Major Shift in Christian Apologetics

[POI]

I'm starting to see this more and more.... Some Christians appear to adopt the idea of the 'minimal facts' approach; as quoted here:

"but one should look at the minimal facts argument by Garry Habermas".

Without getting into the weeds here, I'm going to issue a hypothesis.

For Debate:

All that matters is whether or not a resurrection actually happened. The rest is of little concern. This is because many of these believers now realize much of the claims, which are actually falsifiable in the Bible, have been falsified even to their own satisfaction. Hence, stick to the unfalsifiable, like a claimed rotting corpse rising from his grave, 2K years ago. It's a safe haven for the Christians to stay, and is free from falsification, (contrary to the Biblical claims they now too see as being falsified).

Is this a fair hypothesis? I'm open to adjustment.

[TRANSPONDER]

Habermass put it like this:

Licona begins by listing my three chief Minimal Facts regarding Jesus’
fate: (1) Jesus died due to the process of crucifixion. (2) Very soon afterwards,
Jesus’ disciples had experiences that they believed were appearances of the
resurrected Jesus. (3) Just a few years later, Saul of Tarsus also experienced
what he thought was a post-resurrection appearance of the risen Jesus (pp.
302-3).

I have a problem with what seems to be either flawed or self -serving methods of applying historical method.Firstly by ignoring or pooh -pooing the principle of embarrassment, which seems to be entirely valid. For example, that Jesus was a Galilean not Judean is an embarrassment to the gospels as they have to invent a way of having him born in Bethlehem.

Which is the other point apparently overlooked - the total contradiction of the two nativities, not to mention the total silence of Mark and John on that, other than John in a roundabout way admitting that Jesus should have been born in Bethlehem, but wasn't.

Using this in the crucifixion and resurrection scenario, we find the crucifixion is embarrassing to the gospels(that Rome did it) and they have to come up with a way of blaming the Jews for it, and in a way that historians should see as dubious but it seems, don't. Thus I conceded the embarrassing fact of the crucifixion. The contradictions as in the nativities applies and the 'minimalfacts'here are that Mark doesn't have a resurrection appearance, only the empty tomb claim and the three resurrections contradict and are not to be taken as historically viable.

The paper then goes on to cite I Corinthians as confirmation of the Gospel resurrections. It isn't as it disagrees with the gospels. Thus I argue (and any historian should, if he or she considers it) that the minimal fact is the the Gospel resurrection did not happen and consideration should be given to what this resurrection - belief is in I Corinthians, which I concede as I do accept the earlier letters of Paul. The clue is not in the conversion of James, which seems rather disproof of the Gospels as he should have been one of the the first converts, as an eyewitness, not the last,like a reluctant skeptic going along with the general belief, and 'Belief' is what it was, Paul giving the clue - that it was a belated vision for him.

The selective cherry picking of some aspects and ignoring of others in this minimal facts method makes me see it as either misguided or deliberately deceptive, as much as the supposed 'science' of Behe into trying to fiddle Creation into acceptability is invalid.

I look to see this method equally called out and discredited by historians, if they know their job and do it.

P.s Yes. A bit of a search convinces me that this is yet another deceptive and slipshod and indeed historically invalid attempt to push Christianity. This is the Christian apologetic fad of the month and is dominating the internet, but there are some sources that show the flaws in the method and reasoning that I saw myself, even though i know nothing of this Christians propagandist posing as a historian at Liberty University.

The debunks are there and i could give links. This video takes a while to get to the point, but does in time make the point. Habermass is no historian, his method is flawed, bisaed and faith -driven, deceptive, cherry -picking and invalid, and this flavor of the month religious gimmick will in time join all the other crashed and burned apologetics like morality, Kalam and 'The disciples would not die for a lie'.



It is a valuable watch as it covers (better than I do) a lot of the points I have concluded myself, including that the resurrections of I Corinthians are not necessarily sighting of a risen Jesus walking about to do the job of being a basis for resurrection -belief.

Halfway through Bishop Spong's over complicated take on Simon seeing Jesus is covered. To me it is simpler. The disciples were all downcast that Jesus' mission had failed. Peter got the idea that it actually hadn't - his spirit had gone back to heaven and would come again to do the job properly.We do not need Spong's over -elaborate metaphor of the crucifixion teaching us about God's love.

But it's a good video, covering so many points.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

I don't see much here to respond to, but I do recommend that people look at this short description written by one of our priest on the genre's of the bible.

https://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Bi ... Genres.htm

It is important when discussing the bible and if something that been proven false or not.

Modern biologists classify plants and animals into different classes, orders, families, genus, and species:
they describe each category in detail, and study how one genus or species differs from another
they also consider how each genus or species interacts with and is affected by its environment

Biblical scholars do similar things in classifying each biblical text as part of a certain genre or sub-genre
they describe each genre or form, and study the characteristics that distinguish one form from another
they also consider when and where ancient Jews and/or Christians first used such materials

and just a little bit more of a snippet.

Major Genres within the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament):
Foundational Myths & Legends - stories about the origins of the world, the first generations of humans, or the early years of a nation, intended to provide a foundational world-view upon which people base their communal and individual lives (Gen, parts of Exod, Num, Deut)
Legal Codes - collections of laws and instructions by which the people are to live (Lev, parts of Exod, Num, Deut)
ScrollsGenealogies - lists of inter-relationships between peoples, either of successive generations or of different nations (parts of Gen, much of Num)
Annals - semi-historical narrative accounts of select events in a nation's life, focusing especially upon political and military exploits of its leaders, since usually written under royal sponsorship (Josh, Jdg, 1 & 2 Sam, 1 & 2 Kings, etc.)
Prophetic Books - collections of the oracles or words of God spoken to the people through human intermediaries (prophets) and the symbolic actions they perform at God's direction for the people's benefit (Isa, Jer, Ezek, etc.)
Psalms/Odes/Songs - poetic lyrics of songs/hymns intended for communal worship and/or individual prayer (Ps)
Prayers/Laments - words addressed by people to God, esp. reflecting situations of crisis or lament (Lam)
Proverbs - generalized sayings and aphorisms containing advice on how to live well: "do good and avoid evil" (Prov)
Wisdom Literature - various types of inspirational stories that encourage people to live wisely (Job, Wis, etc.)
Apocalypses - symbolic narratives that interpret historical crises through God's eyes to provide hope for a better future (Dan)

[TRANSPONDER]

Hmmm. Yes, the approach to the Bible, perhaps like any other book or writing or indeed film, influences how seriously we take it.

Take the Narnia and Perelandra books. Entertainment of course, but there is an undercurrent of propaganda. "If you believe in Aslan, you will see in your head, he's real". Plus, the supposed 'wise' are fools, and wicked, too.

Star trek, (then and now ) has projected a social message, or rather two different ones. History has always been supposed to be a record of events (even though we are aware of political Spin) and religious works claim to be telling us about things beyond what we can know, but we can get there by mental connection including Belief.

With the Bible, we have claims made that rather do both, perhaps all three. Claims made about what we can know through belief, historical record to back it up and lifestyle messages, though. as has been shown in a few posts, whether the lifestyle is actually going to save you, when it is the Belief that saves, is perhaps making the last less relevant (though I argue that the lifestyle is intended to enable the saved to stay saved, not forfeit it by sinning).

The salient point seems to me to be the claim and the validity of the claim. I have said and stand by it that 'metaphorically true' means 'Not true at all'. If Genesis never happened and is just admonitions about lifestyle or morals, it is worth no more than Peanuts, or LoR. At best, it is philosophy or social political opinions.

It is on historical validity that the claim falls or stands, and that is the claim of the resurrection. As one poster remarked of the Nativity (after i suppose I showed it was pretty much false) it didn't affect Dogma. Fair point, just as it doesn't affect Dogma if the death(s) of Judas are demonstrably untenable. The Prophecies do have some dogmatic clout as they supposedly show that Jesus was predicted in the OT. But it isn't more than supportive witness statements being thrown into the bin; the basic claim that Jesus was resurrected has to stand or fall on historical validity and no other approach will do.

Faith will not do; trying to prove it through the backdoor with 'the disciples would not have been martyred if it wasn't true' is, in a funny way, appeal to negative evidence. Like "There is no proof of the resurrection, but if those who were there didn't see it, why would they die rather than say they hadn't?" That falls for the reason that has been put - there is not enough reliable evidence to show that they died for any such reason.

It seems to me that the basis and the claim of Christianity is the resurrection, and Christianity stands and falls on that, not on Genesis or ID or denying evolution, or Cosmic origins, which only argue for an intelligent designer, and don't even tell us which one, and even validating the god of the Bible doesn't validate Christianity any more than Judaism or Islam, neither of which accept the resurrection.

It is validating the Resurrection using whatever historical -type assessments we can, that is the only debate that really signifies. The rest is just of peripheral interest.

I'd just add that, like debating any other thing, like astronomy (vs flat earth) Archaeology, vs Flying saucer technology, and science skepticsm vs 'supernatural' (1) claims like anything from Bigfoot to crop - circles, and ghosts to ET alien abduction, the rules of logic and evidence apply. That is, logical fallacies like special pleading, burden of proof, appeal to numbers, shifting the goalposts and presenting the Claim as evidence for the claim should be watched for and the back of the neck stamped on. In which respect I consider the burden of proof does fall on the skeptic to show the Resurrection is not true, not the Believer to show that it is because the "Historical" record is there. Neither do I use 'miracles don't happen' because, they don't, normally, but Christianity -Jesus isn't a normal claim. That said, it is an extraordinary claim and does require some really persuasive evidence.

So if the evidence for the Resurrection looks dodgy, then the Burden of proof swings back to the claimant "Dudes, why should we believe that supernatural claim if there is sufficient doubt that it actually happened?" It requires more than reversed burden of proof - "You can't prove to me that it didn't happen". Because, Denialist Dudes of the Dogmatic Doctrine, it isn't all about you and your Faith.

(1) I mean, claims of a Thing or things, outside what science materialism and naturalism considered true and validated by science. Which excluded unspecified unknowns.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

I don't see much here to respond to

Is my given hypothesis valid? If not, why not?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

I don't see much here to respond to

Is my given hypothesis valid? If not, why not?

Noting? let me guess. This response was always about Denial.

Apologetics of the three kinds-

(1) argue on the evidence (they claim that evidence, history, science and logic supports the Bible oh yes, dudes)

(2) fiddle the evidence, logic and history; dismiss logic as human opinion, science as human opinion and the way the evidence looks as...well, human opinion. This is what we goddless dudes, dudesses and pick your pronoun call in the trade 'faithbased denial'.

(3) sauce. That is unless we get the deep dive: crickets and tumbleweed until the apologist pops up a few weeks later making the same claims and apologetics ll over again.

Our Pal A4G useth the wangle of 'historical uncertainly and debate' to argue that even dubious history should be credited (never mind accepted as lifechanging Faithbased truth). Even if it was valid to give the gospels a pass on historical doubt, that would not validate the Christian claim. The Christian apologist would have to apply flotsam's lever 'you cannot afford to risk not believing it'.

[boatsnguitars]

I'm starting to see this more and more.... Some Christians appear to adopt the idea of the 'minimal facts' approach; as quoted here:

"but one should look at the minimal facts argument by Garry Habermas".

Without getting into the weeds here, I'm going to issue a hypothesis.

For Debate:

All that matters is whether or not a resurrection actually happened. The rest is of little concern. This is because many of these believers now realize much of the claims, which are actually falsifiable in the Bible, have been falsified even to their own satisfaction. Hence, stick to the unfalsifiable, like a claimed rotting corpse rising from his grave, 2K years ago. It's a safe haven for the Christians to stay, and is free from falsification, (contrary to the Biblical claims they now too see as being falsified).

Is this a fair hypothesis? I'm open to adjustment.

Exactly. Anomaly hunters, woo peddlers, Holy men, always find the unfalsifiable area in human life and swoop in. It takes no formal education, no testing, no rigor, no knowledge - all you need to do is create ambiguity in the "marks" mind and then fill it with whatever you're selling.

Gone are the days when most Americans, and/or Christians believe all the Bible. The belief in the Bible is on a steady decline. So, in order to keep the collection plates full they need to circle the wagons and focus on one aspect of their religion that is unique, then claim other religions can't compare (since they've picked the one thing that makes their religion different) - therefore, their religion is superior.

After all, Paul kinda did Christians a dirty when he said, "if we only have hope in Christ in this life, we are to be most pitied of all men." So, Christians have to make people believe Jesus rose from the dead, otherwise, why believe that they will be risen?

Can you imagine? If Christians start claiming that it's not important that Jesus rose from the dead, but that they have Faith they will - it's laughable. Truly pitiful. As it is, if they can convince the 'marks' that Jesus 'most likely' rose (or as WLC says, "have good reason to believe") then they have a fighting chance to convince themselves of their eternal existence in Heaven.

Look at the pictures JW posts. These are childhood-like fantasies of Never Land. If Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, then they are infantile attempts at conning people in the worst way. They are saccharinely grotesque frauds - trying to give hope to desperate people for nothing but their money.

If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, the last 2000 years has been a lie. The Crusades a murderous rampage; the Inquisition an ISIS-like horror show; the cathedrals, prayers, selling of indulgences, the sexual abuse, the wasted Sundays, the guilt, the murder of gay people, the killing of "witches", etc...

All the things done in the name of Jesus were simply wrong. Completely avoidable.

If Jesus rose, they can justify all of it.

[bjs1]

All that matters is whether or not a resurrection actually happened.

I agree with this statement, but I would not use it as an apologetic. That is, I would not argue that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead to someone insists that we can’t prove there is a God. However, from the beginning Christianity has always stood or fallen based on the historical reality of the resurrection.

This is because many of these believers now realize much of the claims, which are actually falsifiable in the Bible, have been falsified even to their own satisfaction.

This seems to be the sticking point of this hypothesis, because without this claim the hypothesis makes very little sense.

I cannot immediately think of any claims in the Bible which have successfully been falsified. Can you give me an example of one – just one – claim from the Bible that has been absolutely and unequivocally falsified. Give your best shot at a claim that you are completely certain has been falsified.

Without that, this hypothesis seems dead in the water.

[boatsnguitars]

However, from the beginning Christianity has always stood or fallen based on the historical reality of the resurrection.

Literally untrue, as documented in the Bible. There were Christians while Jesus was alive. They might not have called themselves that, but they accepted that Jesus was Lord, or divine in some sense, and that he had proved his divinity by walking on water, turning wine into water, raising Lazarus, curing people, etc.

What has happened is the Church has increasingly leveraged the Rez as their main feature - to the point of carving statue after statue of a bleeding man in every church. They figure, other religions have people doing miracles, but they've carved out their market niche as the ones who have a prophet/son of god rise from the dead.

Many Christians are still Christian, though they don't believe Jesus rose from the dead. Most notably Bishop John Shelby Spong:

Bishop John Shelby Spong has a unique view on the resurrection of Jesus; it was not really a resurrection at all as we understand it. In his book, Resurrection: Myth or Reality (1994), he states repeatedly that he believes in the reality of the resurrection; he explains (page 106):
Easter, for me, is eternal, subjective, mythological, nonhistorical, and nonphysical. Yet Easter is also something real to me.

On page 143, he asks:
Did Easter reverse the verdict of Jesus’ death? No, I don’t think so…I think Easter is real, but it is not an event that takes place inside human history.

So, you can still be a Christian and consider Jesus the Son of God, and the Bible a lot of allegory - but you'll see how Fundamentalists feel about that right quick! After all, it's the Fundi's that really drive the bus on Apologetics. Most people are Pew Warriors every Sunday and don't really care about the debate. They just want to live a good life, have a BBQ with their buddy's and raise decent kids. Whether preterism is true or not, or the translation of "virgin" is accurate, etc. are not on their radar.

[TRANSPONDER]

However, from the beginning Christianity has always stood or fallen based on the historical reality of the resurrection.

Literally untrue, as documented in the Bible. There were Christians while Jesus was alive. They might not have called themselves that, but they accepted that Jesus was Lord, or divine in some sense, and that he had proved his divinity by walking on water, turning wine into water, raising Lazarus, curing people, etc.

What has happened is the Church has increasingly leveraged the Rez as their main feature - to the point of carving statue after statue of a bleeding man in every church. They figure, other religions have people doing miracles, but they've carved out their market niche as the ones who have a prophet/son of god rise from the dead.

Many Christians are still Christian, though they don't believe Jesus rose from the dead. Most notably Bishop John Shelby Spong:

Bishop John Shelby Spong has a unique view on the resurrection of Jesus; it was not really a resurrection at all as we understand it. In his book, Resurrection: Myth or Reality (1994), he states repeatedly that he believes in the reality of the resurrection; he explains (page 106):
Easter, for me, is eternal, subjective, mythological, nonhistorical, and nonphysical. Yet Easter is also something real to me.

On page 143, he asks:
Did Easter reverse the verdict of Jesus’ death? No, I don’t think so…I think Easter is real, but it is not an event that takes place inside human history.

So, you can still be a Christian and consider Jesus the Son of God, and the Bible a lot of allegory - but you'll see how Fundamentalists feel about that right quick! After all, it's the Fundi's that really drive the bus on Apologetics. Most people are Pew Warriors every Sunday and don't really care about the debate. They just want to live a good life, have a BBQ with their buddy's and raise decent kids. Whether preterism is true or not, or the translation of "virgin" is accurate, etc.

This is a good point. Not that I credit these miracle claims about Jesus when he was alive, but i do credit that that they bought his messiahship - claim. The message of the gospels is of Faith in Jesus while he was alive. He heals people because they have Faith in him. If they don't have enough Faith, he can't do it and neither can the disciples. Again, I don't believe the stories as they make no sense for people at the time. What 'Faith' could a Roman centurion have had other than Jesus could do healing miracles? He didn't believe in God, the messiah or resurrection. It is all Christian faith transported back into the Jesus story (1). That is the only way it makes sense.

But your point is valid: the focus of Christianity is the resurrection. Sure, belief that Jesus is God, which was something that came later on in Christianity. Originally Jesus was a messiah, but still a man. It was the fact of resurrection that was the Faith that enabled the believer to be saved. That belief was the lottery ticket to salvation. Not deeds, not belief in a young earth and creation, not even in the literal truth of the Bible, and never mind the sinless eternal virgin, but that one fact - resurrection. Christianity does stand or fall on whether that is true and whether one believes it or not.

(1) and Gentiles shown to have more of it than Jews; a Roman centurion for preference, but a Phoenecian woman or a Samaritan will do at a pinch. The lesson is always the Paulinist message of how much more worthy the Gentiles are of being saved than the Jews.