The Case for the Historical Christ

[Paul of Tarsus]

Can we make a case that Jesus really lived? Whatever else you might think of him, the answer to this question is not hard to come up with.

The first and perhaps most commonly cited reason to believe Jesus lived is that we know that the popular majority of New Testament authorities think he lived. So in the same way you can be sure that evolution has occurred because the consensus of evolutionary biologists think evolution happened, you can be sure Christ lived based on what his experts think about his historicity.

Now, one of the reasons New Testament authorities are so sure Christ existed is because Christ's followers wrote of his crucifixion. The disciples were very embarrassed about the crucifixion, and therefore we can be sure they didn't make up the story. Why would they create a Messiah who died such a shameful death? The only sensible answer is that they had to tell the whole truth about Jesus even if it went against the belief that the Messiah would conquer all.

We also have many people who attested to Jesus. In addition to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; we also have Paul and John of Patmos who wrote of Jesus. If Bible writers aren't convincing enough, then we have Josephus and Tacitus who wrote of Jesus, both of whom were not Christians. Yes, one person might write of a mythological figure, but when we have so many writing of Jesus, then we are assured he must have lived.

Finally, we have Paul's writing of Jesus' brother James whom Paul knew. As even some atheist Bible authorities have said, Jesus must have existed because he had a brother.

So it looks like we can safely conclude that Jesus mythicists have no leg to stand on. Unlike Jesus authorities who have requisite degrees in Biblical studies and teach New Testament at respected universities, Jesus mythicists are made up primarily of internet atheists and bloggers who can use the internet to say what they want without regard to credibility. They've been said to be in the same league as Holocaust deniers and young-earth creationists.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #154]
I'm really finding it hard to figure out what your goal is here.

My goal is to ensure folks have em a better understanding.

You've acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of experts accept that Jesus exist.

While pointing out that belief doesn't provide fact.

You yourself said you accepted that a Jesus probably existed.

Only in the sense that I also believe there's a good many Jesus' astrolling about the barrio.

No one here has claimed that Jesus has been "proven" to exist.

I ain't said they did.

Mine is an effort to ensure the observer doesn't equate scholarly belief with fact.

What other rational position is there to debate here?

Some of us've been fussing about premises, arguments based on em, and all such as that.

Hop on in, the water's just right for fishing, or swimming.

[JoeyKnothead]

A very late edit cause I only just now saw how so miserably bad I failed on the quotaters. Oh, and it was horrible too. I had quotaters laying on the side that wasn't even dead yet. Had to shoot em out their misery. Didn't change no words though, othern the slash quote quit quoten's and the like. If y'all're the type, please say a prayer for all the tags that just had to die.

Evaluating the premise is evaluating the argument.

You asked a question, and I answered it directly with supporting material from a relevant and qualified source.

And I responded with my disagreement. I don't need anybody to tell me that a faulty premise brings any conclusions drawn from it into suspicion.

Your one-sentence response here barely acknowledged the material presented by that source...

I don't feel the need to spend me a hundred dollars worth of words when a nickel's worth of em'll suffice.

...certainly failed to address it in any meaningful sense, and left the impression that you possibly didn't even understand it. I guess this is an example of you doing your best at using "a proper, methodical approach."

I found nothing in that referenced material that upends the logic of my position... That faulty premises are apt to lead to faulty conclusions, so might as well set on the premises first.

The Christian presented a careful explanation with supporting material from a relevant source.

I don't doubt folks who're offerred "eternal life" based on their magical beliefs'd think their arguments are extra special.

The fact remains that faulty premises make for faulty conclusions, so we might as well get at the premises first.

You replied with a one-sentence response that failed to address the material.

I'm content with setting that for the observer to decide.

You know what? I'm totally okay with that.

I don't care if ya are or ya ain't, until you give me a reason to think otherwise, I'll continue to assert that faulty premises have em a propensity to produce faulty conclusions, so we might all well set on the premises first.

In evaluating an argument, mine is a step by step approach...
"God ain't him proud ya did that."
[snip the ordering of steps]

Yeah, that's not an argument.

Why heck no it ain't, once ya done snipped out the part that supports that argument.

I guess it's a bit easier to see where the problem is for you. I mean, if that's what you consider an argument, it's little wonder that your reasoning does not cohere with basic textbooks on critical thinking.

Yeah, as if snipping out the support I presented for my argument above is so much better

The Christian relies upon and adheres to contemporary philosophy texts on epistemology and critical thinking, and can properly identify an argument.

The Christian also relies on biblical tales that can't be shown to be true in order to restrict the rights and freedoms of others.

The Christian also snips out one's support for their argument, only to fuss on how it now, magically, ain't it an argument.

You basically wing it, with a wink and an aw-shucks Southern charm¡ªand you call a proposition an "argument."

Accusing me of "winging it" does absolutely nothing to refute my argument, to wit, faulty premises are apt to produce faulty conclusions, so get the premises out of the way to begin with.

It's my position that a proposition set forth in order to then argue about conclusions based on that propostion brings that proposition into the argument.

Yeah, I'm definitely okay with this, too.

And as before, I don't give me nary a hoot about what you're okay with.

If step one, a premise, can't be shown to be true, the rest of the argument falls without my even having to fret em.

Please show the following premise to be true: "Human reasoning is reliable."

Thanks for proving my point.

(Hint: You can't without arguing in a circle.)

And that's why I disagree with your presented "experts" on the issue of arguing against faulty premises.

I understand fretting a premise is upsetting to Christians, because so often their premises are where their arguments fail.

So your response to my criticism is, "Look over here at Christians."

No, it's, "I understand fretting a premise is upsetting to Christians, because so often their premises are where their arguments fail. "

As you present Christians above in support of your arguments, I too present Christians in support of mine.

I probably don't have to point this out to others but that's not a response to my criticism.
...

It is a response, no matter how much you may find it discomforting.

It's called a red herring; most others here probably already know that it's a fallacious attempt to distract people's attention elsewhere.

As I remind readers you refer to Christians in the presentation of your arguments.

As you present Christians as authorities on matters, I present Christians as examples of where beliefs in magical premises - supernaturalism - can produce faulty conclusions.

So no matter the color of the herring, Christian conclusions do smell fishy.

For a really great description and explanation of this fallacy, see Heather Rivera, "Red Herring," in Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy, eds. Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 208-211.

The Christian tries to argue a narrow and specific issue.

And this atheist is doing his best to argue the one:
Faulty premises risk faulty conclusions, so might as well get that part of the argument over with.

You attempt to sidetrack attention to a separate issue.

I endeavor to argue my single argument: Poor premises lead to poor conclusions, so get that out of the way, and there's no need to fuss about conclusions drawn on em.
As you present Christians as authorities to support the idea that fussing about premises should come after all the fussing on conclusions based thereupon, I present Christians who've seen the premise of biblical promises of salvation from a god the Christian can't show exists, and how goofy is that.

In matters of opinion, we're all experts.

I feel pretty good about how the Christian side of this is making out so far.

I have no doubt the Christian'd think their arguments successful, considering they conclude by their belief they'll get em into a Heaven they can't show exists, with a god they can't show exists.

Also, had you not snipped it out, you'da seen where I said engaging in make believe arguments (those built on failed or faulty premises) can be fun, but are, ultimately, arguments about make believe.

Just because I did not include it in the quote, that doesn't mean I didn't see it. Your aw-shucks charming wit wasn't relevant, so I didn't include it in the quoted material.

That's twice now ya've said it, so I meed to just go on and say it...
I'm flattered you find me so charming, but I'm already in a committed relationship and don't wanna do me nothing that'd jeopardize it.

And charm's an attribute that has little to no bearing on my argument:

Faulty premises might just leads us to faulty conclusions, so, ya know, break the premise in two like a fish stick that's too big to stuff in your mouth all at once, and don't bother with the coleslaw ain't Beulah always puts her too much vinegar in anyway.

And I have no idea what "make-believe arguments" are supposed to be. An argument with false premises is nevertheless a real argument.

Premise: Donatello is the best Ninja Tirtle.
Arguments about Ninja Turtles pretty much reside in the land of make believe.

I never said arguments based on false premises ain't arguments. I said that false premises should (or could) be argued before bothering with the concludings based on em.

(It amuses me that you essentially just said, "Make-believe arguments are ultimately arguments about make-believe." Apparently, we need to go over how tautological statements are empty.)

Sometimes I feel the need to use tautology, cause some folks can't see the simple triuth...
Faulty premises are apt to lead to faulty conclusions, so we might as well set on the premises first.

So, it points out how goofy it is that ya hafta keep saying the same thing over and over...

Faulty premises are prone to faulty conclusion, so dispense with the faulty premises, and how bout that.

I have no doubt Christian'd prefer we all address arguments in a manner that provides the Christian comfort.

Again with the red herring, and completely unrelated to what I had said.

I say it does. As you present Christians in defense of your argument, I present em in defense of mine.

In a section of this site that has to do with Christianity & Apologetics.

Maybe you can't bear having the spotlight aimed at your claims and arguments. Fair enough. Okay, so let's look at Christians instead of you.

My ability to do me spotlight bearing has absolutely nothing to do with the veracity of either of our arguments. How many of them herrings have ya caught? Catch ya any blue ones? No? What color then?

My argument remains...
Faulty premises and faulty conclusions look a lot alike, so we can save a bunch of fussing if we just go on and tell how faulty is the premise.

All better?

I think it'd be better if ya quit complaing about how I argue, and set to show how fussing over conclusions drawn from faulty premiaes is superior to just going ahead and setting at the fauty premises to begin with.

Of course, I've promised the mods I wouldn't challenge the "God exists" premise, as come to find out, several Christians were saying that by my doing so, in my methodical way, I was "shutting down debate".
And don't that beat all - a proper analyisis of so many Christian claims shuts down debate.

See? You just keep sidetracking attention toward Christians.

As you present Christians in support of your arguments, I present em in suppoert of mine.

Go ahead and pretend it's not a red herring. Don't forget to click your heels together three times.

That's rich, coming from someone who believes in magical sky people.

Now, with all that out of the way...

Faulty premises lead to faulty conclusions, so we might as well fuss about the premise first, instead of wasting time on the conclusions based on em.
If ya disagree, how come?

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #161]
Dr. William Lane Craig wrote the following statements under the heading, "Rediscovering the Historical Jesus: The Evidence for Jesus", on his website:

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

Before I begin critiquing Dr. Craig's statements, I will first acknowledge my bias is to accept the tentative inference shared by the consensus of expert and professional historians which is that the Jesus described in the NT was probably based on at least one apocalyptic preacher figure who was far less interesting than the character featured in the Gospels. Nevertheless, my purpose here is to evaluate Dr. Craig's statements for the existence of potential reasoning errors regardless of the fact that I am also inclined to believe the authors of the Jesus character from the Bible may have been inspired by a more mundane historical Jesus.

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

This perspective is not entirely unreasonable but would be easily falsified by a single example of a legend that developed in less than a decade. Sure enough, as Dr. Richard Carrier has previously pointed out, the Roswell legends developed almost immediately in 1947 with the newspaper reports of a crashed flying saucer that was discovered in a rancher's field. By the 1980's, the legends developed further to include the alleged recovery of alien bodies at the crash sight. Of course, declassified government documents which emerged decades later have since revealed the flying saucer was a failed test flight of a secret surveillance balloon. Therefore, the Roswell incident appears to falsify the claim that more than two generations would need to pass for legendary development to occur. Then again, I reserve the right to be smarter later if I'm unintentionally misinterpreting or misunderstanding Dr. Craig's statement. If I am mistaken, I fully expect to be subsequently educated accordingly.

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

Almost everyone mentioned in the Roswell legends apart from the extra-terrestrial aliens, from the rancher who first discovered the debris to the military base commander who confirmed a UFO was recovered, were all historical individuals. Are people who passionately believe there were extra-terrestrials at the Roswell crash site justified in believing such creatures were historical because the other characters in the legends were historical?

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

This perspective is also not entirely unreasonable but may be a case of special pleading and a double-standard if Dr. Craig does not grant the same level of confidence to all such stories which have been transmitted through oral cultures including those from non-Jewish/Christian traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Also, I'm wondering if oral cultures needed to reformat and restructure original historical information to make it more easily and reliably transmittable through multiple generations. If so, how much time would have transpired during the trial and error editing process before the cultural leaders were satisfied that the final version of their new oral tradition could be reliably transmitted? Would it take a year, a decade, or multiple decades for the final version of an oral tradition to be developed and quality controlled? How much of the original historical narrative would have been sacrificed or deliberately altered for the sake of making it more orally transmittable? Is it possible for legendary development to have been a prerequisite in the development of an oral tradition since people are more inclined to remember a fantastical tale that has an element of historical truth than a less fantastical historical narrative? Of course, by asking these questions, I'm either inviting criticism of my ignorance regarding oral traditions or exposing a potential oversight in Dr. Craig's line of reasoning. Whatever the outcome, I at least hope to learn something from my inquiry.

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

I could be misunderstanding something here, but circular reasoning seems to inhabit that statement. If the same stories that claim Jesus was a historical person also claim there were eyewitnesses available to restrain the embellishment of the subsequent Christian tradition, then is Dr. Craig essentially suggesting we should believe what the NT says about Jesus being a historical person because of what the NT says about the existence of eyewitnesses? Even if there were eyewitnesses still existing when the oral tradition was first developed, what is the justification for inferring those anonymous people did not make attempts to correct the official historical record but were politely ignored by the apostles who may have understood the value of permitting some embellishment for the sake of making their new oral tradition more easily transmittable? After all, is it not the claim that the apostles supervised the oral tradition about Jesus? Could the "false apostles" the apostle Paul warned Theophilus about have been those anonymous eyewitnesses trying to correct the historical record? I'm not claiming this must have occurred but suggest these are logical possibilities that Dr. Craig should responsibly consider and rule-out before concluding the Jesus story is reliable. Of course, maybe I'm just not aware that these logical possibilities have already been ruled-out somehow. Should this be the case, I'm sure someone will provide me an update shortly.

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

Nearly all the people, places, and events described in the Roswell legends are historically reliable apart from the claim that the wreckage discovered by the rancher and subsequently recovered by the military was from an extra-terrestrial spacecraft. Does Dr. Craig offer the same level of confidence in the Roswell story as he does for the Gospels or is he making a special plea and applying a separate standard for sources that seem to support the historicity of Jesus? Again, if I've unintentionally misinterpreted or misunderstood Dr. Craig's perspective, I'm confident that someone will supply me with the appropriate clarification.

[Goat]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #161]
Dr. William Lane Craig wrote the following statements under the heading, "Rediscovering the Historical Jesus: The Evidence for Jesus", on his website:

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

That is an assumption that helps promote his belief. How can you know that assumption is correct. In fact, legends developing in moldern times, such as 'the election was stolen' shows that is a false claim.

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

How does that assumption show anything? Why should that matter at all. How is that evidence that it is not made up?

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

The gospels are not following Jewish oral traditions, so this point is not relevant.

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

And what restraints are those? Can you show that the eye witnesses were anything more than a claim from Paul? Claims from a third part that there were eye witness is not an eye witness testimony in and of itself.

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

So does gone with the wiind, which entirely fictional. One item that pushes the date of Luke/Acts to be later is the apparent use of Josephus's antiquates as a source. If someone is using a history book as a source, their accounts will agree with that history book

[Goat]

How are you arguing that Tacitus came to refer to Jesus as "Christus" without relying on Christian information? The best I think you can do is claim that some intermediary source learned from the Christians what they believed and passed that to Tacitus, but that doesn't somehow turn into a source independent of Christianity itself. Your argument was that Tacitus wouldn't have been so "dumb" as to rely on a Christian source, but I don't see a way to avoid that. You're making an argument from incredulity based on an assertion that's false on its face.

What other source, other than Christians, would Tacitus have needed to rely on? Even if he relied on Christians, wouldn't that at times yield accurate information? Wouldn't Christians know many details about their religion better than anyone else?

It would lead to accurate information about Christian beliefs. That would not mean the beliefs were accurate

[AgnosticBoy]

How are you arguing that Tacitus came to refer to Jesus as "Christus" without relying on Christian information? The best I think you can do is claim that some intermediary source learned from the Christians what they believed and passed that to Tacitus, but that doesn't somehow turn into a source independent of Christianity itself. Your argument was that Tacitus wouldn't have been so "dumb" as to rely on a Christian source, but I don't see a way to avoid that. You're making an argument from incredulity based on an assertion that's false on its face.

What other source, other than Christians, would Tacitus have needed to rely on? Even if he relied on Christians, wouldn't that at times yield accurate information? Wouldn't Christians know many details about their religion better than anyone else?

It would lead to accurate information about Christian beliefs. That would not mean the beliefs were accurate

You're conflating two issues. Tacitus made a point about belief itself, more specifically, what the Christians believed. It had nothing to do with the validity of the belief.

It seems almost as if you're saying that what the Christians believed wasn't truly what they believed.

[Difflugia]

To make this easier to follow, I've separated your arguments into rhetorical attacks, arguments that are fallacious independent of any evidence, and finally arguments based on the presentation or interpretation of actual evidence.

Rhetorical Attacks:

We have extensive, non-magical, non-theological, non-polemic accounts by historians that we otherwise trust (Livy, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Plutarch).

You’ve got an uphill battle facing you. For it to be “non-magical” using your own contrived standard you would have to show every single reference to the supernatural had a qualifier of “they say” or “it is said” and so on that contextually can’t be shown to not apply to it.

I've been quite consistent that "non-magical" means that the narrator doesn't make truth claims about magic. You may call it "contrived" if you like, but it's a standard that no portion of any New Testament writings, let alone the Gospels, can hope to meet in any meaningful way. You may argue that historiography can be reliable despite failing that standard, but you can't argue that the Gospels and Plutarch (at least) are equivalent when evaluated overall by that standard.

All I have to do to falsify your entire argument using your own standard is produce one counter example.

And as I acknowledge later, you may have done so.

Let’s also be clear you claimed that evidence is “much, much higher quality” than the evidence for Jesus.

To be fair, I included other elements in the list of evidence, but I did make the claim within that context and I stand by it.

Your argument regarding Nicolaus was forced. I didn’t respond to your final post and those arguments in that thread so I will not comment further here. Suffice to say I see here the same kind of circular interpretation I saw in the Nicolaus debate. What I will do, when I have time, is dig that thread up and address your arguments properly.

I look forward to it. Particularly your explanation of what you mean by "forced."

That seems to confirm my earlier suspicion that you had not read Plutarch’s Caesar prior to appealing to him as “non-magical” and “non-theological” evidence for Caesar.

I expect my European History professor might have agreed with you. He already had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, though, about the lack of a proper history department at the predominantly engineering university I attended.

I further suspect what has happened is that you made a claim about the evidence prior to examining the evidence and then attempted to interpret the evidence on the assumption that the claim is true. That much seems pretty obvious.

Nope. It was a general response to a broad question that was at least true in spirit, if not in a narrow, technical sense, based on my recollection of Plutarch. Since I did ask you to pick a narrow claim, I had actually written that in so many words, and (despite whatever else you might believe) I am trying to be fair to both you and your arguments, I wasn't about to move the goalposts that I had set myself, even if I had put them in a technically poor spot. Even so, I don't think that the position is as indefensible as you've tried to present it, even technically.

Funny how you’ve added bits and left bits out. But that tends to happen when one is attempting to force the evidence to fit the explanation.

Projection isn't just a river in Egypt, I see.

You should read Plutarch’s E at Delphi.

Based on the general tone of the rest of your rhetoric, I expect that this was intended as a sleight. I unironically appreciate the suggestion nonetheless.

So let’s have a quick review of Plutarch’s Life of Caesar as a source:

1. It references the supernatural in an historical context on numerous occasions.

It references others referencing the supernatural, anyway.

2. It shows theological undertones.

Is that also how you'd describe the Gospels? As showing "theological undertones?"

3. It is formally anonymous. It doesn’t claim authorship in the body of the text (that’s the same standard that makes the Gospels anonymous).

The anonymity of the texts is only relevant to the Gospels when trying to argue that they're eyewitness accounts. Plutarch doesn't internally claim to be, nor is it ever mistaken for such. Plutarch was important because of what he wrote and if we simply called him "the guy that wrote the 'Lives,'" it wouldn't change how we'd interpret them as history.

It's important whether the named evangelists wrote the Gospels specifically because part of the importance of them as authors is the claim that they're also characters in the stories, either their own or others in the New Testament.

4. It was written somewhere between about 110 and 160 years after Caesar died.

Which is true as far as it goes, but the dating of the Gospels per se comes up specifically in discussions about their reliability as eyewitness testimony, rather than as later compilations from earlier sources.

5. It blatantly reports hearsay (“they say,” “some say,” “it was said,” etc.)

And it "blatantly" reports such as being hearsay, which is the important part.

6. It shows legendary development from earlier accounts such as Nicolaus of Damascus’ Life of Caesar.

The fact that we have earlier accounts to compare with is important.

7. It shows bias.

In the context of the Gospels, simple bias comes up in inerrancy discussions about which specific details can be trusted and nobody regards Plutarch to be inerrant in any details.

8. It contradicts other accounts on various details.

Again, contradiction in mere detail is important to inerrancy discussions. Nobody's trying to assert that Plutarch is inerrant or that minor discrepancies in details are fundamental to arguments about a historical Jesus.

Despite all that. Not only have you appealed to Plutarch but you have gone so far as becoming a Plutarchean apologist defending him as a reliable source for the existence of Caesar. So reliable, in fact, that he helps establish Caesar existence as “almost certain.”

You don’t see just a teensy-weensy double standard in all of this?

Because I sure do.

On the other hand, what I see is a Christian apologist trying to artificially lower the standards that apply to Plutarch so much that even the Gospels and Acts will clear the bar (one with a "teensy-weensy" clearance, as it were).

I'm not arguing for a double standard, but for a single, higher standard.

Fallacious Arguments:

Before we wade into your arguments defending Plutarch it’s important that we gain some background knowledge on him. Without that background knowledge we are in danger of holding false starting assumptions.

Given our background knowledge that Plutarch was a priest who also wrote theological works we ought to expect him to not only report the supernatural but hold supernatural views.

This is the beginning of the straw man you've created out of my argument. My argument has never been that the author can't privately be a believer, but that the persona of the narrator is not credulous of supernatural claims. I've been extremely consistent in this. My argument is that the narrator reports supernatural details in a way that separates them from those uncritically asserted as fact.

I'll try once again to make this clear to, you. An atheist reporting on a prayer meeting can factually and accurately report that a participant claimed to feel a supernatural presence ("one participant claimed to feel the power of the Holy Spirit"). This does not represent a claim that the supernatural genuinely manifested in some way.

If a devout Christian were to report the same events using exactly the same words, the Christian's narrative doesn't become magical itself because the author privately and sincerely believes that the Holy Spirit was a literal part of the prayer experience. The persona of the narrator is still presenting the claims of the source, the participant, as just that: the claims of a source.

If the Christian author (or atheist, for that matter) were to report that the Holy Spirit actually demonstrated Its power to the participants of the prayer meeting, then that is a supernatural claim by the narrator.

Even if you continue to disagree that this distinction is important, the distinction itself is the basis for my claim that you're attempting to disprove.

In short, we have no a priori reason to think Plutarch would be sceptical of a supernatural claim solely on the grounds it was a supernatural claim.

We don't need one. Even if Plutarch were religiously credulous, but merely understood that not all readers shared his faith, reporting supernatural events within the narrative as claims rather than "unwrapped," as it were, is what makes the narrative non-magical.

Furthermore, the style itself isn't dependent on motivation. Again, an atheist and a Christian writing the same words should not, and within my argument are not, treated differently. Even if Plutarch didn't expect his audience to exercise some skepticism of the reported sources (though I still think he did), the style itself is important in maintaining critical separations between the audience, the narrator, the sources, and the events being recounted.

”Now, our friend Apollo appears to cure and to settle all difficulties connected with life, by giving responses to such as consult him; but of himself to inspire and suggest doubts concerning what is speculative, by implanting in the knowledge-seeking part of the human soul an appetite that draws towards the truth; as is manifest from many other things, and from the dedication of the E. For this is not likely to have been done by chance, nor yet by lot only, in settling the precedence of all the letters of the alphabet before the god, did it obtain the rank of a sacred offering and object of admiration: but either those that first speculated about the god saw in it some peculiar and extraordinary virtue of its own, or else they used it as a symbol of some important mystery, and admitted it on those grounds.” – Plutarch, The Letter E at Delphi

Let's assume for the moment that this discourse is completely credulous and written to a religious audience. To again draw upon the example of reporting on a prayer meeting, the atheist and Christian may each go on to write a second report on the same events, but for a polemic purpose and to a different audience.

"After praying to their false god, the Christians each recounted a fanciful experience of divine presence."

"As the participants lifted their hearts to God, the Holy Spirit descended upon them and made Its presence known."

The presence of writings in a different style does not, in itself, supply evidence that the initial reporting (or a report on a different topic) was compromised or contaminated by magical thinking.

Though in a slightly different way, Plutarch did the same thing. Nicolaus attributed dubious beliefs to characters, while Plutarch attributes them to sources, often unnamed ("they say" or "it is said").

You’re 1) circularly assuming Plutarch thought the belief was dubious without any explicit statement in the text,

You're correct that I shouldn't guess at Plutarch's motivations for writing as he did. It doesn't matter, though, whether Plutarch himself believed the stories to be dubious, as long as he wrote in a style that allowed the readers to make such distinctions themselves.

2) badly cherry picking your evidence to make it fit your explanation rather than making your explanation fit the evidence, and 3) glossing over evidence which stubbornly refuses to fit the pattern thereby falsifying your argument.

These should probably have gone back under "rhetorical arguments," but suffice to say that given what my argument actually is, rather than what you've made of it, I don't think that I am doing either.

Plutarch’s use of “they say” and “it is said” is not itself an ipso facto admission of scepticism.

Not personal skepticism, no, but as long as the narrator maintains a distance between the claims of the sources and those of the narrator himself, then the narrative itself remains mundane, even if the sources report supernatural events.

You’re incorrectly arguing that Plutarch is attributing a belief to his sources.

At some point I probably did, so I'll just cop to that and agree that it was incorrect to do so. Plutarch's style, though, allows the reader the latitude of informed skepticism, which is what's important.

In fact, I'd argue that my ability to project my own skepticism onto someone who (if you're correct) was a credulous priest is testament to the unbiased nature of that particular style. Even if Plutarch's lack of bias was imperfect, remember that we're comparing this to things like Matthew 8:14-17 (ESV):

And when Jesus entered Peter's house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

If you're tempted to argue that this distinction is meaningless, reflect on the fact that there are people that will fervently argue that the Gospels were written by men that themselves were eyewitnesses to the events described, while nobody could possibly do so of Plutarch, even if we didn't already know when he wrote.

Rather he is drawing material from his sources.

Yes! Exactly! That he attributes supernatural statements to his sources as such rather than to the narrator is the crux of my argument!

Indeed, his entre biography of Caesar is an exercise in “they said” since he is writing over a century later and drawing on written material of earlier sources (and possibly on oral traditions still in circulation).

Even if it's merely an accident (of conscientious style?), Plutarch is separating the opinions of the sources from the opinions of the narrator.

Without an explicit admission that he does not believe the report the natural understanding is that he is simply introducing a report taken from his source material. When he says “they say” he means more than one person has made the claim. To turn “they say,” “it is said,” etc. into a literary device which is a tacit admission of scepticism meaning something like take what I’m about to say with a very large grain of salt is to take the natural meaning of those terms and argue they mean something that is not only not explicitly stated but is not supported by the evidence.

That skepticism itself, or rather directing the skepticism on the part of the reader, is part of the natural meaning of those terms. When we say such things as "I was told X" or "they said Y," it is usually in a context that implies, "don't shoot the messenger."

A broader sampling of Plutarch’s use of “it is said” shows he often uses this qualifier to introduce material that is not only mundane but is found in earlier written material.

That he qualifies some mundane material isn't evidence that he didn't qualify all supernatural material. Much of the verbosity of your later argument is given to proving that Plutarch also qualified mundane material. Since it doesn't actually affect my argument, I won't worry about it.

Notice an explicit statement of denial and/or an alternate or contradicting view is absent from Plutarch’s use of “they say” when reporting the supernatural events in Caesar. He reports them as though they are part of the narrative like many of the mundane events. Which is not at all surprising given that Plutarch was a priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.

Now you're the one inappropriately attributing motives to Plutarch. Even if Plutarch doesn't know of anyone contradicting such supernatural events, there's no particular reason to think that he believes such events happened, or more importantly, that the narrator persona is presenting the events as historically accurate. The effect is that what the narrator is recounting is accurate. Once again, "they say that Jesus healed the lame" is a fundamentally different statement than "Jesus healed the lame."

Of course he’s quoting other sources. His entire biography of Caesar depends on other sources.

Yes it does.

And Plutarch does offer a theological opinion on their truth, later. It’s a bit you glossed over. We’ll get to that.

And yes we will.

So that we can see how slippery our slope has to be if we're going to consider these stories as magical as the ones in the Gospels, let's look at Matthew 15:30-31:

Great multitudes came to him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others, and they put them down at his feet. He healed them, so that the multitude wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the injured healed, the lame walking, and the blind seeing—and they glorified the God of Israel.

That's the narrator speaking without qualification.

We’ve already seen that Plutarch and your other sources which you haven't dealt with do the same thing.

And there's the slippery slope. Perhaps you would, at your leisure, point us to Plutarch "doing the same thing," in whatever way you wish us to understand that, as declaring that the protagonist of the story supernaturally healed the lame, blind, mute, and maimed.

Besides, “they say” or “some say” or “it is said” without an explicit reference to who those sources are is also speaking without qualification. In fact, it could be seen as worse in that it’s little more than one anonymous source referencing other anonymous sources.

If at some point you'd like to explain why explicit references to unnamed sources makes Plutarch historiographically worse than the Gospels, you're welcome to do so.

That's what we have here. Plutarch is reporting on the legends, but separating them out as perhaps (at the discretion of the reader) requiring skepticism.

Except Plutarch doesn’t say they are legends nor does he explicitly caution his readers to be sceptical. You added those bits.

The separation of the sources from the narrator is the important part to which, as the reader, I am afforded the latitude of evaluating the legendary status of sources without impugning the overall accuracy of Plutarch's historical narrative. That's important.

... which brings us to your Evidentiary Claims, or at least the one that isn't attached to a straw man:

Sometimes when introducing the supernatural Plutarch does not use any qualifier at all but rather asserts the supernatural.

“Among events of man's ordering, the most amazing was that which befell Cassius; for after his defeat at Philippi he slew himself with that very dagger which he had used against Caesar; and among events of divine ordering, there was the great comet, which showed itself in great splendour for seven nights after Caesar's murder, and then disappeared; also, the obscuration of the sun's rays. 5 For during all that year its orb rose pale and without radiance, while the heat that came down from it was slight and ineffectual, so that the air in its circulation was dark and heavy owing to the feebleness of the warmth that penetrated it, and the fruits, imperfect and half ripe, withered away and shrivelled up on account of the coldness of the atmosphere.”

If your argument held water we would expect Plutarch to interject some qualifier such as “it is said” or “they say” right around the point where he introduces the supernatural. We don’t see that, therefore your argument holds no water. What we see is Plutarch asserting these events as divine ordering which he contrasts with the preceding events of man’s ordering.

On a closer reading, I'm actually willing to concede that Plutarch is attributing to divine providence some of the events (but only such events) surrounding the assassination of Caesar. I'm starting to think that you might be right and nearly all of the actual details themselves about the assassination of Julius Caesar are potentially legendary.

”But the authorial persona can also be used to create an (equally reassuring) buffer zone of scepticism between 'what is reported' and the reader. It speaks the language of reason, of conjecture and probability and calculation (e.g. 2.31). It proposes rationalistic, physical explanations for the marvellous phenomena of legend and travellers' tales (e.g. 2.24-28).”

We see Plutarch do the opposite. We see Plutarch take natural phenomena and propose supernatural explanations with theological implications. We’ll get to that too.

And Caesar's assassination is exactly the set of details (and the only set of details in the Life of Caesar) to which Plutarch attaches his "theological implications."

In that sense, then, with the positions presented in absolute terms, you've won the debate by providing "one counter example."

It still doesn't offer much room for comparison with the Gospels, but I'll acknowledge that Plutarch was probably a theist of some stripe and concluded Caesar with a theological comment on his murder.

[Goat]

How are you arguing that Tacitus came to refer to Jesus as "Christus" without relying on Christian information? The best I think you can do is claim that some intermediary source learned from the Christians what they believed and passed that to Tacitus, but that doesn't somehow turn into a source independent of Christianity itself. Your argument was that Tacitus wouldn't have been so "dumb" as to rely on a Christian source, but I don't see a way to avoid that. You're making an argument from incredulity based on an assertion that's false on its face.

What other source, other than Christians, would Tacitus have needed to rely on? Even if he relied on Christians, wouldn't that at times yield accurate information? Wouldn't Christians know many details about their religion better than anyone else?

It would lead to accurate information about Christian beliefs. That would not mean the beliefs were accurate

You're conflating two issues. Tacitus made a point about belief itself, more specifically, what the Christians believed. It had nothing to do with the validity of the belief.

It seems almost as if you're saying that what the Christians believed wasn't truly what they believed.

No, not at all What I am saying is that just because the Christians believed it doesn't mean it was a historical event.

[historia]

legends developing in moldern times, such as 'the election was stolen' shows that is a false claim.

the Roswell incident appears to falsify the claim that more than two generations would need to pass for legendary development to occur

I think you guys both misunderstood Craig's first point. He didn't say that this was too short a timeframe for any legendary development to occur, but more precisely:

There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts.

The examples you both gave actually bolster Craig's point, as the historical facts of the downed Air Force balloon in Roswell and the actual results of the 2020 American Presidential election are still known to us.

More broadly, though, it's not a good idea to compare examples between the ancient world and modern times. Obviously, the advent of printing and now the Internet allows information to spread more quickly -- as well as to be better retained -- than in the first century.

Are people who passionately believe there were extra-terrestrials at the Roswell crash site justified in believing such creatures were historical because the other characters in the legends were historical?

No, but this is also not Craig's second point, which again was this:

The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends."

The belief that an alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell is also not analogous to a folk tale or urban legend. That doesn't, in turn, make it true, of course. It just means it didn't develop in that particular way.

I'm wondering if oral cultures needed to reformat and restructure original historical information to make it more easily and reliably transmittable through multiple generations.

Perhaps, but the canonical gospels were written within a generation of Jesus, not multiple generations.

How much of the original historical narrative would have been sacrificed or deliberately altered for the sake of making it more orally transmittable? Is it possible for legendary development to have been a prerequisite in the development of an oral tradition since people are more inclined to remember a fantastical tale that has an element of historical truth than a less fantastical historical narrative?

Let me again point out that these questions seem a bit sideways to Craig's third point:

The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

I don't think any scholars -- including conservative Christian scholars -- think that the order of the teachings in the gospels (they differ, especially between Matthew and Luke) reflect the actual order in which Jesus taught them.

In fact, it seems likely Jesus repeated his teachings often, perhaps with significant variation. So, they have clearly been "reformatted" and "restructured" in the gospels. But that doesn't seem to be your concern here.

I could be misunderstanding something here, but circular reasoning seems to inhabit that statement. If the same stories that claim Jesus was a historical person also claim there were eyewitnesses available to restrain the embellishment of the subsequent Christian tradition, then is Dr. Craig essentially suggesting we should believe what the NT says about Jesus being a historical person because of what the NT says about the existence of eyewitnesses?

That this argument seem a bit "circular" is, I would suggest, largely a byproduct of your importing Craig's article into a thread about the historicity of Jesus, when that really wasn't the context of his work.

His fourth point largely already assumes -- as you have yourself -- that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the primitive Christian sect was founded by him. It's hard to explain why Christianity exists at all if there weren't people who witnessed what Jesus said and did.

Nearly all the people, places, and events described in the Roswell legends are historically reliable apart from the claim that the wreckage discovered by the rancher and subsequently recovered by the military was from an extra-terrestrial spacecraft. Does Dr. Craig offer the same level of confidence in the Roswell story as he does for the Gospels or is he making a special plea and applying a separate standard for sources that seem to support the historicity of Jesus?

As with the second point about folk tales, it seems to me you're reading too much into Craig's argument here.

With this fifth point, he is not saying -- as you seem to imagine -- that, because an account contains historically accurate information, therefore everything it says is true. Rather, he's trying to argue that our disposition toward the gospels should be one of "innocent until proven guilty" -- that is, accurate unless we have good reason to think it is inaccurate -- rather than the other way around, as some skeptical scholars would have it.

In other words, we should not simply dismiss the gospels out-of-hand as pure fabrications for the reasons (all of them together, not just individually) he's given. That does not logically entail the further claim that everything they say is therefore true.

[Difflugia]

Perhaps, but the canonical gospels were written within a generation of Jesus, not multiple generations.

I'm not arguing with this (or anything else in your post), but to clarify your point:

1. What's the ballpark date you're using for the authorship of the Gospels?
2. How are you thinking of a generation?