it hurt the resurrection.



On Cicero being an early source...

Goose wrote:Cicero is repeating the allegation made by Mark Antony and then defending himself. So, Cicero is not necessarily making a statement of fact here regarding how Caesar died.
Chaosborders wrote:Paragraph 10:
But these are all old stories now. This charge, however, is quite a modern one: that Caesar was slain by my contrivance. I am afraid, O conscript fathers, lest I should appear to you to have brought up a sham accuser against myself (which is a most disgraceful thing to do); a man not only to distinguish me by the praises which are my due, but to load me also with those which do not belong to me. For who ever heard my name mentioned as an accomplice in that most glorious action? And whose name has been concealed who was in the number of that gallant band? Concealed, do I say? Whose name was there which was not at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, tho they had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed.
Just how explicit does he have to make it? After this he lists men involved, including his friend Trebonius. And yes, Mark Antony made the allegation that he was involved, but Cicero makes no attempt to claim the assassination didn’t happen, or that Brutus didn’t say those words when it did, but merely states that doesn’t mean he had foreknowledge of its occurrence (despite his repeatedly making it clear that if he did have such knowledge he would have gladly gone along with it, and was more than happy that it occurred).
Cicero is far from explicit here. But like I wrote earlier, at best we can infer from Cicero that he believed Caesar was assassinated. It still appears you are interpreting Cicero through later writers though.

Chaosborders wrote:Furthermore, an oration by Mark Antony on the matter, recorded as being delivered in the Roman forum, 44 B.C. is preserved by Dio Cassius in his “History of Rome�.
Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, hero, god, is dead; alas! Dead not by the violence of some disease, nor exhausted by old age, nor wounded abroad somewhere in some war, nor snatched away irresistibly by some supernatural force: but plotted against here within the walls-the man that safely led an army into Britain; ambushed in this city-the man who had increased its circuit; struck down in the senate-house-the man that had reared another such edifice at his own charge; unarmed, the brave warrior; defenseless, the promoter of peace: the judge beside the court of justice; the governor bedside the seat of government; at the hands of the citizens-he whom none of the enemy had been able to kill even when he fell into the sea; at the hands of his comrades-he who had often taken pity on them.
Where, Caesar, was your humaneness, where your inviolability, where the laws? You enacted many laws to prevent any one’s being killed by personal foes, yet see how mercilessly your friends killed you; and now slain you lie before us in that forum through which you, often crowned, led triumphal marches: wounded unto death you have been cast down upon that rostra from which you often addressed the people. Woe for the blood-bespattered locks of gray; alas for the rent robe, which you assumed, it seems, only to the end that you might be slain in it!
If you are willing to uncritically accept this oration recorded by Dio as authentically from Mark Antony, even though it was written by Dio almost 300 years after, then this gives the assassination a second early source along with Cicero. However, by appealing to Dio here you just opened the gate for a flood of evidence for the resurrection if we are to be fair. As examples, I can now appeal to anyone preserved in the writings of others up to about 300 years after the resurrection such as Eusebius. I'll get to that...

Goose wrote:Later in the second Philippic, predictably, Cicero turns around and accuses Mark Antony of having previously plotted against Caesar and implies Mark Antony is an accomplice in Caesar's death. Cicero and Antony were caught in a classic political power struggle following the death of the leader. Cicero had substantial motive to use Caesar's death to his advantage by fabricating an assassination plot that implicated his political rivals, such as Mark Antony. Just as Mark Antony had motivation to fabricate an assassination plot and implicate Cicero. I just don't know who to believe anymore. After all, everybody knows politicians are liars, right?
Chaosborders wrote:So both agree an assassination happened, despite pointing fingers at each other, but you’re of the opinion that they both made it up, despite their fellow ‘conspirators’ presumably knowing that they had nothing to do with any assassination if no such assassination had occurred? If you are trying to gain favor with the senate and lambast your opponent, I can think of no more stupid move than to implicate your fellow senators in an event they know didn’t even happen.
You argue as if the Second Philipic was actually delivered by Cicero in a speech to the Senate. It wasn't. And apparently it wasn't published until after Cicero's death. So your points here are irrelevant. One must wonder why Cicero did not immediately publish it while he was alive. And no, I'm not of the opinion that "they both made it up." I'm of the opinion that Antony and Cicero unequivocally agree Caesar was killed. And that's about all they agree on. I'm also of the opinion that both Antony and Cicero had motive to fabricate an assassination plot and be biased. At the very least they each had motive to fabricate the details surrounding the assassination conspiracy in hope of implicating one another or others. Despite these potentially powerful motives for bias and lying it would be irrational to dismiss Cicero et al.

Goose wrote:I've given ample reason above to think Cicero was biased and at least had substantial motive to make things up including the assassination itself. But your argument here equally cuts both ways. Christian texts were in circulation and read aloud to audiences some of which would have been witnesses. So it would be equally an idiotic thing for Christian writers to write things to people who presumably would be aware that things were being made up.
Chaosborders wrote:Witnesses are not the same as perpetrators. If there was no resurrection, there were no real witnesses to the resurrection. If the people claiming to be witnesses were either making it up, or had been fooled, it is not the same thing as saying “this person did it�. Cicero specifically mentioned people involved in the conspiracy, one of whom was his friend whom he later wrote a letter to stating his wish to have been a part of said conspiracy (however you personally wish to interpret the letter). That is not the same as saying “five hundred people witnessed it�. If five hundred people didn’t witness it, there’s not going to be five hundred people saying “BS�. If the people didn’t assassinate Caeser, accusing them of it (especially when they have influence over your own political future) seems a rather stupid move; even more especially if they’re your political allies and your political enemy has large portions of the army at his disposal.
Again, the Second Philipic where Cicero allegedly names those involved wasn't spoken in public and wasn't published until after Cicero was dead. So your points here are once again moot. Further, you haven't countered the point that it would be an idiotic thing for Christian writers to write things to people who presumably would be aware that things were being made up. The writers reputation would be tarnished if they did. Something even worse could happen to these writers as they named the witnesses who potentially could have been persecuted for their belief in the resurrection. Unlike Cicero who seems reluctant to come right out and directly accuse by naming names and didn't actually speak his accusations in public. If someone were making up stories about me that could potentially get me in trouble or persecuted I'd take action against that person. At the very least I'd defend myself by writing a rebuttal. Wouldn't you?

Goose wrote:This is precisely why we prefer texts written during the life of possible witness. We would expect for the assassination, as we would for the resurrection, early written reports from witnesses denying the claims if they were known to be false. We have no early accounts for example writing, "Hey, Caesar wasn't assassinated, he died of natural causes." Likewise we have no early accounts denying the resurrection. This strengthens the claim.
Chaosborders wrote:Technically we just have claims of the Christians being superstitious, gnostics saying Jesus didn’t die in the first place, and a questionable theological argument based on the textual analysis of Paul. We also have textual analysis providing us with more plausible answers. Even then, though I would expect someone being accused of assassinating Julius Ceaser to be writing frequently and vehemently something along the lines of “The dude died in his sleep, I wasn’t part of any conspiracy, and Mark Anthony and/or Cicero can go to hell if they’re saying I am,� whereas I would not really expect someone of that time period to be writing “Well, they say they saw a dead guy come back to life, but I certainly didn’t see him anywhere so it couldn’t have happened.�
Your personal expectations are noted. However, your personal expectations do not negate the fact we have no early claims from anyone denying the resurrection.

Goose wrote:But that's just it. All there really seems to be any concrete agreement on is that Caesar was killed. Cicero's language is very cryptic and he seems reluctant to come right out and give an account of the assassination. So if you want to count it as enemy attestation that Caesar was killed, fine. Being killed does not imply an assassination by multiple senators, however.
Chaosborders wrote:Paragraph 11 lists senators involved.
No it doesn't. Cicero doesn't explicitly state these people assassinated Caesar. You are inferring Cicero meant this because you are interpreting Cicero through the lens of later writers. Cicero, as usual, is alluding and speaking cryptically. Not to mention the problem that Cicero's alleged "list" differs from other later writers. I'll bring that up later if needed.

Goose wrote:But more importantly this cuts both ways. If you can draw out enemy attestation between Cicero and Nicolaus then I can draw out enemy attestation for the resurrection as well. Leaders amongst the very early Christians that were allegedly in opposition to one another and jockeying for acceptance of their teaching agree on the resurrection. Opposing groups that held differing beliefs amongst the early Christian community affirm the resurrection as well. That gives me enemy attestation on many levels using your reasoning here and significant strengthening. I don't even need Tacitus anymore. Thanks.
Chaosborders wrote:Your assertion was that Nicolaus probably got his information from Mark Antony, thus was biased. I was pointing out that if that is indeed the case, it gives a strong case for enemy attestation. Now that I have Mark Antony’s oration, and textual analysis of Cicero’s speeches gives us Mark Antony’s accusation, I would actually prefer you give some sort of evidence that Nicolaus got his information from Antony since if he did not he is back to not having any demonstrable reason to be biased concerning this matter.
What kind of evidence would you like? I've already provided an argument for why Nicolaus got his data from Antony. Where do you think Nicolaus got his data if not from Mark Antony? Can you suggest a more likely candidate and why? Further, I've already given evidence, which you ignored, that suggests Nicolaus reported in a biased manor. Nicolaus himself calls Julius "the great Caesar" and speaks glowingly of him. He also portrays Caesar and Antony's relationship favourably and cites Antony as one of the avengers of Julius.

The fact remains that you see people that oppose one another that agree on a fact as enemy attestation. We can extend this to groups as well.


Chaosborders wrote:Furthermore, Mark Antony and Cicero agreeing on the matter is about as classic a case of enemy attestation as I can fathom. Early religious leaders disagreeing on some doctrinal details, on the other hand, are not good examples if they came to odds long after conversion. But if you care to list these opposing groups, I will address each case specifically to show why they are not good examples of enemy attestation when compared to Mark Antony and Cicero.
Now you are arbitrarily raising the bar for enemy attestation. You stated earlier...
in post 21 Chaosborders wrote:The whole point of enemy attestation is that if there is agreement on something between two groups of people who don’t normally agree on things, the probability one group is making it up is decreased.
Christians that oppose one another and don't normally agree on things but agree on the resurrection fits your description of the whole point of enemy attestation nicely. There is no requirement for them to be mortal enemies or enemies in the same sense Cicero and Antony were enemies to be considered enemy attestation. You've given me enemy attestation whether you like it or not.

As for lists: If I were arguing from the Bible at this point I would cite Paul and Peter's opposition to one another (Galatians 2:11ff). But I don't need to cite the Bible for this. Eusebius confirms this opposition between Peter and Paul in chapter twelve of the first book of his Church History. Yet they both Paul and Peter agree on the resurrection. I'll also note the two extreme wings of the Marcionites and Ebionites (and the main stream proto-orthodox as well) that opposed one another and existed by the early second century. They all agree on the resurrection.


Regarding motivations to minimize Christian bias...

Goose wrote:Red Herring. The issue here isn't my belief regarding other religions. The issue here is having "opposite motivations" to minimize bias. Persecution is a powerful motivation to minimize the tendency to be biased. The point stands despite your Red Herring. Did the writers for the assassination have "opposite motivations" to minimize bias equal to that of Christian writers?
Chaosborders wrote:You state that persecution is a powerful motivation to minimize the tendency to be biased. Certainly Justin Martyr thought so, it being stated as one of the primary reasons he converted. Certainly the belief that if a group is willing to suffer bias its beliefs are more likely to be true is a strong one, and is a large part of why people convert to any persecuted religion, but is it actually the case?

Persecution has been a recruiting tool throughout history for religions and causes. Looking at a more recent example of this mentality we can turn to Mormonism:
Although the religions of men are often tolerant of each other, they cannot abide the presence of living prophets and the truths of salvation. Their bitterness and opposition toward Mormonism are an essential witness of its truthfulness. Validity draws the fire…If Mormonsims were not true, it could be ignored. The fact that Satan and his cohorts cannot leave it alone is an evidence of its truthfulness.-Joseph Fielding McConkie



Unfortunately persecution cannot be taken as actual evidence as truth.
You are confused here. I'm not arguing persecution is evidence of truth. Only that persecution can help minimize the tendency to be biased.
Chaosborders wrote:Further, despite its appearance of minimizing bias, as the result of basic human cognitive biases the belief that it minimizes bias can actually backfire. Some of the main biases involved are confirmation bias, reactance (particularly in males), self-fulfilling prophecy, and belief bias. The theories on dissonance, self-perception, impression management, and self-affirmation all can actively influence commitment to a belief not only despite, but in fact because, of persecution.

One minor example was a study done on Chinese pastors who’d undergone extreme persecution. Though many had their faith damaged, some developed coping mechanisms that actually led to a strengthening of their faith. Kenneth Pargament has written a book The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice on the subject of how religion and coping interrelate.

So persecution can lead someone to falsely accepting a belief, and then intensify their commitment to that belief. Because of the latter, it should not be taken for granted as a powerful motivation for minimizing the tendency to be biased or it will only lead to more of the former.
This is still arguing for why persecution can cause beliefs to become more entrenched over time. I'm willing to acknowledge that persecution can cause a deeper conviction of one's beliefs. However, this still does not address the issue that persecution can help minimize bias. You acknowledge that it can when you state that, "many [of the persecuted Chinese pastors in the study] had their faith damaged."

Further, this forum itself is evidence that persecution can aid in minimizing the tendency to be biased. The extreme fundy atheists and Christians are both either ridiculed or ignored here (both forms of persecution). Their biases are curbed somewhat and kept in check because of this. Those that stay on this forum generally tend to develop (or at least present) over time a much more balanced, less dogmatic, and less biased perspective. Thus demonstrating persecution can effectively aid in minimizing the tendency to be biased.

Chaosborders wrote:Regarding the assassination, Cicero’s need for political support would seem a powerful motivation not to lie about senators participating in a crime that didn’t even happen.
It's curious then that the Second Philippic, where Cicero allegedly names the senators involved, was not spoken in public and apparently published only after Cicero's' death.
Goose wrote: If you would like to argue that Christian writers had a different view of truth than we do or that Jesus did not teach his followers they should not lie, be my guest. This should be interesting. A diversion mind you, but interesting.
Chaosborders wrote:Though the second part about Jesus not teaching his followers not to lie would be an interesting avenue considering I am only aware of two verses in which Jesus directly touches on the subject of lying:

Matthew 15:19

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts…false witness…These are the things which defile a man.



John 8:44

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.



Matthew is speaking specifically about false witnesses, which is to be understood as false accusations or testimony against ones neighbors and such, and the context of John has it that those not believing the truth are literally incapable of believing it because they do not belong to God. So I am unaware of anywhere that Jesus specifically teaches his followers not to lie in the sense of creating stories about him.
You are arbitrarily raising the bar here by requiring Jesus to explicitly state thou shalt not create stories about me or something along that line. Jesus teaches following the commandments, including do not bear false witness (i.e. do not lie), as a requirement for eternal life (Matthew 19:16-18). This is a powerful motivation to help keep in check the potential for Christians to lie or to be biased. I don't see any effective way for you to argue against this.
Chaosborders wrote:But my interest is not really in trying to show Jesus did not teach his followers not to lie, but rather to explain cultural differences from today about how things we might consider now to be lying were accepted and common practice then, as well as mention basic psychological issues that hold true throughout history, that make issues of veracity much harder to deal with.
Claiming someone had returned from the dead, if in fact he had not, would have been considered a lie in the first century ANE as it would be now. Are you seriously disputing this?

Further, each argument you present here can be applied to the assassination as well.

Chaosborders wrote:The first is Pseudepigraphy was a common practice. Though we would now say writing under a different name is flat out lying, back then it was simply an accepted practice notable throughout Jewish history.
What are you talking about? My mother-in-law is a published author and writes under a different name. It happens quite often and I'm not aware of anyone considering it lying. Further, and more importantly, your premise here is false anyway. There are multiple examples from different well known Christian writers honest enough to question the dubious nature and authenticity of later potentially pseudepigraphical gospels. So obviously it was not an acceptable practice amongst Christians ad your premise false. Further, you are assuming that New Testament texts are pseudepigrahical. You haven't established this yet. Not to mention now you need to establish, for example, that Cicero's writings were not pseudepigraphical as it is allegedly not unprecedented for Hellenistic authors to engage in pseudepigraphy as well. So, if pseudepigraphy among Christian circles is evidence that they did not view truth the same way we do then this also applies to writers for the assassination such as Cicero and Nicolaus.
Chaosborders wrote:Next is that stories of that time were frequently changed and invented (either intentionally or as a result of cognitive biases and distortions) in order to convey greater ‘moral truths’. (Bart Ehrman in “A Brief Introduction to the New Testament� page 57). This has not actually changed all the much from today (think George Washington and the cherry tree and those inspirational videos circulating the internet) except that then it was even more likely to be accepted as true over time because of the much greater difficulty in disproving said stories. The result of this increased level of credulity was a cultural in which the acceptance of miracles was prevalent to the extent that thousands of pagan and Jewish ones having been recorded, with entire books describing such stories, one example being Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook for the Study of New Testament Miracle Stories (The Context of Early Christianity,1) by Wendy Cotter. If you would like more examples of early Christian groups altering texts, let me know.
This is also a non-sequitur. It does not logically follow from the premise later editors altered texts for clarity regarding theological positions that therefore early Christian writers were prone to inventing stories about Jesus or lied about Jesus.

Further, I can make the same accusation toward the assassination. And once again, if stories of the time were frequently changed or invented in order to convey greater moral truths as you claim then this also applies to the stories about the assassination.

Chaosborders wrote:Further is the distinction between lies of commission and lies of omission, with the latter hardly ever getting any serious attention by Judeo-Christian considerations (which leads to the unfortunate view by those who do more greatly consider lies of omission that Christians are often dishonest).
What was being omitted by the Christian authors under consideration? Writers for the assassination omitted material as well. In fact, I'll be happy to supply evidence for this if you wish.
Chaosborders wrote:In addition are the considerations of misattribution, self-deception, and hypocrisy that have plagued humanity throughout its history regardless of whether the religion an individual follows promotes telling the truth.
Again, we can apply this to the assassination.

Chaosborders wrote:Can you bring forth evidence that these historians were biased?
Goose wrote:Already given some regarding Cicero and Nicolaus in particular. I can provide more if needed but I don't see why when you have already acknowledged historians are biased. You wrote earlier, "That does not mean that historians are totally unbiased because that certainly is not the case, but as a rule of thumb they are more inclined towards trying to seek out what objectively happened."
Chaosborders wrote:Past your own personal speculation. Noted historians supporting your position that Cicero and Nicolaus had reason for bias would be appreciated. I can offer Ehrman, same source and roughly same page number off the top of my head for support of Christian writers having bias.
Of course Christian writers had a bias. I've already conceded this just as you've conceded no historian is without bias. Are you denying this now? I've further given argument for why Cicero, Antony, and Nicolaus had motive to be biased and even lie. And that's all I need to do to reduce the evidentiary support for the assassination to be on par with the resurrection because that's all you've done regarding resurrection sources. That is, all you've done is provide a reason to think Christian writer's had motive to be biased. You'll argue that Christian writers had greater motive to be biased with weaker reasons to minimize and the evidence for the resurrection is therefore weaker. I'll disagree with your subjective opinion here on who had the greater bias. Appealing to people that have their own axe to grind, like Bart Ehrman, won't help you either. It's like trying to argue which is more beautiful, a sunset or a sunrise. All we can objectively agree on is that both are beautiful and both writers for the resurrection and assassination were biased.



Regarding Chaosborders additional wikipedia criteria (where he fist introduced the Bible):

Criterion: The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to be accurate...
Goose wrote:Not so fast my friend. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 Paul is repeating an early Christian creedal passage and widely accepted as such even among critics. Some scholars, even some critical ones (I can provide a list if you wish), date this creedal passage to have originated within as little as a few months from the crucifixion. So at best we have a tie in terms of the earliest source. Certainly no "hands down" winner here.
Chaosborders wrote:I certainly would like the list.
Historian Dr. Gary Habermas gives an overview and lists some scholars that hold to pre-Pauline creedal passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 originating very early here:
Habermas wrote:Critical scholars generally agree that this pre-Pauline creed(s) may be the earliest in the New Testament. Ulrich Wilckens asserts that it "indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity."[7] Joachim Jeremias agrees that it is, "the earliest tradition of all."[8] Perhaps a bit too optimistically, Walter Kasper even thinks that it was possibly even "in use by the end of 30 AD . . . ."[9]

Indicating the wide approval on this subject, even more skeptical scholars frequently agree. Gerd Ludemann maintains that "the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus. . . . not later than three years. . . . the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE. . . ."[10] Similarly, Michael Goulder thinks that it "goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion."[11] Thomas Sheehan agrees that this tradition "probably goes back to at least 32-34 C.E., that is, to within two to four years of the crucifixion."[12] Others clearly consent.[13]

Overall, my recent overview of critical sources mentioned above indicates that those who provide a date generally opt for Paul's reception of this report relatively soon after Jesus’ death, by the early to mid-30s A.D.[14] This provides an additional source that appears just a half step removed from eyewitness testimony.
See the end notes in Habermas' article for additional scholars that hold to a similar position.
Chaosborders wrote:But ushering in textual analysis in favor of [1 Corinthians 15:3-4] being a creed even more strongly allows for the oration of Marcus Antony to be considered valid, which gives two sources within a year of the assassination, and classic enemy attestation at that.
Except Antony's oration as recorded by Dio isn't a creed. Creeds are significant because they are intentionally structured to aid retention in one's memory. I don't see how Antony's oration recorded 300 years later should be on par with an early creed recorded twenty years later. Further, you've offered no textural analysis showing that this oration was from Mark Antony. You seem to accept it uncritically. Seems like a glaring double standard here.

At any rate, and more importantly, by appealing to Dio you only help the resurrection. Here's why. You uncritically accept the words of Mark Antony as quoted by Dio almost 300 years later. This allows me to introduce many authors such as Eusebius for example. But for now all I need is both Peter's words and Paul's words as quoted by Luke in the book of Acts written approximately 50 years after. Even though Peter and Paul oppose one another they agree on the resurrection.

Within about two months of the crucifixion around the day of Pentecost Peter preached...
Quoting Peter, Luke in Acts 2:22-24, 32 wrote:"Jesus from Nazareth was a man...you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up and destroyed the pains of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power."

Quoting Peter, Luke in Acts 3:14-15 wrote:"You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses to that."

Quoting Peter, Luke in Acts 4:10 wrote:"...Jesus from Nazareth, whom you crucified but God raised from the dead."

Quoting Peter, Luke in Acts 10:40-41 wrote:"They hung [Jesus] on a tree and killed him, but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear- not to all the people, but to us who were chosen by God to be witnesses and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead."


Now Paul's preaching as recorded by Luke...

Quoting Paul, Luke in Acts 13:28-31 wrote:"Although they found no reason to sentence [Jesus] to death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had finished doing everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come with him to Jerusalem from Galilee. These are now his witnesses to the people."


Not only have you now given me an early source in Paul's creeds but you also have given me enemy attestation between Paul and Peter agreeing on the resurrection. But it gets even better. By introducing Antony's oration via Dio you just gave me a very early (within only 2 months of the crucifixion) eyewitness testimony with Peter! Cha-ching... :pelvic_thrust:

I now have two enemy sources that agree on the resurrection. One is an eyewitness - Peter. The other claims to be an eyewitness and at the very least knew eyewitnesses - Paul.



Criterion: Multiple independent sources strengthen the credibility of the message...

Goose wrote:On this criterion the assassination does not fair anywhere near as well as the resurrection.
By citing Plutarch you make the baseline at 114 years after. So there are three independent sources for the assassination namely Cicero, Nicolaus, and Plutarch. Heck, we'd have to extend it out to 164 years from the assassination to allow Seutonius which would bring the total to four independent sources.

Now compare this to the resurrection. We have Paul, Mark (the earliest and most reliable manuscripts end affirming the resurrection 16:6-7), John, Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius all writing within approximately 80 years and within the lifetime of possible witnesses. I could further argue 1 Peter as another independent and early source. Also, I could argue that Matthew and Luke differ in their accounts of the resurrection and thus are independent in this regard.

So, we have three independent sources for the assassination within approximately 115 years compared to the six independent sources we have for the resurrection within approximately 80 years (possibly nine for the resurrection if we count Matthew, Luke and 1 Peter).
Chaosborders wrote:Firstly, Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp all reference the resurrection with only a couple of lines.
So what? You concede they do reference it. And at least it is unequivocally referenced. Compared this to Cicero's beating around the bush for pages.
Chaosborders wrote:They are also all Bishops.
Genetic Fallacy.
Chaosborders wrote:To assume they are actually receiving independent traditions, rather than referencing the same general view being given to them, seems like a stretch.
Of course they were receiving the same general view. It was given to them from different people who were witnesses. And how would this be any different for the assassination sources such as Nicolaus, Plutarch, and Dio referencing the same general view being given them? It wouldn't. The sources for the assassination aren't any more independent.
Chaosborders wrote:In particular, if 1 Peter were taken as authentic (debatable) then a strong case can be made Clement got his information directly from Peter and would thus not be an independent source.
Fine. Scratch Clement as an independent source. The resurrection still would win on number of independent sources. But in so doing you give me the authenticity of 1 Peter and thus an eyewitness account for the resurrection! That's a good trade. I'll take it! Thanks.
Chaosborders wrote:Ignatius is considered a student of John the Apostle, so assuming his information is independent of John is extremely questionable. Polycarp may also well have been a disciple of John, making the independence of his statement also questionable.
Firstly, an independent literary source generally means there is no evidence of dependency (e.g. copying) on another literary source. As far as I'm aware there is no need for the origin of the info to be someone different. For example, even if Nicolaus had recieved his data from Cicero, Nicolaus would still be considered an independent literary source. If there was evidence that Nicolaus had copied from Cicero then we could not fully class Nicolaus as independent. At least not at the parts where he copied. Capiche?

But more importantly, all you are doing here is strengthening the case for the resurrection. You've now given me two sources in Ignatius and Polycarp that you concede probably received their data via the eyewitness John. Compare this to the assassination where we don't really know where Nicolaus or Plutarch recieved their data. We can only speculate. This just keeps getting better and better for the resurrection!

Chaosborders wrote:The only truly undisputed independent sources you have presented are Mark, John, and possibly Paul.
Even if that were true this would still be more independent sources than the assassination which has,
by your reasoning, only one truly independent source in Cicero. Therefore the resurrection wins on this criterion.



Criterion: Historians can consider the event proved if the sources agree...

Chaosborders wrote:
However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis
I would like to go more in depth on this, but in the interest of time I’ll do it in the next response when you inevitably challenge this.
Goose wrote:I'm not sure what it is you are expecting me to challenge here.
Chaosborders wrote:Because you are correct that the resurrection has more sources overall, so now I will explain textual analysis (also referred to as Content Analysis) and why more sources is, in this case, extremely insufficient. Firstly, you have previously stated that I was trying to get the scientific method faultily introduced. However, the reality is that it is already present within the academic field of history as a part of contextual analysis:
Content analysis is a summarizing, quantitative analysis of messages that relies on the scientific method (including attention to objectivity, intersubjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and hypothesis testing) and is not limited as to the types of variables that may be measured or the context in which the messages are created or presented.


This analysis has led to Historical Criticism. Based upon Historical Criticism it can be determined that the author of the Gospel According to John almost certainly had no direct connection to the historical Jesus, further damaging its credibility of an independent source.
"Almost certainly," huh? Really? That's quite the claim you've made (or should I say wikipedia has made). Please support it with something more than an argument by link to wikipedia which in and of itself is unsupported. The gospel of John internally claims to be written by a witness. Do you deny this?
Chaosborders wrote:It also makes the idea that the gospels and related writings were historically accurate descriptions in general almost absurd, in particular if you get into any real depth with Source Criticism.
"...almost absurd...", huh? Okay, make your case...



Criterion: Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred...

Goose wrote:I don't need to argue that Paul was a witness here. It is sufficient that we know Paul had spent time talking with witnesses which he did (see the first two chapters of Galatians).
Chaosborders wrote:If he is not a witness, and the witnesses he is talking to can be concluded to be the same ones as the other sources, they are not truly independent sources.
Irrelevant. The criteria here was preference for eyewitness sources not independent ones. Paul met with James, the Lord's brother, as well as Peter and John. All three were eyewitnesses to the resurrection. The point was Paul has the same evidentiary value as Cicero in terms of neither being an eyewitness* but both had contact with witnesses. But it matters not now as you've given me eyewitness testimony from Peter as recorded by Luke (or potentially from 1 Peter depending upon how we treat it).

*I'll not argue that Paul was an eyewitness even though he claims to have seen the risen Jesus.

Again, on every criterion the resurrection is at least as good, if not better, than the evidence for the assassination. After several rounds and additional criteria my argument remains sound.

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ChaosBorders
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Post #27

Post by ChaosBorders »

Round 4
Goose wrote: Here[/url] is Tacitus' account of the blind man being healed via Vespasian. How does this reduce my argument to the absurd? Are you arguing it is absurd that a man regained his sight when he wasn't totally blind in the first place as Tacitus reports? Are you arguing a miracle is absurd? Are you arguing the supernatural is absurd? Are you arguing the existence of God or gods is absurd? What exactly is absurd? If Vespasian's healing a blind man had enough evidentiary support to be taught as a literal fact it wouldn't falsify my argument. Nor would it reduce my argument to the absurd. Nor would it hurt the resurrection.
In the context of academic history miracles, the supernatural, and the impact of any God or gods is automatically excluded as the result of the process of historical reasoning. Most likely I will only get to internal criticism in this post and historical reasoning will have to wait until the next post, at which point I will go into greater detail as to why this is the case. However, for now I will simply point out that the logical conclusion of your argument’s form is the allowance of many events, this being one example, that are most reasonably labeled fables, propaganda, hoaxes, etc. to be taught as literally factual events.

Further, your argument’s form relies on what is already being taught as literally factual, which is often a VERY different thing than what SHOULD BE (which I have already argued in previous posts are events that pass through historical methodology created by experts in the field and you have ignored as ‘irrelevant’) as the result of politics. So your argument’s form allows sweeping in such stories as Vespasian’s miracle through comparison against other events that may not themselves be true.

It broadens the things that could be taught as literally factual extensively, and in doing so can be allowed to teach two mutually exclusive events so long as each side has more support than a third party event that is taught as literally factual. This is its most fundamental flaw, though even by your argument (which given you set it up so that you could, shouldn’t even be difficult for you to ‘prove’ at all) the resurrection seems not to be overwhelming the assassination as greatly as one would expect.
Goose wrote: Cicero is far from explicit here. But like I wrote earlier, at best we can infer from Cicero that he believed Caesar was assassinated. It still appears you are interpreting Cicero through later writers though.
Unless someone in the audience speaks up and also does not feel Cicero is being explicit, I am inclined to think you are merely being stubborn on this point, as I earnestly do not know how someone with above high school level reading comprehension skills can read the 10th and 11th paragraphs and not think Cicero is stating Caeser was assassinated.
Goose wrote: If you are willing to uncritically accept this oration recorded by Dio as authentically from Mark Antony, even though it was written by Dio almost 300 years after, then this gives the assassination a second early source along with Cicero. However, by appealing to Dio here you just opened the gate for a flood of evidence for the resurrection if we are to be fair. As examples, I can now appeal to anyone preserved in the writings of others up to about 300 years after the resurrection such as Eusebius. I'll get to that...
Not entirely uncritically. James Anthony Froude writes in his biography of Caesar, Caesar:A Sketch (1879), “Dion Cassius ‘can hardly have himself composed the version which he gives, for he calls the speech as ill-timed as it was brilliant.’� I am a more skeptical person than Froude, but if one reads the speech and compares it to the other material available it would seem to cohere to the character presented for Mark Antony exceedingly well. So if Dion is a fraud, he really is a remarkable one.
Goose wrote: You argue as if the Second Philipic was actually delivered by Cicero in a speech to the Senate. It wasn't.
No, I argue as if it was circulated among the senate. I know that it was not an actual ‘speech’. However, for your assertion
And apparently it wasn't published until after Cicero's death.
Perhaps you would care to source yourself, given:
2nd Philippic (pamphlet, conceived as a senatorial speech, 24 October 44[4], possibly published only after the death of Cicero): Vehement attacks on Mark Antony including the accusation that he surpasses, in his political ambition, even Lucius Sergius Catilina and Publius Clodius Pulcher. Catalogue of the "atrocities" of Mark Antony. It is the longest of Cicero's Philippic speeches.


“Possibly published only after the death of Cicero� certainly is not a conclusive statement that it wasn’t. Further, it is stated as being conceived 24th of October 44 so I don’t see how a delay in its publication would render my points irrelevant in the least.
I'm of the opinion that Antony and Cicero unequivocally agree Caesar was killed. And that's about all they agree on.
And I don’t see how anything else is relevant.

Goose wrote:Further, you haven't countered the point that it would be an idiotic thing for Christian writers to write things to people who presumably would be aware that things were being made up.
How exactly would they be aware that things were being made up? Unless you specifically state someone as being a witness who wasn’t, how is anyone going to disprove there were “five hundred unnamed witnesses�? It’s not remotely similar to accusing someone of ASSASSINATING THE EMPEROR.
Goose wrote: The writers reputation would be tarnished if they did. Something even worse could happen to these writers as they named the witnesses who potentially could have been persecuted for their belief in the resurrection.
My apologies, but could you extrapolate here? I only see you as remotely having a point if the writers are making up the named witnesses, but in this statement it seems that it is assumed the named witnesses do indeed believe the resurrection occurred, so I am not sure what your point is.
Goose wrote: Unlike Cicero who seems reluctant to come right out and directly accuse by naming names and didn't actually speak his accusations in public.
Hardly seems reluctant to me:

End of paragraph 10 and paragraph 11
Whose name was there which was not at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, tho they had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed. 10 Moreover, how likely it is, that among such a number of men, some obscure, some young men who had not the wit to conceal any one, my name could possibly have escaped notice? Indeed, if leaders were wanted for the purpose of delivering the country, what need was there of my instigating the Bruti, one of whom saw every day in his house the image of Lucius Brutus, and the other saw also the image of Ahala? Were these the men to seek counsel from the ancestors of others rather than from their own? and out of doors rather than at home? What! Caius Cassius, a man of that family which could not endure, I will not say the domination, but even the power of any individual,—he, I suppose, was in need of me to instigate him? a man who, even without the assistance of these other most illustrious men, would have accomplished this same deed in Cilicia, at the mouth of the river Cydnus, if Cæsar had brought his ships to that bank of the river which he had intended, and not to the opposite one. Was Cnæus Domitius spurred on to seek to recover his dignity, not by the death of his father, a most illustrious man, nor by the death of his uncle, nor by the deprivation of his own dignity, but by my advice and authority? Did I persuade Caius Trebonius, a man whom I should not have ventured even to advise? On which account the republic owes him even a larger debt of gratitude, because he preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the friendship of one man, and because he preferred overthrowing arbitrary power to sharing it. Was I the instigator whom Lucius Tillius Cimber followed? a man whom I admired for having performed that action, rather than ever expected that he would perform it; and I admired him on this account, that he was unmindful of the personal kindnesses which he had received, but mindful of his country. What shall I say of the two Servilii? Shall I call them Cascas, or Ahalas? And do you think that those men were instigated by my authority rather than by their affection for the republic? It would take a long time to go through all the rest; and it is a glorious thing for the republic that they were so numerous, and a most honorable thing also for themselves.
If someone were making up stories about me that could potentially get me in trouble or persecuted I'd take action against that person. At the very least I'd defend myself by writing a rebuttal. Wouldn't you?
Yeah, and I’d circulate it too. While I was still alive.
Goose wrote: What kind of evidence would you like?
A professional historian’s opinion supporting yours, at the least, would be quite nice.
Goose wrote: I've already provided an argument for why Nicolaus got his data from Antony.
And I have asked for evidence. Your personal opinion does not qualify.
Goose wrote: Where do you think Nicolaus got his data if not from Mark Antony?
Any younger senators involved, servants, etc. might be plausible candidates. Anyone they told are also possibilities.
Goose wrote: Further, I've already given evidence, which you ignored, that suggests Nicolaus reported in a biased manor. Nicolaus himself calls Julius "the great Caesar" and speaks glowingly of him. He also portrays Caesar and Antony's relationship favourably and cites Antony as one of the avengers of Julius.
And Cicero rejoices at his slaying. If it were not for him, just maybe the hypothesis that Anthony made up the assassination for political reasons to make Caesar look like better and passed it on would hold some tiny amount of weight. As it is, there is no reason to consider that as evidence without a professional historian backing you up.

Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:Furthermore, Mark Antony and Cicero agreeing on the matter is about as classic a case of enemy attestation as I can fathom. Early religious leaders disagreeing on some doctrinal details, on the other hand, are not good examples if they came to odds long after conversion. But if you care to list these opposing groups, I will address each case specifically to show why they are not good examples of enemy attestation when compared to Mark Antony and Cicero.
Now you are arbitrarily raising the bar for enemy attestation. You stated earlier...
in post 21 Chaosborders wrote:The whole point of enemy attestation is that if there is agreement on something between two groups of people who don’t normally agree on things, the probability one group is making it up is decreased.
Christians that oppose one another and don't normally agree on things but agree on the resurrection fits your description of the whole point of enemy attestation nicely. There is no requirement for them to be mortal enemies or enemies in the same sense Cicero and Antony were enemies to be considered enemy attestation. You've given me enemy attestation whether you like it or not.
As for lists: If I were arguing from the Bible at this point I would cite Paul and Peter's opposition to one another (Galatians 2:11ff). But I don't need to cite the Bible for this. Eusebius confirms this opposition between Peter and Paul in chapter twelve of the first book of his Church History. Yet they both Paul and Peter agree on the resurrection. I'll also note the two extreme wings of the Marcionites and Ebionites (and the main stream proto-orthodox as well) that opposed one another and existed by the early second century. They all agree on the resurrection.
If there is anyone in the audience who actually feels he gets enemy attestation, please comment in the Peanut Gallery on what you feel is valid and I will address it. Otherwise I am not going to waste my time or the audiences rebutting this.
Goose wrote: This is still arguing for why persecution can cause beliefs to become more entrenched over time. I'm willing to acknowledge that persecution can cause a deeper conviction of one's beliefs. However, this still does not address the issue that persecution can help minimize bias. You acknowledge that it can when you state that, "many [of the persecuted Chinese pastors in the study] had their faith damaged."
If one is biased, and their convictions are strengthened, that does not help minimize their bias. It just makes them more biased.
Goose wrote:
Further, this forum itself is evidence that persecution can aid in minimizing the tendency to be biased. The extreme fundy atheists and Christians are both either ridiculed or ignored here (both forms of persecution). Their biases are curbed somewhat and kept in check because of this. Those that stay on this forum generally tend to develop (or at least present) over time a much more balanced, less dogmatic, and less biased perspective. Thus demonstrating persecution can effectively aid in minimizing the tendency to be biased.
The majority of those at the extremes end up getting banned or leaving quickly. Further, those whose faith were damaged sufficiently are not likely the ones writing, and their writings are not likely to be preserved given the churches early penchant for book burning. That persecution can have the opposite effect means there is no reason to assume it minimized the bias of the writers.
Goose wrote: You are arbitrarily raising the bar here by requiring Jesus to explicitly state thou shalt not create stories about me or something along that line. Jesus teaches following the commandments, including do not bear false witness (i.e. do not lie), as a requirement for eternal life (Matthew 19:16-18).
This is a powerful motivation to help keep in check the potential for Christians to lie or to be biased. I don't see any effective way for you to argue against this.
Bearing false witness is not a prohibition against all lying, as 1 Kings 22: 19-23 can make clear.
19 Micaiah continued, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD : I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?'
"One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.'
22 " 'By what means?' the LORD asked.
" 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,' he said.
" 'You will succeed in enticing him,' said the LORD. 'Go and do it.'
23 "So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you."
I can extrapolate further, but would prefer to focus on how things were done that were not considered deception back then that would be now than on instances of deception that were condoned and exploring the original meaning of bearing false witness.
Claiming someone had returned from the dead, if in fact he had not, would have been considered a lie in the first century ANE as it would be now. Are you seriously disputing this?
Visions were a lot more culturally accepted then. Although I would prefer to into more detail once I get to the historical reasoning part of historical methodology, for now I will leave it at being that if the first few genuinely believed they saw Jesus resurrected as the result of varying potential neurological and psychological causes, and said so, then later details end up getting filled in as the result of cultural practices and other pretty standard neurological phenomena (which I can extrapolate on, but would also prefer to do when going over historical reasoning in the next post).
What are you talking about? My mother-in-law is a published author and writes under a different name. It happens quite often and I'm not aware of anyone considering it lying. Further, and more importantly, your premise here is false anyway. There are multiple examples from different well known Christian writers honest enough to question the dubious nature and authenticity of later potentially pseudepigraphical gospels. So obviously it was not an acceptable practice amongst Christians ad your premise false.
How late were these Christian writers though? I’m certainly not suggesting all of the books are pseudepigraphical, but if accepted at the start, some can (and most scholars believe have) end up being misattributed to the wrong person and ascribed evidentiary value when there is no reason to believe they actually have much, if any at all. More importantly, however, is that it establishes many among the early Christians did not think of it as lying to make up stories or details that conveyed a moral truth. I can give both a list of works that made it into the Bible and even more extensive that were kept from becoming cannon, though some of which were circulated for hundreds of years in some areas.
Not to mention now you need to establish, for example, that Cicero's writings were not pseudepigraphical as it is allegedly not unprecedented for Hellenistic authors to engage in pseudepigraphy as well.
Not really, unless you actually have some accredited historians who think otherwise, the authenticity of Cicero’s writings are pretty well established. Probably has something to do with being able to analyze and compare over fifty speeches and eight HUNDRED letters. Many early Christian writings, however, have significant opposition based upon textual analysis.
So, if pseudepigraphy among Christian circles is evidence that they did not view truth the same way we do then this also applies to writers for the assassination such as Cicero and Nicolaus.
No doubt, which is why I’ll never argue the details surrounding the assassination should be taught as literally factual. The assassination itself I feel has enough support that it’s worth using as a comparison as we move through historical methodology, but I would like to point out that the more you try to undermine the assassination the more you show just how insignificant the burden of proof is for teaching something as literally factual when using your argument. Further, if you undermined it sufficiently that it could be declared as not being well enough supported to be taught as literally factual, then by your own argument it does nothing to show that the resurrection should be taught as literally factual. As I have tried to point, that it IS taught in history does not mean it SHOULD be taught in history (and given I am in quite an ABYSMAL history course right now to fulfill my state requirements, I can find more than a few examples of things being taught that are blatantly false). So without a standardized way to determine whether the assassination itself is worth teaching, your argument becomes one of constantly shifting goal posts by its very nature. Thus regarding all of your statements along the lines of “this can be applied to the assassination as well,� firstly I would ask that if you really think so, find some accredited historians who agree, as I am sure I can find some backing my position if you would like, and secondly, even if you can, at a certain point it becomes extremely counterproductive as eventually I can just concede that the assassination is too unreliable to teach as literally factual and you’re right back to square one.
Goose wrote:Of course Christian writers had a bias. I've already conceded this just as you've conceded no historian is without bias. Are you denying this now? I've further given argument for why Cicero, Antony, and Nicolaus had motive to be biased and even lie. And that's all I need to do to reduce the evidentiary support for the assassination to be on par with the resurrection because that's all you've done regarding resurrection sources. That is, all you've done is provide a reason to think Christian writer's had motive to be biased. You'll argue that Christian writers had greater motive to be biased with weaker reasons to minimize and the evidence for the resurrection is therefore weaker. I'll disagree with your subjective opinion here on who had the greater bias. Appealing to people that have their own axe to grind, like Bart Ehrman, won't help you either. It's like trying to argue which is more beautiful, a sunset or a sunrise. All we can objectively agree on is that both are beautiful and both writers for the resurrection and assassination were biased.
Bart Ehrman became an evangelical as a teen and so desired to learn more about the word of God he learned five different languages so he could read the original manuscripts. He received a PhD and M.Div from Princeton Theological seminary, was president of the Society of Biblical Literature, is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has a pretty impressive list of professional awards. Though I personally view his falling away from the faith as the result of his studies to be saddening (and a strong indicator one should not base one’s beliefs so heavily on a book being inerrant) not only is dismissing one of the most accredited biblical scholars alive merely as someone with an “axe to grind� disingenuous, it suggests (not for the first time) that you think your personal opinion is just as valid regarding academic concerns as experts in the fields under consideration. This is rather indicative of either a failure to understand how academia works, or that your bias makes you unable to accept expert opinion’s if they disagree with yours. Either way, though you may think appealing to qualified people who’ve spent most of their adult lives studying the material “won’t help me,� I suspect the vast majority of the audience will disagree.
Goose wrote: Historian Dr. Gary Habermas[/url] gives an overview and lists some scholars that hold to pre-Pauline creedal passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 originating very early.
I’ll concede the creed within a couple of years, though it is still not as early as the second philippic.

Within about two months of the crucifixion around the day of Pentecost Peter preached...
Quoting Peter, Luke in Acts 2:22-24, 32 wrote:"Jesus from Nazareth was a man...you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up and destroyed the pains of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power."
Goose wrote: Not only have you now given me an early source in Paul's creeds but you also have given me enemy attestation between Paul and Peter agreeing on the resurrection. But it gets even better. By introducing Antony's oration via Dio you just gave me a very early (within only 2 months of the crucifixion) eyewitness testimony with Peter! Cha-ching... :pelvic_thrust:
Perhaps, if you trust Luke’s memory. Considering the traditional view is Luke was authored by a companion of Paul, but it is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... e_Apostles]noted [/url] that “Acts and the Pauline letters appear to disagree about the number and timings of Paul's visits to Jerusalem, and Paul's own account of his conversion is slightly different from the account given in Acts�. For that matter, Luke’s own accounts of Paul’s conversion somewhat differ.


Criterion: Multiple independent sources strengthen the credibility of the message...
Goose wrote:On this criterion the assassination does not fair anywhere near as well as the resurrection.
Goose wrote:Firstly, an independent literary source generally means there is no evidence of dependency (e.g. copying) on another literary source. As far as I'm aware there is no need for the origin of the info to be someone different. For example, even if Nicolaus had recieved his data from Cicero, Nicolaus would still be considered an independent literary source. If there was evidence that Nicolaus had copied from Cicero then we could not fully class Nicolaus as independent. At least not at the parts where he copied. Capiche?
The reason that you think the resurrection does so much better is because you do not understand what “independent source� means.
Independent sources, in journalism, criminal justice and general research, represent two or more people or organizations which attest to a given piece of information.
Further:
If two witnesses to an event discuss what they saw before they are consulted and agree on a consistent story, they are also no longer independent.
So not ONLY do you need two people, there is little reason to believe the apostles themselves are independent given most descriptions have them “witnessing� the resurrection together.

What YOU have is a case of Circular Reporting.
In source criticism, circular reporting or false confirmation is a situation where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in fact is coming from only one source.


Getting your information from someone and then restating it does NOT make you a new independent source.
Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote:The only truly undisputed independent sources you have presented are Mark, John, and possibly Paul.
Even if that were true this would still be more independent sources than the assassination which has,
by your reasoning, only one truly independent source in Cicero. Therefore the resurrection wins on this criterion.
Actually, given there is no reason to believe Cicero made the speech written in Dios considering how positive it made Anthony look, even if one does not assume it to have been Anthony’s actual speech it can be asserted as an independent attestation that the assassination actually occurred since whoever did write it was taking it to be a fact. So at a bare minimum the assassination has two, compared to the resurrection having at most three that can be reasonably asserted as independent.

But yes, ultimately the resurrection can be seen as winning on this criterion (though barely and by even less than I initially assumed it would).
Goose wrote:
Chaosborders wrote: This analysis has led to Historical Criticism. Based upon Historical Criticism it can be determined that the author of the Gospel According to John almost certainly had no direct connection to the historical Jesus, further damaging its credibility of an independent source.
"Almost certainly," huh? Really? That's quite the claim you've made (or should I say wikipedia has made). Please support it with something more than an argument by link to wikipedia which in and of itself is unsupported. The gospel of John internally claims to be written by a witness. Do you deny this?
Well without Wikipedia it certainly makes it harder to state early criticism of it as a forgery from Marcion and Celsus since I’m certainly not going to dig through their manuscripts myself for where they stated that. But modern scholars include:

Bart Ehrman in Jesus, interrupted: revealing the hidden contradictions in the Bible (and why we don’t know about them) on page 112

Dr. Francisco Lozada, Jr., Chair of the department of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University in New currents through John: a Global Perspective on page 208

E.P.Sanders, former Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University and winner of the Grawemeyer Award for the best book on religion published in the 1980s, in The historical figure of Jesus on page 57.

Robert Funk, former chair of the graduate department of religion at Vanderbilt University, co-founder of the Jesus seminar, summed up the majority view of a 150 scholars with advanced degrees in biblical studies, religious studies, and related fields in the introduction of The five gospels. The opinion was so overwhelmingly against John that it was concluded the Gospel of Thomas was a better source of historically accurate information, and the second pillar of the “Seven pillars of scholarly wisdom� developed as a base of modern critical scholarship on Jesus became “Recognizing the synoptic gospels as more historically accurate than John.�

Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford who has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time, concluded in The authentic gospel of Jesus that the author of the Gospel of John was most likely not even Jewish, much less the disciple of Jesus it is ascribed to.

Stephen Harris, Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University, in Understanding the Bible on pages 266-268 took the view that it is a largely unreliable account forged by an anonymous author posthumous to the Apostle.

Admittedly, it would have been simpler to just make a link to Wikipedia; but as can be seen, that link would hardly be unsupported.
Goose wrote: Criterion: Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred...
Goose wrote:I don't need to argue that Paul was a witness here. It is sufficient that we know Paul had spent time talking with witnesses which he did (see the first two chapters of Galatians).
But it matters not now as you've given me eyewitness testimony from Peter as recorded by Luke (or potentially from 1 Peter depending upon how we treat it).
Fair enough. I’m fine with treating Peter as someone who at least claims to have been an eyewitness, though I can find no such claim in 1 Peter.
Goose wrote:Again, on every criterion the resurrection is at least as good, if not better, than the evidence for the assassination. After several rounds and additional criteria my argument remains sound.
Every? I think the audience would quite disagree with that. However, on the Source Criticism aspect I always expected the Bible to have a lead (and thought it would be much less narrow than it is). Though I could probably even further argue such points as independent sources and Peter as an eyewitness, I would rather get into Internal Criticism.

Because there is no doubt that the resurrection is mentioned more often. And there is little doubt that the vast majority of the ones mentioning it believe that it occurred. So based on Source Criticism, which is part of External Criticism, just maybe it would have sufficient evidence to be considered literally factual. (Though so would just about any myth mentioned by more than one person).

But in academic history, that is simply not enough. There are two more stages to the historical method, Internal Criticism and Historical Reasoning. For this post we will explore Internal Criticism, which is also known as Historical Reliability. Another way of putting it is that external criticism helps to keep us from using completely false evidence, things people have totally made up without any external reason for actually believing themselves, whereas Internal Criticism goes further and helps us determine the reliability of the evidence that makes it through source criticism.

The first method applies to eyewitnesses, so we will go through Peter and for that matter Paul since Paul claims to be a witness.
Is the real meaning of the statement different from its literal meaning? Are words used in senses not employed today? Is the statement meant to be ironic (i.e., mean other than it says)?
I think Ehrman actually makes a pretty good case that the first to say they saw Jesus never meant it in a literal sense and that most at that time would have understood it as a vision. I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on that in this section though since it is not set in stone that’s what was originally meant.
How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?
This is where Paul already fails. There is no indication at all that he had ever met Jesus while Jesus was alive, thus even if he ran into someone claiming to be Jesus he cannot reasonably assert that it was indeed Jesus risen from the dead and not some lunatic/imposter claiming to be.

What is more, neither Peter nor anyone else claimed to see the resurrection itself, but rather inferred its occurrence having supposedly seen someone they saw killed walking around again.
How did the author report?, and what was his ability to do so?
Peter presumably had the ability to report and is said to have done so through speeches and definitely stated it occurred in his letter (though I find no claim to being a witness in said letter, despite a statement that he witnessed the Jesus’ death).
Regarding his ability to report, was he biased? Did he have proper time for reporting? Proper place for reporting? Adequate recording instruments?
I can scarcely imagine with someone with more motive to be biased. Either he’d just spent years of his life following around a nobody fraud who just got killed (which rather makes him less than a nobody) or he was a disciple of the Son of God. A host of psychological issues give him incentive towards finding a way to believe the latter.
When did he report in relation to his observation? Soon? Much later? Fifty years is much later as most eyewitnesses are dead and those who remain may have forgotten relevant material.
If Acts is to be believed, it was at least a month after the first appearance. If taken as authentic, the letter is believed to have been written 60 at the earliest, almost three decades after the event was supposed to have been taken place. Acts brings up the question of, if Jesus was resurrected, why did he not prance around in public and make it as clear as possible he was indeed alive? Whereas the letter brings up the question of why Peter does not have any writings that are earlier? Paul wasn’t even a disciple but beat him to the punch? What is more, most biblical scholars argue that it is psuedigraphical and not even written by Peter at all. Even if assumed that it was a disciple of Peter, the earliest date believed for that is 70, over almost four decades after the alleged event, with most arguing for an even later date.
What was the author's intention in reporting? For whom did he report? Would that audience be likely to require or suggest distortion to the author?
In the case of Acts, to convert people. In the case of 1 Peter he was reporting to people who already believed and appears to use the resurrection as a backup for his moral exhortation to them. Certainly both cases would require the resurrection, as no one has any reason to convert to the religion he wanted them to or follow the morality he wanted them to without such a momentous act. “Please follow the teachings of the guy who got crucified� just doesn’t have quite the same weight behind it as “Please follow the teachings of the guy who got crucified…then was raised from the dead by God and ascended into heaven.�
Are there additional clues to intended veracity? Was he indifferent on the subject reported, thus probably not intending distortion? Did he make statements damaging to himself, thus probably not seeking to distort? Did he give incidental or casual information, almost certainly not intended to mislead?
Not the tiniest bit indifferent. And whatever statements he might have made that seem damaging to himself (if any), he effectively elevated himself from loser nobody to beloved disciple of God. Further, his stated casual information is a being that cannot be proven to exist.
Do his statements seem inherently improbable: e.g., contrary to human nature, or in conflict with what we know?
Yes. Dead people do not come back to life. Even if accounting for modern technology and a loose definition of ‘dead,’ they certainly do not come back to life without human intervention.
Are there inner contradictions in the document?
There are at a minimum contradictions between Luke and Acts, believed almost universally as being written by the same person, hurting the credibility of the author as a whole. And 1st Peter, besides being believed by the majority to be pseudigraphical, never seems to actually have Peter claiming to be a witness to the resurrection.

Ultimately there seems little reason to accept either document as providing reliable testimony from an eyewitness, and plenty of reason not to.
Now if these documents, as well as Paul and John were taken to be the accounts of secondary witnesses (still disputed), even if the first question of “On whose primary testimony does the secondary witness base his statements?� could be determined with certainty, and the 2nd and 3rd questions of “(2) Did the secondary witness accurately report the primary testimony as a whole? (3) If not, in what details did he accurately report the primary testimony?� be satisfactorily answered such that it could be considered we actually have the gist of someone’s primary testimony, the reliability of said testimony would still be hurt by the same problems as 1st Peter. In particular, the problems of bias and the inherent improbability of a dead guy coming back to life.

Given I have seen no academic challenges at all to the reliability of the assassination, I will leave it to you to try and show the documents concerning it as somehow being less reliable than the documents concerning the resurrection.

But back onto John, it is at a minimum considered by most to be the result of an oral tradition, so let us see what happens when we run it through the considerations set up for examining oral traditions.

Broad conditions stated.
The tradition should be supported by an unbroken series of witnesses, reaching from the immediate and first reporter of the fact to the living mediate witness from whom we take it up, or to the one who was the first to commit it to writing.
Many of the scholars do not consider it an unbroken series and believe it to have no direct connection at all, but even if that were assumed to be true:
There should be several parallel and independent series of witnesses testifying to the fact in question.
Of the hundreds who supposedly saw Christ after his resurrection, and of the thousands who supposedly converted and thus took up the tradition following Christ’s supposed ascension into heaven, we have at most a few ‘series’ of witnesses that can be reasonably stated as independent.

It does not seem like John firmly meets the broad conditions very well.

Particular conditions formulated.
The tradition must report a public event of importance, such as would necessarily be known directly to a great number of persons.
Certainly if it happened it can be thought of as one of the most important events to ever occur in human history.
The tradition must have been generally believed, at least for a definite period of time.
Yet despite the importance it should have had, over 260 years later there were still at most 5-8 million (from The Rise of Christianity page 6) out of over 50 million.

Not exactly 'generally believed' when not even a third of the population believes it after 300 years of 40% growth.
During that definite period it must have gone without protest, even from persons interested in denying it.
Justin Martyr makes clear in his Dialogue with Typhro that there was indeed protest against the resurrection:
but, as I said before you have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilaean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. Moreover, you accuse Him of having taught those godless, lawless, and unholy doctrines which you mention to the condemnation of those who confess Him to be Christ, and a Teacher from and Son of God.


From him we know that Jews were protesting the resurrection, believing it a hoax by the disciples.
The tradition must be one of relatively limited duration. [Elsewhere, Garraghan suggests a maximum limit of 150 years, at least in cultures that excel in oral remembrance.]
This one it actually meets. Fair enough.
The critical spirit must have been sufficiently developed while the tradition lasted, and the necessary means of critical investigation must have been at hand.
I see little indication, but if you would like to offer evidence it meets this criteria I would be happy to see it.
Critical-minded persons who would surely have challenged the tradition — had they considered it false — must have made no such challenge.
Besides Justin Martyr’s description of the Jews, we also have Tacitus labeling Christianity as a whole as a superstition. It certainly seems there were indeed challenges.

So even in conjunction with the other documents, John can scarcely meet the broader conditions, and itself fails at almost every particular condition that must be met for it to be accepted.

Ultimately, when internal criticism is applied, the documents fail to be shown as reliable. When historical reasoning, the final step of the historical method, is gone through in the next post, it will be shown that this unreliability makes the resurrection so much less plausible than alternative hypotheses that to teach it as a literally factual event would be a completely unreasonable violation of what is used by historians to form academic history.
Unless indicated otherwise what I say is opinion. (Kudos to Zzyzx for this signature).

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.� -Albert Einstein

The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
- C.S. Lewis

Goose

Post #28

Post by Goose »

[url=http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html]Appeal to Authoity]/url] wrote:If there is a significant amount of legitimate dispute among the experts within a subject, then it will [be] fallacious to make an Appeal to Authority using the disputing experts. This is because for almost any claim being made and "supported" by one expert there will be a counterclaim that is made and "supported" by another expert. In such cases an Appeal to Authority would tend to be futile. In such cases, the dispute has to be settled by consideration of the actual issues under dispute. Since either side in such a dispute can invoke experts, the dispute cannot be rationally settled by Appeals to Authority.
I suggest Chaosborders reviews the above fallacy as he had made it multiple times in his last post. In cases where he merely cites the name(s) of a scholar as support for his position I'll assume he cannot address the actual argument presented.



Regarding Chaosborders attempt to reduce my argument (A) to the absurd...
Chaosborders wrote:Round 4
Goose wrote:Here is Tacitus' account of the blind man being healed via Vespasian. How does this reduce my argument to the absurd?...
Chaosborders wrote:In the context of academic history miracles, the supernatural, and the impact of any God or gods is automatically excluded as the result of the process of historical reasoning. Most likely I will only get to internal criticism in this post and historical reasoning will have to wait until the next post, at which point I will go into greater detail as to why this is the case. However, for now I will simply point out that the logical conclusion of your argument’s form is the allowance of many events, this being one example, that are most reasonably labeled fables, propaganda, hoaxes, etc. to be taught as literally factual events.
There is no logical reason for the process of historical reasoning to automatically exclude a supernatural explanation or a miracle. The process itself argues to the BEST explanation that has both scope and power. To automatically exclude a supernatural explanation or miracle claim a priori because it is a supernatural explanation or miracle claim is circular logic. Surely Chaosborders recognizes this. So the only way he can reduce my argument to the absurd in this manner is if he firsts commits the fallacy of circular reasoning.
Chaosborders wrote:Further, your argument’s form relies on what is already being taught as literally factual, which is often a VERY different thing than what SHOULD BE (which I have already argued in previous posts are events that pass through historical methodology created by experts in the field and you have ignored as ‘irrelevant’) as the result of politics. So your argument’s form allows sweeping in such stories as Vespasian’s miracle through comparison against other events that may not themselves be true.
You are correct my argument relies on what is already taught as factual. My underlying assumption is that what is taught as historical in secular history has already passed through the historical method. If you would like to argue that there are things currently being taught in secular history classes as literally factual, such as the assassination of Caesar, that should NOT be because they would not pass the historical method, be my guest.
Chaosborders wrote:It broadens the things that could be taught as literally factual extensively, and in doing so can be allowed to teach two mutually exclusive events so long as each side has more support than a third party event that is taught as literally factual. This is its most fundamental flaw, though even by your argument (which given you set it up so that you could, shouldn’t even be difficult for you to ‘prove’ at all) the resurrection seems not to be overwhelming the assassination as greatly as one would expect.
You tacitly acknowledge the resurrection is overwhelming the assassination. Thank you. I agree. And thus my argument is sound. Logically, you have no choice but to accept its conclusion.

Look. Let's lance this boil to prevent any more whining. Simply replace where my argument says "another historical event" with "the assassination of Julius Caesar." Thus it would read:

Argument (A):
1. If the historical evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus is at least as good as the historical evidence for [the assassination of Julius Caesar] that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event, then the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well.
2. The historical evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus is at least as good as the historical evidence for [the assassination of Julius Caesar] that is taught in secular history classes as a literally factual event.
3. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus should be considered sufficiently substantiated using historical evidence and be taught as a literally factual event in secular history classes as well (via modus ponens).

Now if you would like to argue that the assassination doesn't pass an historical method or it is not taught in secular history classes as literally factual, be my guest.



Regarding Dio's recording of Antony's oration...
Chaosborders wrote:Not entirely uncritically. James Anthony Froude writes in his biography of Caesar, Caesar:A Sketch (1879), “Dion Cassius ‘can hardly have himself composed the version which he gives, for he calls the speech as ill-timed as it was brilliant.’� I am a more skeptical person than Froude, but if one reads the speech and compares it to the other material available it would seem to cohere to the character presented for Mark Antony exceedingly well. So if Dion is a fraud, he really is a remarkable one.
I think you apply scepticism to the resurrection sources but appear to be quite forgiving on the assassination. For instance. You assert that Dio's speech coheres with the character of Mark Anthony presented in other material. What other material would that be? I'd wager if we dig we'll find out it's circular reporting. Something you seem to think the resurrection sources are guilty of. I'll also note that you feel as long as the character presented in one source coheres with the character presented in other material this is enough to establish reliability in the case of Antony's oration by Dio. That alone gives me the reliability of almost every source for the resurrection.



Regarding Cicero...
Chaosborders wrote:Unless someone in the audience speaks up and also does not feel Cicero is being explicit, I am inclined to think you are merely being stubborn on this point, as I earnestly do not know how someone with above high school level reading comprehension skills can read the 10th and 11th paragraphs and not think Cicero is stating Caeser was assassinated.
Let's put it this way. Where does Cicero explicitly state "Caesar was assassinated" as you claim he does? Quote it.
Chaosborders wrote:No, I argue as if [the Second Philippic] was circulated among the senate. I know that it was not an actual ‘speech’. However, for your assertion
It wasn't circulated amongst the senate either. If you think it was provide your evidence.
Chaosborders wrote:Perhaps you would care to source yourself, given:
2nd Philippic (pamphlet, conceived as a senatorial speech, 24 October 44[4], possibly published only after the death of Cicero): Vehement attacks on Mark Antony including the accusation that he surpasses, in his political ambition, even Lucius Sergius Catilina and Publius Clodius Pulcher. Catalogue of the "atrocities" of Mark Antony. It is the longest of Cicero's Philippic speeches.
You are right. We don't really have any idea when it was published. I should have written, "And apparently [the Second Philippic] possibly wasn't published until after Cicero's death." Can you show it was published before Cicero died? If not we have no reason to assume it was published before Cicero died.
Chaosborders wrote:“Possibly published only after the death of Cicero� certainly is not a conclusive statement that it wasn’t. Further, it is stated as being conceived 24th of October 44 so I don’t see how a delay in its publication would render my points irrelevant in the least.
Your points revolve around the assumption the Second Philippic was in circulation among all the accused and other senators while Cicero was alive. You haven't established this. At this point it's merely a self serving assumption.
Goose wrote: I'm of the opinion that Antony and Cicero unequivocally agree Caesar was killed. And that's about all they agree on.
Chaosborders wrote:And I don’t see how anything else is relevant.
Being killed doesn't necessarily imply an assassination. We've been over this.
Chaosborders wrote:How exactly would they be aware that things were being made up? Unless you specifically state someone as being a witness who wasn’t, how is anyone going to disprove there were “five hundred unnamed witnesses�? It’s not remotely similar to accusing someone of ASSASSINATING THE EMPEROR.
Paul names more than just an anonymous five hundred witnesses. Paul writes, "[Jesus] was buried, he was raised on the third day in keeping with the Scriptures-and is still alive!-and he was seen by [Peter], and then by the twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Next he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, and finally he was seen by me, as though I were born abnormally late." So Paul explicitly names Peter, James (the Lord's brother), and the "twelve" which are understood to be the disciples. Further, you are again assuming Cicero publicly accused certain senators of assassinating Caesar. He didn't.
Chaosborders wrote:My apologies, but could you extrapolate here? I only see you as remotely having a point if the writers are making up the named witnesses, but in this statement it seems that it is assumed the named witnesses do indeed believe the resurrection occurred, so I am not sure what your point is.
For example, Paul writes that Jesus had returned from the dead and named the witnesses, such as Peter, in a letter that was intended to be circulated. Don't you think Paul would have been discredited if it were not true? We have evidence that the disciples taught the resurrection and were persecuted for their belief in it. Don't you think Peter would have taken action against Paul if it were not true what Paul had written? Especially considering we have evidence that Peter was worried about the consequences of being associated to Jesus.
Goose wrote:Unlike Cicero who seems reluctant to come right out and directly accuse by naming names and didn't actually speak his accusations in public.
Chaosborders wrote:Hardly seems reluctant to me:

End of paragraph 10 and paragraph 11
Whose name was there which was not at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, tho they had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed. 10 Moreover, how likely it is, that among such a number of men, some obscure, some young men who had not the wit to conceal any one, my name could possibly have escaped notice? Indeed, if leaders were wanted for the purpose of delivering the country, what need was there of my instigating the Bruti, one of whom saw every day in his house the image of Lucius Brutus, and the other saw also the image of Ahala? Were these the men to seek counsel from the ancestors of others rather than from their own? and out of doors rather than at home? What! Caius Cassius, a man of that family which could not endure, I will not say the domination, but even the power of any individual,—he, I suppose, was in need of me to instigate him? a man who, even without the assistance of these other most illustrious men, would have accomplished this same deed in Cilicia, at the mouth of the river Cydnus, if Cæsar had brought his ships to that bank of the river which he had intended, and not to the opposite one. Was Cnæus Domitius spurred on to seek to recover his dignity, not by the death of his father, a most illustrious man, nor by the death of his uncle, nor by the deprivation of his own dignity, but by my advice and authority? Did I persuade Caius Trebonius, a man whom I should not have ventured even to advise? On which account the republic owes him even a larger debt of gratitude, because he preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the friendship of one man, and because he preferred overthrowing arbitrary power to sharing it. Was I the instigator whom Lucius Tillius Cimber followed? a man whom I admired for having performed that action, rather than ever expected that he would perform it; and I admired him on this account, that he was unmindful of the personal kindnesses which he had received, but mindful of his country. What shall I say of the two Servilii? Shall I call them Cascas, or Ahalas? And do you think that those men were instigated by my authority rather than by their affection for the republic? It would take a long time to go through all the rest; and it is a glorious thing for the republic that they were so numerous, and a most honorable thing also for themselves.
Really? We aren't even told by Cicero what it is he is referring to here when he says "that conspiracy." We must infer it is the assassination. No where here does Cicero state any of these named people assassinated Caesar. Again you are inferring it. You wouldn't have any concrete idea what Cicero was even speaking about here if it were not for later writers such as Nicolaus and Plutarch.
Chaosborders wrote:Yeah, and I’d circulate it too. While I was still alive [if someone were making up stories about me that could potentially get me in trouble or persecuted].
Right. Because that is the natural thing to do if the stories are false. Accordingly, we have no such accounts regarding the resurrection. No one such as Peter, for example, writing, "Wait a minute, I never witnessed Jesus alive like Paul says I did."



Regarding Nicolaus...
Goose wrote: What kind of evidence would you like [that Nicolaus got his data from Antony]?
Chaosborders wrote:A professional historian’s opinion supporting yours, at the least, would be quite nice
You call that evidence? I can't meet your demand because historians don't know where Nicolaus got his data. It could have been Joe the bartender for all we know. For some reason this doesn't seem to bother you...
Goose wrote: I've already provided an argument for why Nicolaus got his data from Antony.
Chaosborders wrote: And I have asked for evidence. Your personal opinion does not qualify.
Why not? A second ago you were willing to accept personal opinion as evidence. Further, I've not merely given my opinion. I've given an argument. I'll concede it may not be a cogent argument. Nicolaus may have also received his data from Augustus. But even then Nicolaus is still getting his data from the same pro-Caesar vein.
Goose wrote: Where do you think Nicolaus got his data if not from Mark Antony?
Chaosborders wrote:Any younger senators involved, servants, etc. might be plausible candidates. Anyone they told are also possibilities.
Talk about a shot in the dark. In other words you haven't got the foggiest where Nicolaus got his data. Maybe it was the pool boy...

So let's see. I've provided an argument that Nicolaus probably received his data, or at least some of it, from Antony based upon the premise that Antony was Nicolaus' employer. I'll concede this may not be a cogent argument as the evidence that supports Nicolaus being the tutor comes from Sophronius and is very late. But it is at least something to go on. And my argument here is more cogent than your argument that, well, it could have been almost anyone. Well duh! Your argument is basically a truism. Apparently it is acceptable to you that Nicolaus' source of data remains a mystery. Go figure...
Chaosborders wrote:And Cicero rejoices at his slaying. If it were not for him, just maybe the hypothesis that Anthony made up the assassination for political reasons to make Caesar look like better and passed it on would hold some tiny amount of weight. As it is, there is no reason to consider that as evidence without a professional historian backing you up.
Cicero's reaction is irrelevant. You haven't countered my argument and the evidence provided that Nicolaus reports in a biased manor. You've had two opportunities to rebut this but keep dancing around it.



Regarding the criterion of enemy attestation...
Chaosborders wrote:If there is anyone in the audience who actually feels he gets enemy attestation, please comment in the Peanut Gallery on what you feel is valid and I will address it. Otherwise I am not going to waste my time or the audiences rebutting this.
Dodging this argument by appealing to the Peanut Gallery doesn't make it go away. The argument stands.

However, if you wish to change your mind now and be more rigid in the application of the definition of enemy attestation that's fine. I will too. Strictly speaking the assassination doesn't have attestation from Cicero OR Antony. What you have is an inference from Cicero (as interpreted through later writers) on the one hand. With Cicero's version of what he claimed Antony said and Dio writing 300 years later on the other hand. No enemy attestation there either I'm afraid.



Regarding factors that minimize the tendency to be biased in Christian writers...
Chaosborders wrote:If one is biased, and their convictions are strengthened, that does not help minimize their bias. It just makes them more biased.
Bad logic. It makes them more convicted not necessarily more biased.
Chaosborders wrote:The majority of those at the extremes end up getting banned or leaving quickly. Further, those whose faith were damaged sufficiently are not likely the ones writing, and their writings are not likely to be preserved given the churches early penchant for book burning. That persecution can have the opposite effect means there is no reason to assume it minimized the bias of the writers.
This does not negate the fact that persecution can help minimize bias.
Chaosborders wrote:Bearing false witness is not a prohibition against all lying, as 1 Kings 22: 19-23 can make clear.
19 Micaiah continued, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD : I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?'
"One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.'
22 " 'By what means?' the LORD asked.
" 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,' he said.
" 'You will succeed in enticing him,' said the LORD. 'Go and do it.'
23 "So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you."
The point of 1 Kings 22 being God will use whatever means he chooses to accomplish his will. This does not give a green light to Christians to lie which you seem to be arguing it does. It's as though you are arguing Christians use 1 Kings 22 as a good for the goose, good for the gander type argument to allow lying. And I know of no Christian or theologian that does. Do not bear false witness means do not give false testimony whether in court or anywhere else. That is, do not lie, full stop. Christians are instructed by Jesus to not give false testimony and therefore instructed not to lie. I can't imagine how anyone would not see this as a motivation to minimize the tendency in Christian writers to be biased or lie. Which is all I need to meet the criteria's request to restore the credibility of Christian writers that are biased.
Chaosborders wrote:Visions were a lot more culturally accepted then. Although I would prefer to into more detail once I get to the historical reasoning part of historical methodology, for now I will leave it at being that if the first few genuinely believed they saw Jesus resurrected as the result of varying potential neurological and psychological causes, and said so, then later details end up getting filled in as the result of cultural practices and other pretty standard neurological phenomena (which I can extrapolate on, but would also prefer to do when going over historical reasoning in the next post).
Nice dodge. The issue of visions is a Red Herring at this point. Apparently, you do not dispute that claiming someone had returned from the dead, if in fact he had not, would have been considered a lie in the first century ANE as it would be now.
Chaosborders wrote:How late were these Christian writers though? I’m certainly not suggesting all of the books are pseudepigraphical, but if accepted at the start, some can (and most scholars believe have) end up being misattributed to the wrong person and ascribed evidentiary value when there is no reason to believe they actually have much, if any at all.
It still remains that your premise is false as relatively early Christian writers did not accept pseudepigraphy as a practice. Therefore, Christians did not accept as a practice this form of "lying" as you claim they did.
Chaosborders wrote:More importantly, however, is that it establishes many among the early Christians did not think of it as lying to make up stories or details that conveyed a moral truth. I can give both a list of works that made it into the Bible and even more extensive that were kept from becoming cannon, though some of which were circulated for hundreds of years in some areas.
Another non-sequitur. It does not logically follow that historical claims such as the resurrection or details surrounding it were "made up" because stories, such as parables, were made up to convey a moral truth.
Chaosborders wrote:Not really, unless you actually have some accredited historians who think otherwise, the authenticity of Cicero’s writings are pretty well established. Probably has something to do with being able to analyze and compare over fifty speeches and eight HUNDRED letters.
Circular. Demonstrate with evidence Cicero wrote his letters and they were not pseudepigraphical.
Chaosborders wrote:No doubt, which is why I’ll never argue the details surrounding the assassination should be taught as literally factual.
Fine. I'm not arguing here that the details surrounding the resurrection should be taught as literally factual either. Thus, by your reasoning, pseudepigraphy is moot and irrelevant to the debate.



Regarding Chaosborders complaints about my form of argument...
Chaosborders wrote:The assassination itself I feel has enough support that it’s worth using as a comparison as we move through historical methodology, but I would like to point out that the more you try to undermine the assassination the more you show just how insignificant the burden of proof is for teaching something as literally factual when using your argument.
I smell sour grapes. What I'm accomplishing by this form of argument is to show how good the evidence for the resurrection really is. And we are discovering through this process of comparison to the assassination, which is by ancient standards very well supported evidentially and considered an undisputed historical fact, the evidentiary support for the resurrection measures up very well. I'm also showing how the type of sceptical reasoning often used against the resurrection when applied to the assassination causes similar problems for the assassination as it would for almost any other event from antiquity.
Chaosborders wrote:Further, if you undermined it sufficiently that it could be declared as not being well enough supported to be taught as literally factual, then by your own argument it does nothing to show that the resurrection should be taught as literally factual.
The evidentiary support for Caesar's assassination, by ancient standards, is very strong. So strong in fact that I would contend very few if any other events from the same era are as well supported. In other words, if the assassination is not well enough supported to be taught as an historical fact then almost nothing from that time would be.
Chaosborders wrote:As I have tried to point, that it IS taught in history does not mean it SHOULD be taught in history (and given I am in quite an ABYSMAL history course right now to fulfill my state requirements, I can find more than a few examples of things being taught that are blatantly false).
It sounds like you want to argue the assassination of Julius Caesar should not be taught in secular history classes as historical. Is that where you really want to go now?
Chaosborders wrote:So without a standardized way to determine whether the assassination itself is worth teaching, your argument becomes one of constantly shifting goal posts by its very nature.
Patently false. I've set the bar very high and left it there by using the assassination as the goal line. I'm struggling to think of another event from around the same period that would be better evidentially supported (not including the resurrection) than the assassination of Caesar. Can you think of one? If the assassination isn't worth teaching as literally factual because it lacks enough evidentiary support then I'm afraid very little from a similar era will be.
Chaosborders wrote:Thus regarding all of your statements along the lines of “this can be applied to the assassination as well,� firstly I would ask that if you really think so, find some accredited historians who agree, as I am sure I can find some backing my position if you would like, and secondly, even if you can, at a certain point it becomes extremely counterproductive as eventually I can just concede that the assassination is too unreliable to teach as literally factual and you’re right back to square one.
The writing is on the wall now and you are about to be check-mated. If you would like to argue the assassination is not well supported enough or too unreliable to be taught as factual be my guest. Like I wrote earlier:
Goose in post 22 wrote:Maybe [Chaosborders will] be telling us soon that he doesn't believe Caesar was assassinated.
But don't feel badly. This is usually the fall back position of sceptics of the resurrection when the evidentiary support is compared to other historical events from a similar era. The resurrection is so well supported evidentially that you must either accept its historicity or go down the absurd path of rejecting the historicity of most of antiquity in order to be consistent.



More on bias...
Chaosborders wrote:Bart Ehrman

<...snipped Chaosborders off topic blurb about the life history of Ehrman and his credentials for brevity...>

...This is rather indicative of either a failure to understand how academia works, or that your bias makes you unable to accept expert opinion’s if they disagree with yours. Either way, though you may think appealing to qualified people who’ve spent most of their adult lives studying the material “won’t help me,� I suspect the vast majority of the audience will disagree.
I'm logically under no obligation to accept the opinion of a person on the basis of their credentials alone. Especially when there are other credentialed experts that would disagree. I'll tell you what though, I'll accept Ehrman's opinion if you accept William Lane Craig's...

You've drifted off onto a diversion about how fantastic your favourite scholar is because you can't counter my point that all I need to do to reduce the evidentiary support for the assassination to be on par with the resurrection is provide reason to think there was motive to be biased, which there was, on the part of the assassination writers. However, I've built the resurrection writers credibility back up by showing they also had motives to help minimize the tendency to be biased in 1) persecution and 2) Jesus teaching not to lie.

All this time on bias and we've accomplished very little.



Regarding the criterion of early sources...
Chaosborders wrote:I’ll concede the creed [1 Corinthians 15:3-4] within a couple of years, though it is still not as early as the second philippic.
Well, now you are splitting hairs. We're talking the difference of about one to three years. But it matters not anyway. If you are going to be this rigid I've got Peter's preaching within only two months and therefore an earlier source to the resurrection than the Second Philippic is to the assassination. Not to mention Peter is an eyewitness. In this light, the resurrection wins on this criterion if we are going to be rigid.

Goose wrote:Not only have you now given me an early source in Paul's creeds but you also have given me enemy attestation between Paul and Peter agreeing on the resurrection. But it gets even better. By introducing Antony's oration via Dio you just gave me a very early (within only 2 months of the crucifixion) eyewitness testimony with Peter! Cha-ching... :pelvic_thrust:
Chaosborders wrote:Perhaps, if you trust Luke’s memory.
I trust Luke's memory writing about 50 years later more than I trust Dio writing almost three hundred years later. But it's not Luke's memory anyway per se. It's the memory of the witnesses he spoke to. Further, some of Paul's and Peter's sermons as recorded in Acts by Luke contain creeds as well. So the memory objection shouldn't be a significant issue. Add to this, all Luke really had to remember (or at least the winesses he interviewed had to remember) was that Peter and Paul preached the resurrection. Not something likely to be forgotten.
Chaosborders wrote:Considering the traditional view is Luke was authored by a companion of Paul, but it is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... e_Apostles]noted[/url] that “Acts and the Pauline letters appear to disagree about the number and timings of Paul's visits to Jerusalem, and Paul's own account of his conversion is slightly different from the account given in Acts�. For that matter, Luke’s own accounts of Paul’s conversion somewhat differ.
So what? They don't disagree on the resurrection. Compare this to Cicero and Nicolaus which differ in their "lists" of senators. In fact, Cicero doesn't even give a detailed account at all where Nicolaus does. And Cicero contradicts himself in the Second Philippic. (See below)



Criterion: Multiple independent sources strengthen the credibility of the message...
Chaosborders wrote:The reason that you think the resurrection does so much better is because you do not understand what “independent source� means.
Independent sources, in journalism, criminal justice and general research, represent two or more people or organizations which attest to a given piece of information.
Firstly, we aren't discussing "journalism, criminal justice and general research." We are discussing ancient history and specifically the resurrection. So I'm thinking more along the lines of independent literary source as applied by John P. Meier:
Meier wrote:The criterion of multiple attestation (or "the cross section") focuses on those sayings or deeds of Jesus that are attested in more than one independent literary source (e.g., Mark, Q, Paul, John) and/or in more than one literary form or genre (e.g., parable, dispute story, miracle story, prophecy, aphorism). The force of this criterion is increased if a given motif or theme is found in both different literary sources and different literary forms.
Secondly, if we go with your definition of what constitutes an independent source then Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 1 Peter, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp are ALL independent as they all attest to a given piece of information - i.e. Jesus returned from the dead.
Chaosborders wrote:Further:
If two witnesses to an event discuss what they saw before they are consulted and agree on a consistent story, they are also no longer independent.
If the source in question must be a witness as one of the criteria to be considered independent, then you no longer have any independent sources for the assassination. Cicero wasn't a witness and neither was Nicolaus. Unless you can show that Cicero consulted different witnesses to the assassination before they had a chance to consult one another. I don't see how this possible as the witnesses to the assassination were in a group, like the resurrection, and undoubtedly consulted one another after the deed but before Cicero had a chance to speak with them.
Chaosborders wrote:So not ONLY do you need two people, there is little reason to believe the apostles themselves are independent given most descriptions have them “witnessing� the resurrection together.
Hello? The witnesses of the assassination were together in a group too. So, say bye-bye to any independent sources for the assassination. Bye-bye assassination sources...
Chaosborders wrote:What YOU have is a case of Circular Reporting.
Hello again? All the witnesses of the assassination were together and we are told they conspired amongst one another. YOU have circular reporting then too for the assassination. For some odd reason you seem to think it is different for the assassination. It isn't.
Chaosborders wrote:
In source criticism, circular reporting or false confirmation is a situation where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in fact is coming from only one source.


Getting your information from someone and then restating it does NOT make you a new independent source.
Ditto for the assassination...
Chaosborders wrote:Actually, given there is no reason to believe Cicero made the speech written in Dios considering how positive it made Anthony look, even if one does not assume it to have been Anthony’s actual speech it can be asserted as an independent attestation that the assassination actually occurred since whoever did write it was taking it to be a fact.
Are you serious? You reveal yet another double standard here. By your reasoning here anyone that writes about the resurrection that takes it to be a fact is independent attestation that the resurrection actually occurred. What happened to being from a witnesses that had no opportunity to consult one another just a moment ago? Guess those criteria only apply to the resurrection, huh?
Chaosborders wrote:So at a bare minimum the assassination has two, compared to the resurrection having at most three that can be reasonably asserted as independent.
Even with the blatant way in which you've applied a double standard and erroneously tried to squeeze in Antony as recorded by Dio to bring the tally for the assassination up to two independent sources the resurrection still has more independent sources and wins. Face it. The assassination loses on this criterion.
Chaosborders wrote:But yes, ultimately the resurrection can be seen as winning on this criterion [of multiple independent sources]
Why all the fuss then? So we agree. The resurrection wins on this criterion as well. And therefore the resurrection should be seen as having stronger credibility.



Regarding the assertion that the Gospel of John has no connection to the historical Jesus...
Chaosborders wrote:Well without Wikipedia it certainly makes it harder to state early criticism of it as a forgery from Marcion and Celsus since I’m certainly not going to dig through their manuscripts myself for where they stated that. But modern scholars include:

<...snipped the Appeals to Authority for brevity...>

Admittedly, it would have been simpler to just make a link to Wikipedia; but as can be seen, that link would hardly be unsupported.
Citing the opinions of scholars without providing the evidence and their arguments isn't really my idea of support. Especially on a controversial subjective where I can cite respected scholars such as Simon Greenleaf, F.F. Bruce, or William Lane Craig to name but a few that would support my position. But it was my fault for not specifying what I meant by support. So I'll grant you another opportunity to support, with evidence and argument, your assertion that the author of the Gospel According to John almost certainly had no direct connection to the historical Jesus.

You ignored my question by the way. Do you deny that the Gospel of John internally claims to be written by a witness?



Criterion: Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred...
Chaosborders wrote:Fair enough. I’m fine with treating Peter as someone who at least claims to have been an eyewitness, though I can find no such claim in 1 Peter.
Because there isn't in 1 Peter and I've not claimed there is. I've only argued 1 Peter affirms the resurrection.



Regarding my argument (A) remaing sound...
Chaosborders wrote:Every? I think the audience would quite disagree with that.
Really? Of the many criterion we've looked at which one do you feel the assassination wins? Of all of them the only one the assassination possibly has a shot of winning is the criterion of having the earliest written document with Cicero's Second Philippic. Even though it isn't really much earlier, by ancient standards, than Paul's letters. And I'd concede this one if it wasn't hampered by the fact that Cicero doesn't come right out and unequivocally affirm the assassination. We need later writers such as Nicolaus and Plutarch to interpret Cicero. So I stand by my assertion that on every criterion the resurrection is at least as good, if not better, than the evidence for the assassination. Thus my argument (A) remains sound.
Chaosborders wrote:However, on the Source Criticism aspect I always expected the Bible to have a lead (and thought it would be much less narrow than it is). Though I could probably even further argue such points as independent sources and Peter as an eyewitness, I would rather get into Internal Criticism.
Chaosborders concedes the resurrection wins on source criticism. Thank you.



Regarding Internal Criticism...
Chaosborders wrote:Because there is no doubt that the resurrection is mentioned more often. And there is little doubt that the vast majority of the ones mentioning it believe that it occurred. So based on Source Criticism, which is part of External Criticism, just maybe it would have sufficient evidence to be considered literally factual. (Though so would just about any myth mentioned by more than one person).
You Beg the Question, what myths?
Chaosborders wrote:But in academic history, that is simply not enough. There are two more stages to the historical method, Internal Criticism and Historical Reasoning. For this post we will explore Internal Criticism, which is also known as Historical Reliability. Another way of putting it is that external criticism helps to keep us from using completely false evidence, things people have totally made up without any external reason for actually believing themselves, whereas Internal Criticism goes further and helps us determine the reliability of the evidence that makes it through source criticism.

The first method applies to eyewitnesses, so we will go through Peter and for that matter Paul since Paul claims to be a witness.
Well, considering the assassination doesn't even have a contender for an eyewitness, as a comparison I'll run Cicero through the same criteria as he is at least your earliest source.
Chaosborders wrote:
Is the real meaning of the statement different from its literal meaning? Are words used in senses not employed today? Is the statement meant to be ironic (i.e., mean other than it says)?
I think Ehrman actually makes a pretty good case that the first to say they saw Jesus never meant it in a literal sense and that most at that time would have understood it as a vision. I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on that in this section though since it is not set in stone that’s what was originally meant.
You are wise not to. What did Cicero really mean when he wrote about a "glorious banquet"?
Chaosborders wrote:
How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?
This is where Paul already fails. There is no indication at all that he had ever met Jesus while Jesus was alive, thus even if he ran into someone claiming to be Jesus he cannot reasonably assert that it was indeed Jesus risen from the dead and not some lunatic/imposter claiming to be.
Paul is irrelevant here. As I mentioned earlier I'm not arguing Paul was a witness. As for Cicero he doesn't even claim to be as a witness.
Chaosborders wrote:What is more, neither Peter nor anyone else claimed to see the resurrection itself, but rather inferred its occurrence having supposedly seen someone they saw killed walking around again.
Patently false. Peter, as quoted by Luke, directly claims to be a witness...
Quoting Peter, Luke in Acts 3:14-15 wrote:"You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses to that."
Cicero again is a non-starter here.
Chaosborders wrote:
How did the author report?, and what was his ability to do so?
Peter presumably had the ability to report and is said to have done so through speeches and definitely stated it occurred in his letter (though I find no claim to being a witness in said letter, despite a statement that he witnessed the Jesus’ death).
See the quote above regarding Peter claiming to be a witness. Paul also reports Peter was a witness in 1 Corinthians 15. So I have enemy attestation that Peter was a witness.

Cicero wrote a speech which he never delivered in public to be scrutinized by others in the know. Neither was his speech circulated amongst them.
Chaosborders wrote:
Regarding his ability to report, was he biased? Did he have proper time for reporting? Proper place for reporting? Adequate recording instruments?
I can scarcely imagine with someone with more motive to be biased. Either he’d just spent years of his life following around a nobody fraud who just got killed (which rather makes him less than a nobody) or he was a disciple of the Son of God. A host of psychological issues give him incentive towards finding a way to believe the latter.
Back to the issue of bias. Cicero had substantial motive to be biased too. Plenty of power driven motives for Cicero to lie.
Chaosborders wrote:
When did he report in relation to his observation? Soon? Much later? Fifty years is much later as most eyewitnesses are dead and those who remain may have forgotten relevant material.
If Acts is to be believed, it was at least a month after the first appearance. If taken as authentic, the letter is believed to have been written 60 at the earliest, almost three decades after the event was supposed to have been taken place. Acts brings up the question of, if Jesus was resurrected, why did he not prance around in public and make it as clear as possible he was indeed alive? Whereas the letter brings up the question of why Peter does not have any writings that are earlier? Paul wasn’t even a disciple but beat him to the punch? What is more, most biblical scholars argue that it is psuedigraphical and not even written by Peter at all. Even if assumed that it was a disciple of Peter, the earliest date believed for that is 70, over almost four decades after the alleged event, with most arguing for an even later date.
You've got all the same problems for the assassination. It's amazing you don't see it. Cicero doesn't give a detailed account and beats around the bush. Why? If the alleged accusations in Cicero's Second Philippic are true why didn't Cicero get out there and deliver his speech or promote it to everyone? Why aren't there more early writings attesting to the assassination? There were allegedly dozens of senators involved in this monumental event and what do we have? Crickets...Until Nicolaus 60 years later. Then more crickets until Plutarch 115 years later...

Chaosborders wrote:
What was the author's intention in reporting? For whom did he report? Would that audience be likely to require or suggest distortion to the author?
In the case of Acts, to convert people.
Luke wrote to convince Theophilus and possibly others. Acts was a two part book. Luke tells us why he wrote it and where he got his data.
Luke 1:1-4 wrote: Since many people have attempted to write an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were passed down to us by those who had been eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning, I, too, have carefully investigated everything from the beginning and have decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Luke was writing to Theophilus, who had already been taught, so he could be certain. Luke apparently got his data from eyewitnesses.
Chaosborders wrote:In the case of 1 Peter he was reporting to people who already believed and appears to use the resurrection as a backup for his moral exhortation to them. Certainly both cases would require the resurrection, as no one has any reason to convert to the religion he wanted them to or follow the morality he wanted them to without such a momentous act. “Please follow the teachings of the guy who got crucified� just doesn’t have quite the same weight behind it as “Please follow the teachings of the guy who got crucified…then was raised from the dead by God and ascended into heaven.�
Please... as though Cicero had no motive to lie. "Hey, Caesar got into an argument and then a fight with Brutus and in the heat of the moment Brutus killed Caesar" doesn't carry the potential to implicate one's political rivals like "Hey, Caesar was assassinated by some senators. My arch political rival says I was in on it but I wasn't. He was..."

Cicero wrote to defend himself and accuse his rivals. He reported purely for his own benefit. We don't know if Cicero's audience would be likely to suggest distortion because Cicero never publicly delivered his speech to the people that were in a position to know the truth.
Chaosborders wrote:
Are there additional clues to intended veracity? Was he indifferent on the subject reported, thus probably not intending distortion? Did he make statements damaging to himself, thus probably not seeking to distort? Did he give incidental or casual information, almost certainly not intended to mislead?
Not the tiniest bit indifferent. And whatever statements he might have made that seem damaging to himself (if any), he effectively elevated himself from loser nobody to beloved disciple of God. Further, his stated casual information is a being that cannot be proven to exist.
What statements did Cicero make that were damaging to himself? In his Second Philippic he tries to argue he had nothing to do with the death of Caesar while also rejoicing in his death. He tries to make his case he was not an accomplice. Cicero effectively made himself an innocent hero that was on board with it all.
Chaosborders wrote:
Do his statements seem inherently improbable: e.g., contrary to human nature, or in conflict with what we know?
Yes. Dead people do not come back to life. Even if accounting for modern technology and a loose definition of ‘dead,’ they certainly do not come back to life without human intervention.
Dead people have been reported to return to life without assistance after having been pronounced dead in a modern medical facility by qualified medical personnel on several occasions. Further, it conflicts with our general experiences of politicians that dozens of senators would in broad daylight stab the head of state until dead. It's more probable that a head of state would die of natural causes, or at least be killed by accident, than by a stabbing assassination conspiracy involving many people.
Chaosborders wrote:
Are there inner contradictions in the document?
There are at a minimum contradictions between Luke and Acts, believed almost universally as being written by the same person, hurting the credibility of the author as a whole. And 1st Peter, besides being believed by the majority to be pseudigraphical, never seems to actually have Peter claiming to be a witness to the resurrection.
I think if we looked in more detail at those alleged contradictions between Luke and Acts we would find you are over stating your case. As for 1 Peter you are right it doesn't internally claim to be a witness. But I don't need it to. I have Peter's words, as recorded by Luke, claiming to be a witness.

Does Cicero contradict himself? Apparently he does. Cicero can't seem to keep it straight to whom he is addressing his speech in the Second Philippic. Sometimes he is addressing the Conscript Fathers. At one point he's addressing a wise man. At other points it's the immortal gods. At times Cicero is addressing Mark Antony. Cicero is all over the map.

Also, Cicero writes that Antony's accusation was, "'When Caesar was slain,' says [Mark Antony], 'Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name; and congratulated him on liberty being recovered.'" But only a few sentences later Cicero changes what Antony said to, "For thus [Antony] spoke:—'Marcus Brutus, whom I name to do him honour, holding aloft his bloody dagger, called upon Cicero, from which it must be understood that he was privy to the action.'" Cicero can't keep his story straight over the span of even one paragraph for crying out loud!
Chaosborders wrote: Ultimately there seems little reason to accept either document as providing reliable testimony from an eyewitness, and plenty of reason not to.
Ditto then for Cicero.
Chaosborders wrote:Now if these documents, as well as Paul and John were taken to be the accounts of secondary witnesses (still disputed), even if the first question of “On whose primary testimony does the secondary witness base his statements?� could be determined with certainty, and the 2nd and 3rd questions of “(2) Did the secondary witness accurately report the primary testimony as a whole? (3) If not, in what details did he accurately report the primary testimony?� be satisfactorily answered such that it could be considered we actually have the gist of someone’s primary testimony, the reliability of said testimony would still be hurt by the same problems as 1st Peter. In particular, the problems of bias and the inherent improbability of a dead guy coming back to life.
Same for Cicero regarding bias. A dead man coming back to life is only a problem for those that rule it out a priori.
Chaosborders wrote:Given I have seen no academic challenges at all to the reliability of the assassination, I will leave it to you to try and show the documents concerning it as somehow being less reliable than the documents concerning the resurrection.
Done.



Back to John...
Chaosborders wrote:But back onto John, it is at a minimum considered by most to be the result of an oral tradition, so let us see what happens when we run it through the considerations set up for examining oral traditions.
Oral tradition? John internally claims to have been written by an eyewitness. Why are you ignoring this fact?

Your following assessment, using the criteria for oral traditions, of the Gospel of John is irrelevant as you are Begging the Question that it was the result of an oral tradition. So I see little need to address with any seriousness your comments on this matter until you establish with evidence John was the result of oral traditions and not an eyewitness account as it claims to be.
Chaosborders wrote:Broad conditions stated.
The tradition should be supported by an unbroken series of witnesses, reaching from the immediate and first reporter of the fact to the living mediate witness from whom we take it up, or to the one who was the first to commit it to writing.
Many of the scholars do not consider it an unbroken series and believe it to have no direct connection at all, but even if that were assumed to be true:
The Gospel of John internally claims to be a witness. Further, the last chapter affirms it was written by a disciple. If this isn't enough you have argued yourself that Polycarp and Ignatius probably received their data from the witness John. So either way we have an unbroken chain in either the Gospel of John, Polycarp, or Ignatius. Compare this to Cicero or Nicolaus. We don't have any evidence that I'm aware of that there is an unbroken chain of witnesses.

Chaosborders wrote:
There should be several parallel and independent series of witnesses testifying to the fact in question.
Of the hundreds who supposedly saw Christ after his resurrection, and of the thousands who supposedly converted and thus took up the tradition following Christ’s supposed ascension into heaven, we have at most a few ‘series’ of witnesses that can be reasonably stated as independent.
Which is more than we can say for one of the most pivotal events from antiquity - the assassination of Julius Caesar. All we have is one independent source in Cicero. And to make matters worse we don't know where he got his data.
Chaosborders wrote:It does not seem like John firmly meets the broad conditions very well.
He meets it better than Cicero.
Chaosborders wrote:Particular conditions formulated.
The tradition must report a public event of importance, such as would necessarily be known directly to a great number of persons.
Certainly if it happened it can be thought of as one of the most important events to ever occur in human history.
Like the assassination was for the future of the Roman Empire.
Chaosborders wrote:
The tradition must have been generally believed, at least for a definite period of time.
Yet despite the importance it should have had, over 260 years later there were still at most 5-8 million (from The Rise of Christianity page 6) out of over 50 million.

Not exactly 'generally believed' when not even a third of the population believes it after 300 years of 40% growth.
Firstly, I'm puzzled how the logical fallacy of an Appeal to Popularity could be considered a legitimate historical criterion. Which leads me to conclude either the criterion is fallacious or you are misapplying it. Secondly, these types of estimates you've linked us to are extremely speculative. For instance your source says about the city of Alexandria, "[it] was perhaps between 500,000 and 750,000." I'll add that 5-8 million out of 56 million (assuming these numbers are even remotely accurate) by c. 300AD sounds like a lot to me and impressive considering this was accomplished during a period of heavy persecution. At any rate, the tradition was generally believed among those that witnessed it anyway. Which is the only group in a position to know the truth and therefore of any real importance here. Comparatively, outside of the relatively few that would even know about the assassination how many believed the tradition that Caesar had been assassinated?
Chaosborders wrote:
During that definite period it must have gone without protest, even from persons interested in denying it.
Justin Martyr makes clear in his Dialogue with Typhro that there was indeed protest against the resurrection:
but, as I said before you have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilaean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. Moreover, you accuse Him of having taught those godless, lawless, and unholy doctrines which you mention to the condemnation of those who confess Him to be Christ, and a Teacher from and Son of God.


From him we know that Jews were protesting the resurrection, believing it a hoax by the disciples.
This is an odd criterion. Personally, I would of course expect parties interested in denying something to deny that thing and not be surprised when they do. Just as I would expect parties interested in promoting something as true to do so as well. Further, we don't know if this dialogue you've quoted falls in the time frame of a "definite period" because we aren't given that period or explanation for why that particular period is right. At any rate, it's really of no surprise the Jews protested the resurrection and tried to find other explanations. They were protesting Jesus from the start and at every step of the way so this protest from them over the resurrection carries little weight.
Chaosborders wrote:
The critical spirit must have been sufficiently developed while the tradition lasted, and the necessary means of critical investigation must have been at hand.
I see little indication, but if you would like to offer evidence it meets this criteria I would be happy to see it.
John tells us that Jesus' own brothers did not believe in him (7:5). John includes the story of doubting Thomas (20:24-29). Now, please provide the evidence that Cicero for example meets this criteria.

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