Origins Of Christianity

[DBT]

Yeah sure... but where's the conflicting argument to Christianity? Thousands of years before "predating Buddha " Christianity tells us 'Good verus evil' (to do good) existed then, and acknowledges this was long before Christianity too.

It sounds like you are going back to Judaism, but doing things like mass murder of babies and kittens isn't "good."

Or maybe you mean...the ancient Hebrews or ancient Israelites, or... can we technically say ancient Hebrew-ism before there was Judaism?

Mass murder of babies e.g.. sacrificing babies to Molech or Baal was quite normal for many nations back then - Gods enemies in defiance.

That is not good,says God.

We 'should comprehend' the simple 'conceptual understanding' that an 'All Mighty God' should be able to see this...as a continuous generational abomination far into the future. For these particular nations who defied God in this way, have been judged - they no longer exist, sacrificing babies.

As described, we have God killing people and ordering slaughter and genocide.

Sure, I can speak your lingo. God kills people as do judges in your Western civilization. Is it murder?

As described in the bible, "kill them all," women, children.....yes it is, it is murder.

 

[steve_bank]

The biggest threat historically to Christians were not atheists or Muslims, it is other Christians.

European wars of religion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe during the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries.[1][2] Fought after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, the wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic countries of Europe, or Christendom. Other motives during the wars involved revolt, territorial ambitions and great power conflicts. By the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Catholic France had allied with the Protestant forces against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy.[3] The wars were largely ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which established a new political order that is now known as Westphalian sovereignty.

The conflicts began with the minor Knights' War (1522–1523), followed by the larger German Peasants' War (1524–1525) in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation against the growth of Protestantism in 1545. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany and killed one third of its population.[2][4] The Peace of Westphalia broadly resolved the conflicts by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.[5][6] Smaller religious wars continued to be waged in Western Europe until the 1710s, including the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651) in the British Isles, the Savoyard–Waldensian wars (1655–1690), and the Toggenburg War (1712) in the Western Alps.[2][7]

Learner's having a Portmanteau, non Catholic, Chrtianity today is based on war between Christians.

Wherever the BritS, French, Spanish, and Portuguese went along went their priests. forcing Christianity on population, cultural genocide and subjugation through religion.

In the 19th and 20th centuries Christians took Native American kids by force from parents to be raised in Christian boarding schools. Forbidden to use their language and traditions.

There are people in the PNW today who lived through it.

Still a sore pint in the PNW. Mass graves of kids have been found at school sites.

The issue is not really the oral failings of Christianity. It is about Certainty peung to have a god mandated morality to be forced on others in the name of the god. A morality based on an act scripture filled with moral facings under he god. Genocide is one of them.

The old atheist boogeyman out to destroy god.

Learner has it bass ackwards. Atheists resist having to conform to the Chrsitian moral nonsense.

When Christians say our god exists and you are veil, we proceed to show it all to be nonsense.

Protestants do not like the idea of a Catholic pope telling what to do.

Atheist don't like ether Protestants or Catholics presuming a moral authority.

If Christians were not o intrusive atheist wooed not care about Chrtianity.

An ongoing issue abortion and birth control.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Yeah sure... but where's the conflicting argument to Christianity? Thousands of years before "predating Buddha " Christianity tells us 'Good verus evil' (to do good) existed then, and acknowledges this was long before Christianity too.

It sounds like you are going back to Judaism, but doing things like mass murder of babies and kittens isn't "good."

Or maybe you mean...the ancient Hebrews or ancient Israelites, or... can we technically say ancient Hebrew-ism before there was Judaism?

Mass murder of babies e.g.. sacrificing babies to Molech or Baal was quite normal for many nations back then - Gods enemies in defiance.

So when Yahweh murdered babies and kittens he was just acting morally like all the other gods of the region.

So, to understand your moral clarity. Am I understanding correctly that when for example: people in court are sent to death for murder or when for example the allies in WW2 dropped bombs on Germany as retaliation, or, just any sort of killing,regardless of whether it be in self-defence or plain rivalry...
...do you mean killing, the ending of a life are ALL equal to murder?

There is a clear moral difference between self-defense or resisting a fascist regime intent on genocide, and what the Bible describes in certain passages—such as the deliberate killing of infants and animals. For example, in 1 Samuel 15:3 Yahweh commands: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” This is not an act of necessity, nor is it defensive; it is commanded extermination.

If, as you say, “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), then it is hard to avoid the question of why an omnipotent being could not achieve its goals without slaughtering children and animals. By contrast, humans in WWII had limited power, limited foresight, and limited options—whereas the biblical deity is said to have none of those limitations.

Even if one wanted to frame Israel’s wars as territorial defense (which is doubtful—see Deuteronomy 7:1–2 where land conquest is the motive), there is no necessity in commanding genocide or infanticide. An all-powerful being could surely devise a way for adults to face consequences for their choices without extending that punishment to babies and livestock.

Simply...
...I don't agree with your anti-god atheistic perspective,

It isn’t about having an “anti-god” perspective; it is about evaluating moral claims on their own terms. You suggested that the morality of the Hebrew Bible predated Buddhism as though this were a point in Christianity’s favor. Yet the moral content of those texts, judged plainly, often falls short of even ordinary human standards. That isn’t atheism—it’s critical moral reasoning. Anyone, regardless of belief, can read those verses and ask whether they reflect justice or cruelty.

hence naturally, by your applying murder to God...just renders your response, a foreign conception and language I can't really reply to, in the same way or opinion that you purposely like God of the bible to be.

If you cannot reply to it, that in itself shows the moral tension. You attempted an analogy with WWII and with self-defense, but those situations fall apart once you consider divine omnipotence. The biblical texts themselves describe Yahweh ordering the death of innocents—not merely allowing it under tragic necessity. That’s not my “foreign conception”; that’s what the verses say. Pointing it out isn’t atheism, it’s consistency. And readers here who use reason will see that trying to dismiss the critique rather than addressing the actual moral problem only reinforces the point.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

two layers. First, in general: when a text’s language, genre, argumentation, and manuscript history are fully explained by ordinary human processes, there is no remaining explanatory gap that requires a non-human cause. Second, in the specific case where Paul uses “not of human origin” to ground authority over rivals

When the issue is human understanding, the issue is entirely a matter of human processes. Obviously. There can be gaps in understanding, but those are human gaps in understanding which can be explained as gaps in human understanding. To put it another way: Your original argument is trivial if of any significance at all.

Now, with regards to the matter of "ground[ing] authority" (since you seem to think you have made some important point concerning that matter), all arguments which include appeal - as distinguished from mere reference - to authority (which can mean experts and their expertise), meaning all arguments which appeal to authority in the demanding deference sense, are, in and of themselves, deficient. All arguments which appeal to/rely on the understandings of experts are, in and of themselves, deficient, because the mere reportage of - as distinguished from reference to - what experts say they understand is an appeal to authority.

Reference to what experts say they understand or think is legitimate as a way to invite or introduce consideration of the expressed expert understanding. In effect, reference refers to a tangent which, were it to be pursued, is expected to loop back as formative and supportive of the argument actually being presented. Such a mere reference is not sufficient to render an argument as dispositive. That is to say that mere reference to expertise is not an appeal to authority (in the demanding deference sense).

An argumentative appeal to - a reliance on - authority/expertise for the purpose of demanding or effecting deference is deficient in precisely the way that a mere reference to authority/expertise is deficient. Both, in themselves, fail to bother with the content of what is being treated as relatively expert understanding; both fail to bother with testing/consideration of the reported understanding.

Just because an argument which relies on invoked authority/expertise for the purpose of demanding or effecting deference is, in itself, inherently deficient, does not mean that the presenting of such an argument is always inappropriate. As but one example of how such a deficient argument can be appropriate, there are occasions in which time is of the essence, meaning there is not enough time to warrant pursuit of the development of an understanding about expert understanding which itself would properly entail testing and assessing the expert understanding and its development. Another example would be the case of an encounter with a recalcitrant interlocutor where that recalcitrance prevents reaching a needed decision (regardless of whether the interlocutor is recalcitrant out of sheer obstinacy or because of a contemporaneous limited capability).

An argument which seeks deference by simply invoking authority/expertise can be situationally appropriate, but It is always deficient. Such an argument is also necessarily deficient as a result of being unconcerned with the understanding of the interlocutor(s).

The argumentative invoking by Paul of Paul's authority as Paul's (relative) expertise is on par with other arguments which rely on invoked authority/expertise for the purpose of demanding or effecting deference. Paul might/could say that he has authority/expertise because he had been divinely inspired, but, as Hazel Motes says in Wise Blood, "That ain't anything but a way to say something. ... It wasn't nothing but a way to say a thing." If pressed appropriately, Paul would eventually (have to) acknowledge that his expertise can only be identified with his understanding and with his expression of his understanding, both of which are matters of - and subject to - challenge, testing, and development, which is always human development.

Even then, Paul could say appropriately that it is appropriate for him to invoke his inspiration experience because that phraseology is effective for getting his audience's attention since that is the sort of expression his audience expects/demands. And Paul could even acknowledge that the phrasing might be interpreted as intended only to insulate him from any challenges to his understanding when, in his mind, what he was doing was vehemently warning - in the expected rhetorical fashion - that the perspective of his rival(s) could not sensibly be held together with at least some of the critically important points Paul had been preaching - such as love for the neighbor/stranger, let us say. That way of regarding the rival viewpoint(s) is charitable, because it could be that the rival viewpoint at issue was - let's just say - idiotic, and the most difficult engagements are often those wherein the opposing person does not have a well-formed or well-considered argument.

Objection! Speculation!

Well, first of all, understanding - certainly human understanding - is impossible without speculation. So, one should only object to speculation for being speculation if one is disinterested in understanding. But, of course, if one is genuinely disinterested, it is not immediately fathomable why one would bother objecting. Regardless.

Secondly, is that speculation about Paul charitable? Certainly. Then there is this question: Is the objection that the speculation is or might be excessively charitable? That would not be much of an objection, because that extended charity simply opens up multiple possibilities rightly taken into account essentially concurrently. Among those possibilities are the question of whether Paul was ever engaged with anyone adept at being able to question/challenge Paul's understanding/expression. Another possibility would have to take into account that part of what Paul was trying to do was establish a manner of expression that would best convey understanding and lend itself to a furthered development of understanding.

To put all of this another way: The commandment against taking God's name in vain as it has been explicated during this discussion warns that all arguments which invoke authority/expertise are, in and of themselves, poor, deficient arguments - not least because they lend themselves towards disinterest in understanding.

 

[steve_bank]

How do we know Paul was inspired by god? Because he (allegedly) said so.

How do we know Trump knows more than anyone else? Because he said so on camera.

Elaborate convoluted academic looking theology serves to hide the basic truth, there is no objective evidence from 2000 years ago of exactly who an historical Jesus may have been or Paul for that matter

The 2000 years of Christian theology is from human imagination.

We see a perfect example in how Pearl posts a series of dissertations coming from hi imagination, and some creative license.

He could fill books with it, maybe he has.

It all comes down to believing in he old tales of supernatural events on faith with no objective evidence.

You either believe or you do not. If you do the rest is hand waving and reinforcing faith for which there is no evidence.

There were several threads on philosophy forum on objective versus subjective evidence.

I do not think we have heard Pearl state exactly what he believes.,

Given Christian theology and all the variations I can only guess which one unless he states his version.

I am wondering if he si using AI. He is posting a lot of words.

 

[NoHolyCows]

When the issue is human understanding, the issue is entirely a matter of human processes. Obviously. There can be gaps in understanding, but those are human gaps in understanding which can be explained as gaps in human understanding. To put it another way: Your original argument is trivial if of any significance at all.

Now, with regards to the matter of "ground[ing] authority" (since you seem to think you have made some important point concerning that matter), all arguments which include appeal - as distinguished from mere reference - to authority (which can mean experts and their expertise), meaning all arguments which appeal to authority in the demanding deference sense, are, in and of themselves, deficient. All arguments which appeal to/rely on the understandings of experts are, in and of themselves, deficient, because the mere reportage of - as distinguished from reference to - what experts say they understand is an appeal to authority.

My argument is not about “gaps in understanding”; it is about causal attribution. When a text’s language, genre, argumentation, and transmission are fully accounted for by ordinary human processes, there is no remaining explanatory work for a non-human cause to do. That is not trivial; it is the basic rule of responsible inference. Paul’s “not of human origin” is a positive causal claim. If the observable artifacts require no extra cause, the rational conclusion is that the extra cause is unwarranted, regardless of anyone’s inner “understanding.”

Then by your own standard, Paul’s use of origin language is deficient when deployed to demand deference. He does not merely reference others’ opinions; he stakes his directives on “received from the Lord,” “not from men,” and he anathematizes contrary gospels. That is the very definition of an appeal meant to compel assent. If such appeals are intrinsically deficient, the origin claim has no legitimate force in adjudicating doctrine or practice. What remains is to weigh his counsel on reasons accessible without that claim—which is exactly my approach.

Reference to what experts say they understand or think is legitimate as a way to invite or introduce consideration of the expressed expert understanding. In effect, reference refers to a tangent which, were it to be pursued, is expected to loop back as formative and supportive of the argument actually being presented. Such a mere reference is not sufficient to render an argument as dispositive. That is to say that mere reference to expertise is not an appeal to authority (in the demanding deference sense).

An argumentative appeal to - a reliance on - authority/expertise for the purpose of demanding or effecting deference is deficient in precisely the way that a mere reference to authority/expertise is deficient. Both, in themselves, fail to bother with the content of what is being treated as relatively expert understanding; both fail to bother with testing/consideration of the reported understanding.

Agreed: mere reference can be heuristic; it is not dispositive. But Paul’s origin claim is not a neutral citation to stimulate thought. It is invoked to settle disputes and to underwrite commands. That is not a “tangent”; it is a warrant. And once it functions as a warrant, it must carry independent, public support or it collapses into assertion.

On this we fully agree. Content must be tested on its own merits. That is what I have done: I have treated Paul’s letters as human arguments and shown that everything we can inspect—concepts, rhetoric, practical directives, the way the texts were copied—has ordinary human explanations. Once the content is assessed on those grounds, the origin claim is redundant if the arguments succeed, and powerless if they fail. It neither adds evidential weight nor rescues weak reasoning. Your own analysis of authority therefore leads to my conclusion: evaluate Paul’s ethics and theology as human work; set aside “not of human origin” because, when used to demand deference, it is deficient, and when stripped of that role, it is evidentially idle.

Just because an argument which relies on invoked authority/expertise for the purpose of demanding or effecting deference is, in itself, inherently deficient, does not mean that the presenting of such an argument is always inappropriate. As but one example of how such a deficient argument can be appropriate, there are occasions in which time is of the essence, meaning there is not enough time to warrant pursuit of the development of an understanding about expert understanding which itself would properly entail testing and assessing the expert understanding and its development. Another example would be the case of an encounter with a recalcitrant interlocutor where that recalcitrance prevents reaching a needed decision (regardless of whether the interlocutor is recalcitrant out of sheer obstinacy or because of a contemporaneous limited capability).

An argument which seeks deference by simply invoking authority/expertise can be situationally appropriate, but It is always deficient. Such an argument is also necessarily deficient as a result of being unconcerned with the understanding of the interlocutor(s).

Pragmatic shortcuts do not generate truth. In emergencies, deference to technical authority can be a practical necessity for safety, but it carries no probative force about extraordinary causal claims. Paul’s appeals are not triage decisions; they are doctrinal and historical assertions—“not of human origin”—advanced to settle disputes and fix practice. That context is precisely where we must not substitute deference for evidence. Even if “invoked authority” were situationally expedient, it still leaves the origin claim evidentially empty. Expedience is not verification.

Then the consequence follows: Paul’s revelation language cannot bind anyone outside a prior commitment to it. If an appeal-to-authority is “always deficient,” it cannot carry a non-human origin across the finish line in public reasoning. What remains is to test his counsel on reasons and outcomes available to everyone. On those terms, the letters are fully human: standard Koine epistles, familiar rhetorical moves, ordinary social regulation, and a normal hand-copied transmission with the expected variability. The ideas can be weighed; the appeal to revelation contributes no evidence.

The argumentative invoking by Paul of Paul's authority as Paul's (relative) expertise is on par with other arguments which rely on invoked authority/expertise for the purpose of demanding or effecting deference. Paul might/could say that he has authority/expertise because he had been divinely inspired, but, as Hazel Motes says in Wise Blood, "That ain't anything but a way to say something. ... It wasn't nothing but a way to say a thing." If pressed appropriately, Paul would eventually (have to) acknowledge that his expertise can only be identified with his understanding and with his expression of his understanding, both of which are matters of - and subject to - challenge, testing, and development, which is always human development.

Even then, Paul could say appropriately that it is appropriate for him to invoke his inspiration experience because that phraseology is effective for getting his audience's attention since that is the sort of expression his audience expects/demands. And Paul could even acknowledge that the phrasing might be interpreted as intended only to insulate him from any challenges to his understanding when, in his mind, what he was doing was vehemently warning - in the expected rhetorical fashion - that the perspective of his rival(s) could not sensibly be held together with at least some of the critically important points Paul had been preaching - such as love for the neighbor/stranger, let us say. That way of regarding the rival viewpoint(s) is charitable, because it could be that the rival viewpoint at issue was - let's just say - idiotic, and the most difficult engagements are often those wherein the opposing person does not have a well-formed or well-considered argument.

Exactly. “A way to say a thing” is rhetoric, not evidence. Expertise is established by demonstrable knowledge, explanatory power, and independently checkable consequences—not by asserting a special pipeline to the divine. If Paul’s “expertise” reduces, as you concede, to his understanding and its expression, then it must be assessed by human criteria alone. On those criteria, nothing in the letters requires a non-human source. The origin claim adds no discriminating, testable content; it neither upgrades sound arguments nor rescues weak ones. Your own framing therefore lands where I have been from the start: evaluate Paul’s ethics and theology as human work, and treat “not of human origin” as evidentially idle whenever it is invoked to demand deference.

If “not of human origin” is attention-getting rhetoric tailored to audience expectations, then you’ve conceded my point: it’s strategy, not evidence. Dressing a claim in expected piety does not transform it into a public warrant. Whether Paul warned vehemently or thought rivals were confused is irrelevant to the truth-value of the origin assertion. Even if his opponents were incompetent, their weakness does not make a non-human cause more likely. What we can actually inspect—his language, argumentation, and the hand-copied transmission—remains fully human. Invoking revelation to “insulate” a view from challenge is precisely what disqualifies it from adjudicating doctrine in public reasoning.

Objection! Speculation!

Well, first of all, understanding - certainly human understanding - is impossible without speculation. So, one should only object to speculation for being speculation if one is disinterested in understanding. But, of course, if one is genuinely disinterested, it is not immediately fathomable why one would bother objecting. Regardless.

Secondly, is that speculation about Paul charitable? Certainly. Then there is this question: Is the objection that the speculation is or might be excessively charitable? That would not be much of an objection, because that extended charity simply opens up multiple possibilities rightly taken into account essentially concurrently. Among those possibilities are the question of whether Paul was ever engaged with anyone adept at being able to question/challenge Paul's understanding/expression. Another possibility would have to take into account that part of what Paul was trying to do was establish a manner of expression that would best convey understanding and lend itself to a furthered development of understanding.

To put all of this another way: The commandment against taking God's name in vain as it has been explicated during this discussion warns that all arguments which invoke authority/expertise are, in and of themselves, poor, deficient arguments - not least because they lend themselves towards disinterest in understanding.

Speculation about motives is not a substitute for evidence. You are free to imagine why Paul said what he said; I am asking what independently corroborates his origin claim. There is none. Motive stories do not create discriminating markers that separate a divine cause from ordinary authorship and polemic.

Interpretation requires hypotheses, yes, but responsible inquiry distinguishes hypothesis from proof and tests claims against public data. Speculation is a starting point; evidence is the finish line. Your account never crosses that line. You keep the origin claim in the realm of untestable psychology and then try to use it to settle disputes. That move fails on methodological grounds.

Charity means steelmanning, not inventing just-so intentions to shield a claim from scrutiny. Multiple possibilities about how Paul felt or whom he faced do not alter the observable record. The letters remain standard human artifacts; the manuscript tradition shows ordinary variation; the arguments operate within known rhetorical conventions. None of that changes because we posit that Paul was optimizing “a manner of expression.” Even if true, it confirms the point: he was a human communicator using human tools, not a case study in verifiable non-human causation.

Then the conclusion is unavoidable. If arguments that invoke special authority are inherently deficient, Paul’s revelation language cannot carry evidential weight in public judgment. That leaves his counsel to stand or fall on human reasons alone. Judged that way, his letters show only human fingerprints and require no extra cause. Therefore, take what is defensible in his ethics and theology as human work, and treat “not of human origin” as a rhetorical flourish with no probative force.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

My argument is not about “gaps in understanding”; it is about causal attribution.

Inspiration - including divine inspiration - does not cause understanding. Understanding refers to a response - even when there is not one. If there is no response, there is no understanding about that to which there might otherwise have been a response.

Paul's claim that he was divinely inspired is not a claim that his understanding was divinely produced. Paul's understanding was "caused" by Paul. Paul is responsible for his understanding because his understanding is his response produced by him.

When a text’s language, genre, argumentation, and transmission are fully accounted for by ordinary human processes, there is no remaining explanatory work for a non-human cause to do.

So what? We're right back at - or still stuck on - the point that human understanding is human-caused.

Paul’s “not of human origin” is a positive causal claim.

Nope. His understanding is his response to an experience. The fact that you remain always focused on that to which Paul was responding fully explains without gaps why you never bother to begin trying to understand Paul's understanding expressed in his preaching of the alleged good news. Do you have experience-envy? Is that it? You need to have that experience in order to begin to understand how Paul's understanding is a response to inspiration? More on that possibility below.

If the observable artifacts require no extra cause, the rational conclusion is that the extra cause is unwarranted, regardless of anyone’s inner “understanding.”

No. The rational conclusion is that the actuality of the inspiration and the actuality of the divine in "divinely inspired" are not indubitable. And a rational response to that is to seek to develop an understanding about the understanding at issue, including the development of that understanding as well as even subsequent developments.

Then by your own standard, Paul’s use of origin language is deficient when deployed to demand deference.

Given my previous remarks acknowledging how it can be appropriate to make use of inherently deficient appeals to authority in an attempt to effect or demand deference, I am going to change slightly the context/perspective of the above cited statement for the purpose of further explication.

Personally, my immediate intellectual and emotional inner-self response would be one disfavoring such a use by Paul of an inherently deficient appeal. But, there is some solace to be had in the fact that, while an appeal to authority can impede the development of understanding, an appeal to authority is not necessarily sufficient to preclude the development of understanding.

Now, if Paul and I were having a private discussion, any appeal to authority on his part would be shot down not only for being inherently deficient but especially for being situationally inappropriate. If that appeal to authority were to come at the beginning of a discussion - that would be one thing. If that appeal to authority came well into a discussion, that appeal could indicate a limit reached in the development of Paul's understanding about my understanding - whether because of Paul's own limitations at the time or because of limits to my own contemporaneous expressive capabilities despite the fact that I regard the constant re-casting of expressions as being of very great importance. Of course, that re-casting is itself dependent on the ability to imagine still additional possibilities, and sometimes realizing those possibilities does not occur until after a discussion has ended.

Paul’s origin claim is not a neutral citation to stimulate thought.

But Paul's "origin claim" is not the same as the understanding which he preaches as the allegedly good news. Returning now to the make-believe-I'm-having-a-discussion-with-Paul mode.

Given Paul's report of having been divinely inspired, there is this truth: either Paul's thinking/understanding was divinely inspired or it was not divinely inspired. Given that Paul was trying to express an understanding, one topic of discussion could be about why it is that he so often refers to his inspiration experience since the understanding he is expressing/preaching is a matter of his own thinking which he knows is - and which he has to acknowledge as - his own and not God's.

Paul could be asked whether it is the expression of his understanding which he expects will stimulate thought, and he would respond that he certainly hopes so. And then he could be asked whether these repeated references to his having been inspired is reasonably expected to likewise stimulate thought. And Paul could say that no, the story of his inspiration is not expected to be thought-stimulating in the same way, even if that story stimulates any thinking at all. After all, all stories stimulate some thinking. He could continue explaining that one reason that he keeps referring to his inspiration experience is just in case any others think they have had a basically similar inspiration experience in which case they need to understand that it is not the experience itself which is important. What is important is the understanding which they develop that is important.

In fact, what I, Paul, hope gets understood is that any such experience without furthered understanding is an experience of no importance. It is the development of understanding which is important, and it is such development which makes the experience have any importance at all. But, even then, the understanding is not enough. Not only does the understanding need still further development, but the understanding is also not important except insofar as the understanding effects acts; understanding is ultimately for the sake of acts done for the sake of others.

A person can develop understanding without having had an inspiration experience by undertaking to understand the understanding reported by others - whether those others were inspired or not. You know, now that I, Paul, think about it, it could be that some understanding about the understanding had by an other person could come about with some sense of inspiration which seems to have all of a sudden brought understanding as if from nowhere and which seems more like an opening up to that which was already there but which was not yet noticed. Even then, understanding only follows from some sort of opening up with that opening up not occurring without the effort to understand having first been undertaken. And that opening up only occurs in terms of an opening up to - a realization of there being - alternative ways of having considered what was being considered.

Hmmm. Maybe I, Paul, should have tried developing a better explication of all this. But, it's not like I totally ignored this whole matter. Because, for instance, I did explain a little bit about the nature of love, and this stuff about understanding is ultimately about acting with love for the sake of others.

End of that issue discussion with Paul.

has ordinary human explanations.

And as I keep repeating: Human understanding always has human explanation, because it is humans doing the understanding. Even from a religious perspective, understanding humans in terms of what they do and how they can understand is not expected to - and is not going to - demonstrate the actuality of a divine realm.

Paul’s revelation language cannot bind anyone outside a prior commitment to it.

"Bind" has nothing to do with it. One seeks to develop manners of expression in the hope of effecting furthered development of - as well as providing improved communication of - understanding. (Of course, one could seek to develop manners of expression for exactly the opposite purpose, but that is ignored here.) Even were someone to want language to bind, that is not how language works; that is not how language works in regards to understanding or when the development of understanding is the interest. Recall this previous Levinas citation: “It might also be asked whether the old … text, which employs a vocabulary from a very early spiritual climate, is capable of expressing what we mean … 'today.'" As well as this about language: "a medium marvelously well-suited to permanent interrogation". Those two remarks go hand in hand.

Speculation about motives is not a substitute for evidence. ... distinguishes hypothesis from proof ... evidence is the finish line.

You are correct to distinguish hypothesis from proof, but, the rest seems wrong. If, as seems to be the case, it is proof which is that alleged "finish line", the goal, then it is a great error to restrict evidence to proof attained. Such a restriction would mean that evidence could only be evidence ex post facto, and that would mean that there is never evidence before there is proof. That, of course, is an absurdity.

Alternatively, if "the finish line" does not refer to proof attained, then "evidence" could refer to an aggregate of all possible factors germane to consideration, but that way of using "evidence" does not disqualify speculation as germane to consideration.

I expect that you realize this about evidence and the nature of evidence.

Whether you yet realize it or not, this also means that your claim of evidence lacking seems to be only a claim of proof lacking, and the lack of proof has not been contested. Indeed, in this discussion, it has always been taken as granted.

Now, with regards to proof of understanding the understanding of persons, let us just say/stipulate that there never is any such proof (rare as it would be) - if only because understanding is always subjective. This allows for a more precisely correct rendering of your "Speculation about motives is not a substitute for evidence" when restated as "Speculation about motives is not a substitute for evidence, because that speculation is (part of) evidence despite proof not having yet been attained or even if proof is impossible."

Speculation is easily rendered as truth: It is possible that what is being speculated is actually the case, and it is possible that what is being speculated is not actually the case. And both possibilities are then pursued. Or not. It all depends on one's own inclination. And that is what determines the development of understanding - including the development of understanding about the understanding had by an other person.

 

[steve_bank]

Religion can be serious due to the obvious social and political implications here and around the world.

That being said it is hard for me to take the debate seriously.

The idea that someone today caik to know what ancient Paul based on relatively scant writings actually meant, intended, and thought and mailing an argument of it is silly for lack of a more diplomatic word.

 

[DBT]

The fantastic claim of divine inspiration, that 'this is not the work of man,' is just not evident in Paul's work.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Inspiration - including divine inspiration - does not cause understanding. Understanding refers to a response - even when there is not one. If there is no response, there is no understanding about that to which there might otherwise have been a response.

Paul's claim that he was divinely inspired is not a claim that his understanding was divinely produced. Paul's understanding was "caused" by Paul. Paul is responsible for his understanding because his understanding is his response produced by him.

If inspiration does not cause understanding, then it does not generate the content we can examine. What we possess are words, arguments, and directives—the outputs of understanding. Those are produced by human cognition operating in language and culture. By your own framing, inspiration contributes no causal work to the artifact. Historical assessment is about causes that leave traces. If the only detectable causes of the letters are human ones, then “divine inspiration” is irrelevant to the evidential question of origin.

Paul’s public claim is stronger than “I once felt inspired.” He asserts that the gospel he preached is “not of human origin” and that he received it by revelation. That is a causal assertion about source. Yet you now relocate all causation of the only accessible thing—the understanding as expressed in letters—entirely in Paul. If the “gospel” available to us is precisely Paul’s human understanding in human words, then the non-human origin claim has no object left to attach to. Either it reduces to a private feeling with no evidential footprint, or it falsely describes the origin of the content we have. In both cases it cannot function as a public warrant.

So what? We're right back at - or still stuck on - the point that human understanding is human-caused.

Exactly—and that settles the matter of causal attribution. When a phenomenon is fully accounted for by ordinary causes, positing an extra, non-human cause is unwarranted. The letters show standard Koine Greek, familiar epistolary and rhetorical forms, intertext with Jewish scripture, and a normal hand-copied transmission with expected variation. Those are the signatures of human composition and dissemination. If inspiration neither causes the understanding nor leaves a discriminating marker in the product, it does no evidential work. You can keep it as a personal devotion; you cannot use it to ground authority or to claim “not of human origin” in any historical sense. The rational conclusion follows cleanly: evaluate Paul’s counsel and theology as human work on human reasons, and set aside the non-human origin claim as causally idle and evidentially empty.

Nope. His understanding is his response to an experience. The fact that you remain always focused on that to which Paul was responding fully explains without gaps why you never bother to begin trying to understand Paul's understanding expressed in his preaching of the alleged good news. Do you have experience-envy? Is that it? You need to have that experience in order to begin to understand how Paul's understanding is a response to inspiration? More on that possibility below.

Paul’s statement that the gospel he preached is “not of human origin” and was “received by revelation” is a source claim about the content he proclaims, not a diary note about a mood. That is a positive causal assertion: the message’s origin is non-human. Recasting it as merely “Paul’s human response to an experience” does not change what Paul publicly claimed about the source of the message. In historical assessment, causes are credited only when they leave public traces. What we possess are letters in ordinary Koine, standard epistolary and rhetorical forms, arguments anchored in Hebrew scripture and Greco-Roman reasoning, and a normal manuscript tradition with human variants. Those are human fingerprints. “Experience-envy” is an ad hominem and irrelevant; private experiences cannot validate public origin claims. If the only observable producer of the content is Paul’s own cognition, then the non-human origin assertion is evidentially empty.

No. The rational conclusion is that the actuality of the inspiration and the actuality of the divine in "divinely inspired" are not indubitable. And a rational response to that is to seek to develop an understanding about the understanding at issue, including the development of that understanding as well as even subsequent developments.

Indubitability is not the standard; positive evidence is. When ordinary human processes fully explain the artifact, adding a non-human cause is unwarranted. That is basic parsimony: do not multiply causes beyond necessity. By your own framing, understanding and its expression are humanly caused; the documents show nothing beyond human language, reasoning, and transmission. Therefore the rational posture is not “perhaps, who knows”; it is to withhold acceptance of “not of human origin” until discriminating evidence is produced. Developing “an understanding about the understanding” is fine for interpretation, but it does not supply what the origin claim lacks: independent, public corroboration. If the origin claim is kept as a private conviction, it cannot bind anyone. If it is used to ground authority or trump rivals, it must meet public evidential standards. It does not. Hence my conclusion stands: evaluate Paul’s counsel on human reasons; set aside the non-human origin claim as causally idle and evidentially unsupported.

Given my previous remarks acknowledging how it can be appropriate to make use of inherently deficient appeals to authority in an attempt to effect or demand deference, I am going to change slightly the context/perspective of the above cited statement for the purpose of further explication.

Personally, my immediate intellectual and emotional inner-self response would be one disfavoring such a use by Paul of an inherently deficient appeal. But, there is some solace to be had in the fact that, while an appeal to authority can impede the development of understanding, an appeal to authority is not necessarily sufficient to preclude the development of understanding.

Now, if Paul and I were having a private discussion, any appeal to authority on his part would be shot down not only for being inherently deficient but especially for being situationally inappropriate. If that appeal to authority were to come at the beginning of a discussion - that would be one thing. If that appeal to authority came well into a discussion, that appeal could indicate a limit reached in the development of Paul's understanding about my understanding - whether because of Paul's own limitations at the time or because of limits to my own contemporaneous expressive capabilities despite the fact that I regard the constant re-casting of expressions as being of very great importance. Of course, that re-casting is itself dependent on the ability to imagine still additional possibilities, and sometimes realizing those possibilities does not occur until after a discussion has ended.

Calling an appeal “inherently deficient” and then excusing it as “appropriate” in some contexts concedes my point, not yours. Expedience does not generate truth. Even if an appeal-to-authority buys attention or compliance, it adds zero evidential weight to a causal claim like “not of human origin.” Paul’s origin language, when used to settle doctrine or trump rivals, remains evidentially empty. Rhetorical utility is not verification.

Whether understanding can still develop despite a bad warrant is beside the issue of origin. The question is not “can people still think productively?” but “does the appeal establish a non-human source?” It does not. The letters’ observable features—ordinary language, standard rhetoric, and human transmission—are fully explained by human causes. An appeal that “impedes” but does not “preclude” understanding still carries no probative force. Origin claims require independent corroboration; this one has none.

Private conversational dynamics don’t alter public standards of evidence. Paul’s letters are not closed-door tutorials; they are public documents that invoke revelation to adjudicate disputes and prescribe practice. By your own lights, such appeals are “inherently deficient,” and calling them “situationally inappropriate” in private only underscores that they cannot serve as warrants in public. Recasting expressions and imagining possibilities may improve mutual understanding, but none of that supplies a discriminating marker that separates a divine cause from ordinary authorship and transmission. The only consistent conclusion from your framework and the record we have is this: evaluate Paul’s counsel on human reasons alone, and treat “not of human origin” as rhetorically expedient but evidentially void.

But Paul's "origin claim" is not the same as the understanding which he preaches as the allegedly good news. Returning now to the make-believe-I'm-having-a-discussion-with-Paul mode.

Given Paul's report of having been divinely inspired, there is this truth: either Paul's thinking/understanding was divinely inspired or it was not divinely inspired. Given that Paul was trying to express an understanding, one topic of discussion could be about why it is that he so often refers to his inspiration experience since the understanding he is expressing/preaching is a matter of his own thinking which he knows is - and which he has to acknowledge as - his own and not God's.

Paul could be asked whether it is the expression of his understanding which he expects will stimulate thought, and he would respond that he certainly hopes so. And then he could be asked whether these repeated references to his having been inspired is reasonably expected to likewise stimulate thought. And Paul could say that no, the story of his inspiration is not expected to be thought-stimulating in the same way, even if that story stimulates any thinking at all. After all, all stories stimulate some thinking. He could continue explaining that one reason that he keeps referring to his inspiration experience is just in case any others think they have had a basically similar inspiration experience in which case they need to understand that it is not the experience itself which is important. What is important is the understanding which they develop that is important.

In fact, what I, Paul, hope gets understood is that any such experience without furthered understanding is an experience of no importance. It is the development of understanding which is important, and it is such development which makes the experience have any importance at all. But, even then, the understanding is not enough. Not only does the understanding need still further development, but the understanding is also not important except insofar as the understanding effects acts; understanding is ultimately for the sake of acts done for the sake of others.

A person can develop understanding without having had an inspiration experience by undertaking to understand the understanding reported by others - whether those others were inspired or not. You know, now that I, Paul, think about it, it could be that some understanding about the understanding had by an other person could come about with some sense of inspiration which seems to have all of a sudden brought understanding as if from nowhere and which seems more like an opening up to that which was already there but which was not yet noticed. Even then, understanding only follows from some sort of opening up with that opening up not occurring without the effort to understand having first been undertaken. And that opening up only occurs in terms of an opening up to - a realization of there being - alternative ways of having considered what was being considered.

Hmmm. Maybe I, Paul, should have tried developing a better explication of all this. But, it's not like I totally ignored this whole matter. Because, for instance, I did explain a little bit about the nature of love, and this stuff about understanding is ultimately about acting with love for the sake of others.

End of that issue discussion with Paul.

Your speculative dialogue does not change the public claims in the letters or the evidential bar those claims must clear. Paul’s “not of human origin” and “received by revelation” are presented as the source of the very message he preaches; they are not harmless autobiographical asides. In those same contexts he anathematizes contrary gospels and issues directives on that authority. That makes the origin claim part of the argument, not detachable embroidery.

If, as you now suggest, the only thing we can actually examine—the content and its wording—is Paul’s own understanding in Paul’s own language, then causally it is human-produced. In that case either the origin assertion is false as applied to the message we possess, or it reduces to a private feeling about an antecedent experience that leaves no discriminating trace in the product. In either scenario it cannot serve as a public warrant.

Appeals to “understanding” and “acts of love” are ethical and pastoral concerns; they are not evidence for a non-human source. Historical assessment relies on public traces. What we have are ordinary Koine Greek letters, standard epistolary and rhetorical forms, arguments built from Jewish scriptures and Greco-Roman reasoning, and a normal hand-copied transmission with the expected variations. Those are human fingerprints throughout. There is no independent contemporaneous attestation of the revelation, no verifiable predictions recorded ahead of fulfillment, no linguistic or textual features that require a superhuman cause.

You can insist that experiences may motivate people—that is unobjectionable and beside the point. The question at hand is whether “not of human origin” is warranted as a claim about the source of the gospel Paul proclaims. On the record, it is not. So the only rational posture remains the same: evaluate whatever is valuable in Paul’s ethical counsel as human work on human reasons, and set aside the origin claim as rhetorically useful to Paul but evidentially empty for everyone else.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

And as I keep repeating: Human understanding always has human explanation, because it is humans doing the understanding. Even from a religious perspective, understanding humans in terms of what they do and how they can understand is not expected to - and is not going to - demonstrate the actuality of a divine realm.

And that concession is exactly why Paul’s origin claim fails as a public claim. If everything available to inspection—the concepts articulated, the arguments advanced, the rhetorical forms used, and the manuscript transmission—admits complete human explanation, then there is no residual phenomenon left for a non-human cause to explain. “Divine realm” talk becomes a private gloss with no evidential purchase on the artifact. Public conclusions track public traces. Here the traces are thoroughly human; therefore “not of human origin” carries no epistemic weight and cannot be credited in historical analysis.

"Bind" has nothing to do with it. One seeks to develop manners of expression in the hope of effecting furthered development of - as well as providing improved communication of - understanding. (Of course, one could seek to develop manners of expression for exactly the opposite purpose, but that is ignored here.) Even were someone to want language to bind, that is not how language works; that is not how language works in regards to understanding or when the development of understanding is the interest. Recall this previous Levinas citation: “It might also be asked whether the old … text, which employs a vocabulary from a very early spiritual climate, is capable of expressing what we mean … 'today.'" As well as this about language: "a medium marvelously well-suited to permanent interrogation". Those two remarks go hand in hand.

Paul’s own letters contradict your claim that “bind has nothing to do with it.” He does not merely “develop manners of expression”; he issues commands, claims revelatory warrant, threatens sanctions, and anathematizes rivals. Galatians 1:8–9 declares a curse on “any gospel” contrary to his. In 1 Corinthians 7 he distinguishes between “not I, but the Lord” and “I, not the Lord,” explicitly invoking revelatory authority to direct conduct. In 2 Thessalonians 3 he “commands… in the name of the Lord” that the community shun the idle. In 1 Corinthians 5 he directs collective discipline. This is language used to bind communal behavior and belief. That is how language works in normative communities: words fix norms, authorize practices, and police boundaries. Invoking Levinas about the interrogability of language changes none of these concrete facts. If origin talk is merely expressive, it cannot ground obligation; if it is used to ground obligation—as Paul repeatedly does—it must meet public evidential standards. It does not. The documentary record shows ordinary human composition and transmission with no discriminating marker of a non-human source. Therefore the only warranted stance remains: take whatever is valuable in Paul’s counsel as human reasoning, and set aside “not of human origin” as rhetorically useful to Paul but evidentially idle for everyone else.

You are correct to distinguish hypothesis from proof, but, the rest seems wrong. If, as seems to be the case, it is proof which is that alleged "finish line", the goal, then it is a great error to restrict evidence to proof attained. Such a restriction would mean that evidence could only be evidence ex post facto, and that would mean that there is never evidence before there is proof. That, of course, is an absurdity.

Alternatively, if "the finish line" does not refer to proof attained, then "evidence" could refer to an aggregate of all possible factors germane to consideration, but that way of using "evidence" does not disqualify speculation as germane to consideration.

No one is restricting evidence to proof. Evidence is any publicly checkable observation that raises or lowers the probability of a claim. Proof is not the bar; warranted belief is. My point is simple: for Paul’s positive causal claim—“not of human origin”—there is no independent, public evidence that increases its probability over the human-origin baseline. The artifacts we have (language, genre, argumentation, manuscript history) already have complete, ordinary human explanations. When normal causes fully account for what we observe, positing an extra cause is unwarranted. That is parsimony and basic inference to the best explanation, not a demand for mathematical proof.

Speculation is germane to forming hypotheses; it is not itself evidence. Evidence is constraint from the world—texts, dates, attestations, material traces—against which hypotheses succeed or fail. “Paul felt divinely inspired” is a hypothesis about an inner state; without independent corroboration, it contributes zero evidential weight to a public claim about non-human origin. Possibility is cheap; evidential status requires observations that would be unlikely if the claim were false.

I expect that you realize this about evidence and the nature of evidence.

Whether you yet realize it or not, this also means that your claim of evidence lacking seems to be only a claim of proof lacking, and the lack of proof has not been contested. Indeed, in this discussion, it has always been taken as granted.

I do—which is why I keep separating publicly testable data from private conjecture. For origin claims, only the former counts. On that standard, everything in view behaves exactly like human composition and transmission.

Incorrect. I’m not saying “not proven,” I’m saying “no independent evidence at all and no explanatory gap to fill.” Those are different. We would expect—at minimum—some discriminating marker that favors a non-human cause over a human one. We have none. Absence of expected evidence where it should appear counts against the claim; it is not a mere failure to prove.

Now, with regards to proof of understanding the understanding of persons, let us just say/stipulate that there never is any such proof (rare as it would be) - if only because understanding is always subjective. This allows for a more precisely correct rendering of your "Speculation about motives is not a substitute for evidence" when restated as "Speculation about motives is not a substitute for evidence, because that speculation is (part of) evidence despite proof not having yet been attained or even if proof is impossible."

Subjectivity of inner states is precisely why they are not admissible as evidence for public causal claims. Your restatement collapses the category boundary: motives and “how Paul felt” are hypotheses, not evidence. Historical method assesses what is external and checkable. By that method, the letters show only human fingerprints. Elevating speculation to “part of the evidence” dilutes the word “evidence” until it means “anything one can imagine,” which is unusable for adjudicating origin.

Speculation is easily rendered as truth: It is possible that what is being speculated is actually the case, and it is possible that what is being speculated is not actually the case. And both possibilities are then pursued. Or not. It all depends on one's own inclination. And that is what determines the development of understanding - including the development of understanding about the understanding had by an other person.

“Possibly true” is a tautology, not a warrant. Method replaces inclination with constraint: weigh hypotheses by how well they predict the data relative to alternatives. On that score, “human origin” wins decisively because it predicts exactly what we see—ordinary language, familiar rhetorical forms, and a normal, variant-ridden manuscript tradition—while “not of human origin” predicts nothing distinctive. Your framework concedes the crucial point: if understanding and its expression are human-caused and the record bears only human signatures, then the non-human origin claim is evidentially idle. Keep it as private conviction if you wish, but it does no public explanatory or justificatory work.

NHC

 

[Learner]

Yeah sure... but where's the conflicting argument to Christianity? Thousands of years before "predating Buddha " Christianity tells us 'Good verus evil' (to do good) existed then, and acknowledges this was long before Christianity too.

It sounds like you are going back to Judaism, but doing things like mass murder of babies and kittens isn't "good."

Or maybe you mean...the ancient Hebrews or ancient Israelites, or... can we technically say ancient Hebrew-ism before there was Judaism?

Mass murder of babies e.g.. sacrificing babies to Molech or Baal was quite normal for many nations back then - Gods enemies in defiance.

That is not good,says God.

We 'should comprehend' the simple 'conceptual understanding' that an 'All Mighty God' should be able to see this...as a continuous generational abomination far into the future. For these particular nations who defied God in this way, have been judged - they no longer exist, sacrificing babies.

As described, we have God killing people and ordering slaughter and genocide.

Sure, I can speak your lingo. God kills people as do judges in your Western civilization. Is it murder?

Yes, it is.

Civilised nations (including DBT's home nation) do not have capital punishment.

Then 'deathrow' is merely a waiting list for dangerous criminals to have an accomodation upgrade. Anyway, in addition to killing, I do, of course also include those who make judgements, deciding to go to war against nations as enemies - scenarios of threats, retaliation or defense (pre-emptive strikes perhaps) - which is not unlike the biblical wars - today in the civilised world, sending troops whom are all well trained and ready to kill on the order!

(I know DBT is from the nation down-under. I was making a general statement for a brief moment while travelling on a bus)

Killing is morally acceptable only in defence of oneself or others, and even then, only against imminent threats to life.

And in defense of the Israelites? As I was saying to other posters: I don't share the same conceptual 'understanding' by how you atheists of this particular argument understand the scriptures, hence to me, its a foreign concept, transcribed by contextual errors.

Unnoticed by your contextual errors: God never starts conflictions of war! Time and time again, oblivious to atheists arguments: you don't seem to notice that God only ever REACTS to actions taken first against Him or his people. An example below: Israel first sends emissaries in peace, asking permission to cross their land.

Numbers:
21-22 ;Israel sent emissaries to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, “Let us cross your land. We won’t trespass into your fields or drink water in your vineyards. We’ll keep to the main road, the King’s Road, until we’re through your land.”

23-27;But Sihon wouldn’t let Israel go through. Instead he got his army together and marched into the wilderness to fight Israel. At Jahaz he attacked Israel. But Israel fought hard, beat him soundly, and took possession of his land from the Arnon all the way to the Jabbok right up to the Ammonite border. They stopped there because the Ammonite border was fortified. Israel took and occupied all the Amorite cities, including Heshbon and all its surrounding villages. Heshbon was the capital city of Sihon king of the Amorites.

Another example where God is giving ample warnings to nations that want to go against God or his people. The well known scripture where God gave Pharoah ten warnings which were also ten chances to let his people go. etc.. He was a stubborn pharoah wasn't he?And wasn't God patient...ten chances? It took the tenth disaster before pharoah heeded to the last warning before he let the Israelites go (but he tried again though by the sea, to his ultimate demise).

Don't you find that interesting, considering that in those times, blood wars and violence was quite the norm, being born into a generational cultural tradition?

At no point is God's life, or anyone else's life, threatened by people being homosexual, or practicing witchcraft, or failing to keep the sabbath, or engaging in prostitution (specifically for priest's daughters, other prostitutes don't necessarily heve to be killed), or adultery, or contempt of court. Yet God commands death for all of these things.

It was the norm in those ancient times throughout the world.. people were born into the customs of blood-sacrifices and war plunder. Has it not dawned on you (plural) that the laws against all of the above are laws like the Ten Commandments?

Here today, as irony would have it. The all-he-can-concieve-from-a-modern-world-perspective - the atheist makes erroneous arguments condemning the ten commandements, but has no idea, and is oblivious to know how it was effective.

Of course, this is because the God depicted in the Bible is morally monstrous and irredeemably cruel and evil. It's a good thing he's entirely fictional.

By your contextual error of the biblical god I would concur with you, its entirely fictional.

 

[steve_bank]

Yes Learner atheists and you do not share the same perception of the bible and ancient Jews.

But then the RCC, modern Jews, Evangelicals, Mormons, Baptists, Calvinists. Russian Orthodox, Egyptian Coptics, and all the rest may not share your perception and concepts as well.

Much like modern Christians modern Jews have divisions. Jews range from liberal to extreme orthodox today.

The word Christian itself has no meaning. Anyone who says they are Christian are then Christian.

To the OP. Ancient Jews on which Christianity is believed to have began were never one single monolithic group. It is evident from the itself.

There were disputes over which Jews were the true decedents of the original tribes.

When Christians use the words Jews or Israelite it is a mythical image.

An Israeli academic wrote a book on how modern Israel is based on the myth that hey trace back in an unbroken line to the original tribes. And how the myth is woven into politic.

We see that myth played out right now. Israelis refer to areas in the old terms.

I think this is the book.

Ten Myths About Israel

In this groundbreaking book, the outspoken and radical Israeli historian Ilan Pappe examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. This has been updated with a new afterword on the 2023 invasion of Gaza.1. Palestine was an Empty Land2...

www.versobooks.com

Ilan Pappé - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ilan Pappé (Hebrew: אילן פפה [iˈlan paˈpe]; born 7 November 1954) is an Israeli historian and political scientist, known for his work on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and as a leading figure among Israel's New Historians. He is a professor at the University of Exeter's College of Social Sciences and International Studies, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies and co-directs the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

If inspiration does not cause understanding, then it does not generate the content we can examine. ... If the only detectable causes of the letters are human ones, then “divine inspiration” is irrelevant to the evidential question of origin.

It is true that inspiration does not cause understanding.

It is true that inspiration does not produce "the content" of the understanding which follows from the inspiration.

It is false that there is an evidential question.

That "question" is a ruse. That "question" is a ruse in the same way as is Heidegger's remark, "a motorized food industry, the same thing in its essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps".

Both the evidential question (so called) and the motorized food industry remarks exemplify rhetoric which "approaches [the] neighbor with ruse ... approaches the other not to face him, but obliquely" which is to say only deceptively and with no intent other than to solicit "his yes" (Levinas, Totality and Infinity).

By Paul's own reckoning, there is no "evidential question of origin" any more than there is an evidential question concerning such a statement as "God is". That is why Paul is more accurately and honestly characterized and approached in terms of his emphases on faith rather than by the intentionally blinkered (but, nonetheless, lamely) devious insistence that seeks to portray Paul as mere authoritarian or plagiarist. (By the way, the evidential ruse regarding God has already been addressed with the earlier what-then remarks which are also relevant to evidence, the nature of which concept you happily proclaim without having yet actually or well analyzed.)

There is content to be found; that content is found in Paul's understanding.

That brings us to the separate and additional ruse which suggests and treats historical text analysis as, in itself, sufficient for uncovering subjective understanding while also holding that subjective inner states are inaccessible to historical text analysis. The purpose of this ruse is to "justify" or "warrant" or excuse the failure to seek an understanding about Paul's understanding. It is a ruse intended to "justify" a putrid passivity.

The evidential question ruse has been obvious from the beginning. That ruse is the product of disingenuousness, but human disingenuousness is not as interesting as is the human resistance to developing understanding about the understandings had by other persons. And that is why the matter of the obvious disingenuousness was put aside so that the focus of the investigation could be on human understanding and resistance to the development of understanding - especially resistance to the development of understanding about the understandings had by other persons all of which, as has been noted, is related to the matter of resistance to a furthered self-awareness.

The investigation has been fruitful, and, for that, NHC in particular is deserving of thanks since he provided much more data than did his "viewpoint" compatriots.

Evidence is any publicly checkable observation that raises or lowers the probability of a claim.

You clearly have never analyzed the evidence concept in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (assuming there are any sufficient conditions). And maybe that is because you are unaware of the relationship between necessary conditions, for example, and what is often referred to as objectivity or as a (more) objective viewpoint. Regardless, associating evidence with probability is a problem for you inasmuch as it demands consideration in terms of those very possibilities towards which you are repeatedly dismissive.

If you want to pursue the evidence concept issue, please do so, because it will at least provide still more observational data even if that pursuit as conducted is not sufficiently interesting to warrant my participation.

Be that as it will, subjective states such as understanding are "publicly checkable" by means and methods which were outlined previously.

If all you have in response is the usual slithering nothingness, then you finally get to have the last word, because I am at a loss for how to further find something interesting in that slithering nothingness. But I will keep watching to see if there is anything that is or can be made interesting, whether in this thread or some other.

 

[steve_bank]

The inspiration for the original raster scan TV system came for somebody observing fields plowed in straight rows.

Part of the in ration for Faraday's law of induction came from the chance occurrence of his having a compass in hand when lightning truck nearby.

He observed the needle deflect dung the strike leading to the link between electric current and magnetic fields.

In Greek mythology, the Muses (Mousai) were the goddesses of music, song, dance, and the arts, serving as a source of inspiration for poets and thinkers. There are nine Muses, considered the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory). Each Muse presided over a specific domain, such as Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Melpomene (tragedy), and Thalia (comedy).

Pearl's Muse is Jesus....... the soucec of his inspiration.

 

[NoHolyCows]

It is true that inspiration does not cause understanding.

It is true that inspiration does not produce "the content" of the understanding which follows from the inspiration.

If inspiration does not produce the content, then everything we can examine—the claims, arguments, and prescriptions—comes from human cognition. That makes origin a straightforward evidential question: what caused the content we have? When ordinary linguistic, rhetorical, and historical processes fully account for the letters, positing an extra, non-human cause is unwarranted. Declaring the evidential question “false” does not make it disappear; it only concedes there is no public support for “not of human origin.”

That "question" is a ruse. That "question" is a ruse in the same way as is Heidegger's remark, "a motorized food industry, the same thing in its essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps".

Both the evidential question (so called) and the motorized food industry remarks exemplify rhetoric which "approaches [the] neighbor with ruse ... approaches the other not to face him, but obliquely" which is to say only deceptively and with no intent other than to solicit "his yes" (Levinas, Totality and Infinity).

Equating evidential scrutiny with a moral or rhetorical “ruse” is a category error. Asking for independent reasons is not manipulative; it is the basic norm of public reasoning. Heidegger’s disastrous analogy is irrelevant to whether Paul’s causal claim has support. Levinas’s phenomenology of encounter does not overturn the fact that historical assertions are adjudicated by publicly checkable traces. If a claim cannot meet that standard, it is not owed assent in public argument.

By Paul's own reckoning, there is no "evidential question of origin" any more than there is an evidential question concerning such a statement as "God is". That is why Paul is more accurately and honestly characterized and approached in terms of his emphases on faith rather than by the intentionally blinkered (but, nonetheless, lamely) devious insistence that seeks to portray Paul as mere authoritarian or plagiarist. (By the way, the evidential ruse regarding God has already been addressed with the earlier what-then remarks which are also relevant to evidence, the nature of which concept you happily proclaim without having yet actually or well analyzed.)

Paul’s preferences do not set the rules of inquiry. He asserted “not of human origin,” which is a positive causal claim about the source of his message. In public analysis, such claims stand or fall on evidence, not on the claimant’s “reckoning” or on faith’s self-description. Character assessments—authoritarian, plagiarist, or otherwise—are beside the point; the question is whether a non-human cause is needed to explain the documents. It is not.

There is content to be found; that content is found in Paul's understanding.

Agreed—and that content is expressed in ordinary Koine Greek, within known epistolary genres, interweaving Jewish scripture and contemporary Greco-Roman argumentation, and transmitted through a normal, variant-rich manuscript tradition. Those are human fingerprints at every layer. If the content we possess is wholly Paul’s “understanding” in human words, the non-human origin assertion has nothing left to attach to.

That brings us to the separate and additional ruse which suggests and treats historical text analysis as, in itself, sufficient for uncovering subjective understanding while also holding that subjective inner states are inaccessible to historical text analysis. The purpose of this ruse is to "justify" or "warrant" or excuse the failure to seek an understanding about Paul's understanding. It is a ruse intended to "justify" a putrid passivity.

No one is asking historical method to read minds. Historical method assesses publicly available artifacts. That is exactly the right tool for adjudicating origin claims: texts, dates, intertexts, reception, and transmission. Private states are irrelevant to public causation unless independently corroborated. Refusing to elevate an untestable inner experience into a public warrant is not “passivity”; it is methodological hygiene.

The evidential question ruse has been obvious from the beginning. That ruse is the product of disingenuousness, but human disingenuousness is not as interesting as is the human resistance to developing understanding about the understandings had by other persons. And that is why the matter of the obvious disingenuousness was put aside so that the focus of the investigation could be on human understanding and resistance to the development of understanding - especially resistance to the development of understanding about the understandings had by other persons all of which, as has been noted, is related to the matter of resistance to a furthered self-awareness.

Asking for evidence is not disingenuous; it is the only way to separate what feels compelling from what is true. I have repeatedly evaluated Paul’s ethical counsel and theological reasoning on their human merits. What I will not do is treat “not of human origin” as established when there is no independent attestation, no predictive success peculiar to a divine source, and no discriminating textual signature. On the record, the letters are fully explained by human authorship and transmission. Therefore the conclusion stands: take what is valuable as human work, and set aside the origin claim as evidentially empty and causally idle.

You clearly have never analyzed the evidence concept in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (assuming there are any sufficient conditions). And maybe that is because you are unaware of the relationship between necessary conditions, for example, and what is often referred to as objectivity or as a (more) objective viewpoint. Regardless, associating evidence with probability is a problem for you inasmuch as it demands consideration in terms of those very possibilities towards which you are repeatedly dismissive.

Evidence does not require casting claims in necessary-and-sufficient condition form. In public reasoning, evidence is whatever observation shifts the odds between competing hypotheses. That’s formalized by likelihoods: an observation counts as evidence for H₂ over H₁ if it is more expected on H₂ than on H₁. That approach is precisely how “objectivity” is operationalized—by intersubjectively checkable observations that different evaluators can weigh the same way. Far from “dismissing possibilities,” comparing hypotheses is exactly what I’ve done: H₁ = human origin; H₂ = non-human origin. The data we actually have—ordinary Koine diction, standard Greco-Roman epistolary form, arguments from Hebrew scriptures, and a normal, variant-rich manuscript transmission—are strongly expected under H₁ and predict nothing uniquely under H₂. So the evidence lowers the probability of H₂ relative to H₁. No metaphysical pronouncements needed.

If you want to pursue the evidence concept issue, please do so, because it will at least provide still more observational data even if that pursuit as conducted is not sufficiently interesting to warrant my participation.

Here it is in one line: to support “not of human origin,” you must present some public observation that would be unlikely on human authorship but likely if a non-human source were involved. There is none. Appeals to inner experience, or to the mere possibility of such experience, do not change the evidential balance because they generate no discriminating prediction.

Be that as it will, subjective states such as understanding are "publicly checkable" by means and methods which were outlined previously.

We can observe behaviors, texts, and communal effects. We cannot independently verify someone’s private phenomenology. Crucially, none of the “publicly checkable” outputs you allude to—letters, rules, exhortations, shifts in community practice—distinguish a divine cause from ordinary cognition and social transmission. They are exactly what human processes produce everywhere else: rhetoric to persuade, norms to bind, and a manuscript tradition that changes over time. That is public checkability, and it points to human origin.

If all you have in response is the usual slithering nothingness, then you finally get to have the last word, because I am at a loss for how to further find something interesting in that slithering nothingness. But I will keep watching to see if there is anything that is or can be made interesting, whether in this thread or some other.

Ad hominem doesn’t supply evidence. The issue is narrow and empirical: Paul’s assertion “not of human origin” is a positive causal claim. The record we have carries only human fingerprints. Until you produce a publicly checkable observation that favors a non-human source over human authorship and transmission, the rational verdict is fixed: evaluate Paul’s ethics and theology on human reasons alone, and treat the non-human origin claim as evidentially empty and causally idle.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

It is true that inspiration does not cause understanding.

It is true that inspiration does not produce "the content" of the understanding which follows from the inspiration.

If inspiration does not produce the content, then everything we can examine—the claims, arguments, and prescriptions—comes from human cognition. That makes origin a straightforward evidential question: what caused the content we have? When ordinary linguistic, rhetorical, and historical processes fully account for the letters, positing an extra, non-human cause is unwarranted. Declaring the evidential question “false” does not make it disappear; it only concedes there is no public support for “not of human origin.”

That "question" is a ruse. That "question" is a ruse in the same way as is Heidegger's remark, "a motorized food industry, the same thing in its essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps".

Both the evidential question (so called) and the motorized food industry remarks exemplify rhetoric which "approaches [the] neighbor with ruse ... approaches the other not to face him, but obliquely" which is to say only deceptively and with no intent other than to solicit "his yes" (Levinas, Totality and Infinity).

Equating evidential scrutiny with a moral or rhetorical “ruse” is a category error. Asking for independent reasons is not manipulative; it is the basic norm of public reasoning. Heidegger’s disastrous analogy is irrelevant to whether Paul’s causal claim has support. Levinas’s phenomenology of encounter does not overturn the fact that historical assertions are adjudicated by publicly checkable traces. If a claim cannot meet that standard, it is not owed assent in public argument.

By Paul's own reckoning, there is no "evidential question of origin" any more than there is an evidential question concerning such a statement as "God is". That is why Paul is more accurately and honestly characterized and approached in terms of his emphases on faith rather than by the intentionally blinkered (but, nonetheless, lamely) devious insistence that seeks to portray Paul as mere authoritarian or plagiarist. (By the way, the evidential ruse regarding God has already been addressed with the earlier what-then remarks which are also relevant to evidence, the nature of which concept you happily proclaim without having yet actually or well analyzed.)

Paul’s preferences do not set the rules of inquiry. He asserted “not of human origin,” which is a positive causal claim about the source of his message. In public analysis, such claims stand or fall on evidence, not on the claimant’s “reckoning” or on faith’s self-description. Character assessments—authoritarian, plagiarist, or otherwise—are beside the point; the question is whether a non-human cause is needed to explain the documents. It is not.

There is content to be found; that content is found in Paul's understanding.

Agreed—and that content is expressed in ordinary Koine Greek, within known epistolary genres, interweaving Jewish scripture and contemporary Greco-Roman argumentation, and transmitted through a normal, variant-rich manuscript tradition. Those are human fingerprints at every layer. If the content we possess is wholly Paul’s “understanding” in human words, the non-human origin assertion has nothing left to attach to.

That brings us to the separate and additional ruse which suggests and treats historical text analysis as, in itself, sufficient for uncovering subjective understanding while also holding that subjective inner states are inaccessible to historical text analysis. The purpose of this ruse is to "justify" or "warrant" or excuse the failure to seek an understanding about Paul's understanding. It is a ruse intended to "justify" a putrid passivity.

No one is asking historical method to read minds. Historical method assesses publicly available artifacts. That is exactly the right tool for adjudicating origin claims: texts, dates, intertexts, reception, and transmission. Private states are irrelevant to public causation unless independently corroborated. Refusing to elevate an untestable inner experience into a public warrant is not “passivity”; it is methodological hygiene.

The evidential question ruse has been obvious from the beginning. That ruse is the product of disingenuousness, but human disingenuousness is not as interesting as is the human resistance to developing understanding about the understandings had by other persons. And that is why the matter of the obvious disingenuousness was put aside so that the focus of the investigation could be on human understanding and resistance to the development of understanding - especially resistance to the development of understanding about the understandings had by other persons all of which, as has been noted, is related to the matter of resistance to a furthered self-awareness.

Asking for evidence is not disingenuous; it is the only way to separate what feels compelling from what is true. I have repeatedly evaluated Paul’s ethical counsel and theological reasoning on their human merits. What I will not do is treat “not of human origin” as established when there is no independent attestation, no predictive success peculiar to a divine source, and no discriminating textual signature. On the record, the letters are fully explained by human authorship and transmission. Therefore the conclusion stands: take what is valuable as human work, and set aside the origin claim as evidentially empty and causally idle.

You clearly have never analyzed the evidence concept in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (assuming there are any sufficient conditions). And maybe that is because you are unaware of the relationship between necessary conditions, for example, and what is often referred to as objectivity or as a (more) objective viewpoint. Regardless, associating evidence with probability is a problem for you inasmuch as it demands consideration in terms of those very possibilities towards which you are repeatedly dismissive.

Evidence does not require casting claims in necessary-and-sufficient condition form. In public reasoning, evidence is whatever observation shifts the odds between competing hypotheses. That’s formalized by likelihoods: an observation counts as evidence for H₂ over H₁ if it is more expected on H₂ than on H₁. That approach is precisely how “objectivity” is operationalized—by intersubjectively checkable observations that different evaluators can weigh the same way. Far from “dismissing possibilities,” comparing hypotheses is exactly what I’ve done: H₁ = human origin; H₂ = non-human origin. The data we actually have—ordinary Koine diction, standard Greco-Roman epistolary form, arguments from Hebrew scriptures, and a normal, variant-rich manuscript transmission—are strongly expected under H₁ and predict nothing uniquely under H₂. So the evidence lowers the probability of H₂ relative to H₁. No metaphysical pronouncements needed.

If you want to pursue the evidence concept issue, please do so, because it will at least provide still more observational data even if that pursuit as conducted is not sufficiently interesting to warrant my participation.

Here it is in one line: to support “not of human origin,” you must present some public observation that would be unlikely on human authorship but likely if a non-human source were involved. There is none. Appeals to inner experience, or to the mere possibility of such experience, do not change the evidential balance because they generate no discriminating prediction.

Be that as it will, subjective states such as understanding are "publicly checkable" by means and methods which were outlined previously.

We can observe behaviors, texts, and communal effects. We cannot independently verify someone’s private phenomenology. Crucially, none of the “publicly checkable” outputs you allude to—letters, rules, exhortations, shifts in community practice—distinguish a divine cause from ordinary cognition and social transmission. They are exactly what human processes produce everywhere else: rhetoric to persuade, norms to bind, and a manuscript tradition that changes over time. That is public checkability, and it points to human origin.

If all you have in response is the usual slithering nothingness, then you finally get to have the last word, because I am at a loss for how to further find something interesting in that slithering nothingness. But I will keep watching to see if there is anything that is or can be made interesting, whether in this thread or some other.

Ad hominem doesn’t supply evidence. The issue is narrow and empirical: Paul’s assertion “not of human origin” is a positive causal claim. The record we have carries only human fingerprints. Until you produce a publicly checkable observation that favors a non-human source over human authorship and transmission, the rational verdict is fixed: evaluate Paul’s ethics and theology on human reasons alone, and treat the non-human origin claim as evidentially empty and causally idle.

NHC

Yawn. HoHum. More of the same disingenuousness.

As I said last time, I find nothing interesting about disingenuousness. If I ever see a new way of someone being disingenuous, then that will be at least a little bit interesting. And while I do not expect that there are a large number of people here who are at all bothered by or interested in disingenuousness on the part of anyone criticizing religious perspectives, I will highlight one common trick technique of the disingenuous so that even the otherwise unbothered or disinterested might be able to make use of this information when it comes to matters which interest the otherwise unbothered or disinterested.

That technique is a changing of the subject done so subtly as to disguise the fact that the disingenuous person is not actually addressing the issue at hand with that subtlety constructed so as to make it seem that the disingenuous person has successfully faced down the challenge posed by the subject which was actually at hand but which is being ignored and left unaddressed.

In response to a statement about analysis of "the evidence concept in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions", the respondent said, "Evidence does not require casting claims in necessary-and-sufficient condition form."

But that response is not actually a response.

The issue at hand was not evidence; rather the issue was the concept of evidence, and the concept of evidence is not the same matter as whether something is an instance of evidence.

To some, that might seem to be a subtle distinction, but thinking so is what the disingenuous person counts on to give cover to that person's disingenuousness.

Without the concept of evidence, there is no such thing as evidence. Without a concept for evidence, the word evidence refers to nothing.

In the referenced case, with its above noted sleight-of-hand, the [pseudo-]respondent proceeds by doubling-down with thinking which had already been shown to be absurd. The [pseudo-]respondent said, "evidence is whatever observation shifts the odds between competing hypotheses." That means that, according to the [pseudo-]respondent, it is necessarily the case that - it is a necessary condition for evidence that - evidence always and only becomes actual ex post facto such that there can never be evidence which "shifts the odds" before the shifting occurs.

That means it is always and only disingenuous to insist that evidence be provided in order to make a case, support a viewpoint, or change a mind, because it is impossible to provide evidence in order to make a case, support a viewpoint, or change a mind before the case is made, the viewpoint is supported, or a mind is changed. That plain absurdity makes it utterly unnecessary to bother with the problems to be found with the "shifts the odds" notion itself.

Disingenuousness is very nearly if not always subtle because, even if the disingenuous person is not ashamed of being disingenuous, it is as if emanating from the disingenuous is an expression ashamed of being used deceitfully. Of course, in fact, the subtly is just the attempt at hiding the deceit.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Yawn. HoHum. More of the same disingenuousnes

Calling scrutiny “disingenuous” is not an argument; it’s a deflection. The issue on the table is Paul’s positive origin claim. Either you present publicly checkable reasons that raise its probability above the human-origin baseline, or you concede it stands as a faith assertion. Labeling the request for evidence as “disingenuous” doesn’t convert a non-sequitur into support.

As I said last time, I find nothing interesting about disingenuousness. If I ever see a new way of someone being disingenuous, then that will be at least a little bit interesting. And while I do not expect that there are a large number of people here who are at all bothered by or interested in disingenuousness on the part of anyone criticizing religious perspectives, I will highlight one common trick technique of the disingenuous so that even the otherwise unbothered or disinterested might be able to make use of this information when it comes to matters which interest the otherwise unbothered or disinterested.

Meta-complaints about tone and motives are orthogonal to the claim you need to defend. The request is precise: show a discriminating observation that favors “not of human origin” over ordinary authorship and transmission. If you cannot, the rational verdict is to withhold assent. That is not a “trick technique”; it is the minimum standard for public claims.

That technique is a changing of the subject done so subtly as to disguise the fact that the disingenuous person is not actually addressing the issue at hand with that subtlety constructed so as to make it seem that the disingenuous person has successfully faced down the challenge posed by the subject which was actually at hand but which is being ignored and left unaddressed.

The subject has never changed. I have addressed it directly and repeatedly: Paul asserts a non-human origin; our only data—language, genre, argumentation, and manuscript history—are fully human. No external attestation of the revelation, no unique predictive success, no textual signature requiring a superhuman cause. Without such evidence, the origin claim is evidentially idle. Everything else you’ve raised—love, understanding, inner experience—may be pastorally meaningful, but none of it distinguishes a divine cause from human cognition. Either provide a public marker that does that work or acknowledge that the claim rests on faith alone and cannot bind those who are not already committed.

In response to a statement about analysis of "the evidence concept in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions", the respondent said, "Evidence does not require casting claims in necessary-and-sufficient condition form."

That was a response about the concept, not a dodge. Many core concepts in science and history are role-defined rather than by neat necessary-and-sufficient checklists. “Evidence” is one of them: its conceptual role is to differentially support one hypothesis over competitors by way of publicly checkable observations. You don’t need a scholastic essence to use a concept with rigor; you need operational criteria for public adjudication.

But that response is not actually a response.

It is precisely a response to your framing. You insisted on necessary/sufficient conditions; I explained why evidential practice is governed by comparative support, not essence-hunting. If you want a minimal necessary condition for public evidence in this debate: intersubjective checkability. If you want a sufficient condition in context: an observation that, given background knowledge, would be notably more expected if ‘not of human origin’ were true than if ordinary human authorship and transmission were true.

The issue at hand was not evidence; rather the issue was the concept of evidence, and the concept of evidence is not the same matter as whether something is an instance of evidence.

Defining evidence as likelihood-raising is a statement about the concept, not a list of instances. It explains what makes anything count as evidence in the first place: its comparative bearing on hypotheses, assessed by observations anyone can check.

To some, that might seem to be a subtle distinction, but thinking so is what the disingenuous person counts on to give cover to that person's

Accusing motives neither clarifies the concept nor supplies what’s missing for Paul’s claim. We’re discussing standards for public warrants, not personalities.

Without the concept of evidence, there is no such thing as evidence. Without a concept for evidence, the word evidence refers to nothing.

Agreed—and the concept I’m using is explicit: publicly checkable observations that raise or lower the relative plausibility of competing explanations. That’s how courts, labs, and historians work in practice.

In the referenced case, with its above noted sleight-of-hand, the [pseudo-]respondent proceeds by doubling-down with thinking which had already been shown to be absurd. The [pseudo-]respondent said, "evidence is whatever observation shifts the odds between competing hypotheses." That means that, according to the [pseudo-]respondent, it is necessarily the case that - it is a necessary condition for evidence that - evidence always and only becomes actual ex post facto such that there can never be evidence which "shifts the odds" before the shifting occurs.

That’s a misread. “Shifts the odds” describes the evidential relation, not the calendar. An observation can favor H₁ over H₂ whether or not anyone has done the arithmetic or changed their mind yet. The sun’s spectrum was evidence for fusion before anyone updated; fossils were evidence for common descent the moment they were observed. Evidence isn’t created by the act of concluding; it’s constituted by how observations bear on hypotheses.

That means it is always and only disingenuous to insist that evidence be provided in order to make a case, support a viewpoint, or change a mind, because it is impossible to provide evidence in order to make a case, support a viewpoint, or change a mind before the case is made, the viewpoint is supported, or a mind is changed. That plain absurdity makes it utterly unnecessary to bother with the problems to be found with the "shifts the odds" notion itself.

No. You can present observations now that, given background knowledge, would be much more expected if “not of human origin” were true than if human authorship were. If such observations existed—say, independently attested predictive content that could not plausibly have been produced by the known communities—they would count as evidence before anyone “finishes” an argument. In the case at hand, we have the opposite: everything observed is exactly what human processes predict, so the odds shift against the non-human origin claim.

Disingenuousness is very nearly if not always subtle because, even if the disingenuous person is not ashamed of being disingenuous, it is as if emanating from the disingenuous is an expression ashamed of being used deceitfully. Of course, in fact, the subtly is just the attempt at hiding the deceit.

Labeling methodological standards as “deceit” does not replace the missing support. The public question remains untouched: What observation in the Pauline corpus or its transmission is more expected on a non-human source than on ordinary human composition and copying? There is none. The letters are written in ordinary Koine, use standard epistolary and rhetorical conventions, argue from available scriptures and common analogies, and were transmitted with the normal range of human variants. Those facts satisfy the human-origin hypothesis and leave nothing for a non-human cause to explain. On a clear concept of evidence, that is decisive against treating “not of human origin” as anything more than a private article of faith.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Many core concepts in science and history are role-defined rather than by neat necessary-and-sufficient checklists. “Evidence” is one of them: its conceptual role is to differentially support one hypothesis over competitors by way of publicly checkable observations.

Any who are not disingenuous might like to know that analysis of the concept called evidence in terms of necessary as well as sufficient conditions is in no way contrary to the notion of evidence as "role-defined". Indeed, considering evidence in terms of its role is precisely how to realize what is necessary for evidence to be evidence. Considering evidence in terms of its role is how evidence gets distinguished from closely related terms, and those distinctions lead to recognizing what is necessary for evidence to be evidence.

The necessary condition (or set of conditions) which distinguishes evidence from closely related terms defines the role that evidence plays, and the condition (or set of conditions) sought as necessary for evidence to be evidence will, of necessity, apply across contexts and perspectives. Such is the nature of a necessary condition.

To restrict evidence to the role of differential support is to restrict evidence to use as an ex post facto - an after the fact - honorific, and that restricted use in no way accommodates the usages of evidence found in science, history, or even ordinary language. Even in science there is evidence for competing hypotheses before there is evidence sufficient for supporting one hypothesis over another. This means that the restricting of evidence to the role of differential support is an arbitrary depiction, but still more important than that arbitrariness is the fact that it is a dangerous depiction. That restriction is arbitrary inasmuch as it fails to capture or establish any necessary condition, and it is dangerous in multiple ways.

One danger entirely regards the process of conceptualization. That danger resides in the unnecessary conflation of evidence with the differentiation aspect of the cognitive process. Cognition and the understanding it produces is a going beyond evidence. Cognition and the understanding it produces are matters that are in addition to evidence, and it is only by virtue of that "in addition" that evidence gets to have any role at all, any place in which to have a role. This means that, in order to realize the nature of evidence in its role, it is necessary to understand understanding. The veracity of understanding is susceptible for being dependent on the condition of both the evidence and the beyond evidence aspect of the process. That susceptibility is determined by and according to the possibilities (the different perspectives) taken into account.

There is another, more insidious danger that can be had as a result of restricting evidence to the role of differential support. The problem with asserting that there is no evidence if there is no differentiating support is that it makes it of effortless ease to disguise an actual ruse.

Restricting evidence to differentiating support allows for every insistence that evidence be produced to be nothing other than a demand that the demanding person's mind be changed. But the changing of a mind is a matter of cognition from within the context of an understanding, and understandings never change without there first being what is effectively a willingness to consider possibilities/perspectives not previously taken into account. An unwillingness to take alternative possibilities/perspectives into account most certainly establishes as ruse the demand for evidence as differential support. An inability to take alternative possibilities/perspectives into account might not quite qualify as ruse, but that would only be the case if there is willingness for further or later consideration. After all, understanding - even a changed understanding - need not occur instantaneously.

All issues are matters of understanding, and that means that understanding is always at issue.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Any who are not disingenuous might like to know that analysis of the concept called evidence in terms of necessary as well as sufficient conditions is in no way contrary to the notion of evidence as "role-defined". Indeed, considering evidence in terms of its role is precisely how to realize what is necessary for evidence to be evidence. Considering evidence in terms of its role is how evidence gets distinguished from closely related terms, and those distinctions lead to recognizing what is necessary for evidence to be evidence.

There’s no conflict to resolve. The role concept of evidence yields a clear necessary condition: an observation O and at least two explicit hypotheses H₁ and H₂ such that P(O|H₁) ≠ P(O|H₂). If an observation would be expected about the same under both, it is not evidential for deciding between them. A context-robust sufficient condition in practice is a pre-specified test whose likelihood ratio or equivalent passes a stated threshold. That’s how courts, sciences, and historical method operationalize “evidence” without hand-waving essences.

The necessary condition (or set of conditions) which distinguishes evidence from closely related terms defines the role that evidence plays, and the condition (or set of conditions) sought as necessary for evidence to be evidence will, of necessity, apply across contexts and perspectives. Such is the nature of a necessary condition.

Agreed—and the cross-context condition I just stated does exactly that. Publicly checkable observation plus explicit competing models with unequal likelihoods is the trans-contextual core. It works in physics, forensics, and textual history alike.

To restrict evidence to the role of differential support is to restrict evidence to use as an ex post facto - an after the fact - honorific, and that restricted use in no way accommodates the usages of evidence found in science, history, or even ordinary language. Even in science there is evidence for competing hypotheses before there is evidence sufficient for supporting one hypothesis over another. This means that the restricting of evidence to the role of differential support is an arbitrary depiction, but still more important than that arbitrariness is the fact that it is a dangerous depiction. That restriction is arbitrary inasmuch as it fails to capture or establish any necessary condition, and it is dangerous in multiple ways.

“Differential support” is not ex post; it is how evidence functions prospectively. We pre-state hypotheses and what they predict, then we look. When the observation arrives, it already bears different likelihoods under the rivals, whether or not anyone has updated yet. That is why pre-registration, blind analysis, and replication exist. Ordinary language mirrors this: a footprint is evidence for presence over absence the moment it’s seen because it’s more expected if someone walked there.

One danger entirely regards the process of conceptualization. That danger resides in the unnecessary conflation of evidence with the differentiation aspect of the cognitive process. Cognition and the understanding it produces is a going beyond evidence. Cognition and the understanding it produces are matters that are in addition to evidence, and it is only by virtue of that "in addition" that evidence gets to have any role at all, any place in which to have a role. This means that, in order to realize the nature of evidence in its role, it is necessary to understand understanding. The veracity of understanding is susceptible for being dependent on the condition of both the evidence and the beyond evidence aspect of the process. That susceptibility is determined by and according to the possibilities (the different perspectives) taken into account.

Inference and evidence are distinct, and recognizing differential support keeps them distinct. Evidence is the publicly checkable input; cognition is how we integrate it with background knowledge. Your appeal to “understanding” adds no public discriminator for Paul’s origin claim. Unless “understanding” yields observable predictions that are more likely if a non-human source acted than if ordinary composition and transmission occurred, it cannot underwrite “not of human origin” in public analysis.

There is another, more insidious danger that can be had as a result of restricting evidence to the role of differential support. The problem with asserting that there is no evidence if there is no differentiating support is that it makes it of effortless ease to disguise an actual ruse.

Demanding discriminating observations is the opposite of a ruse; it is how we prevent them. A claim that introduces an extra cause must shoulder at least one prediction that the simpler hypothesis would not expect. Without that, “non-human origin” is idle multiplication of entities.

Restricting evidence to differentiating support allows for every insistence that evidence be produced to be nothing other than a demand that the demanding person's mind be changed. But the changing of a mind is a matter of cognition from within the context of an understanding, and understandings never change without there first being what is effectively a willingness to consider possibilities/perspectives not previously taken into account. An unwillingness to take alternative possibilities/perspectives into account most certainly establishes as ruse the demand for evidence as differential support. An inability to take alternative possibilities/perspectives into account might not quite qualify as ruse, but that would only be the case if there is willingness for further or later consideration. After all, understanding - even a changed understanding - need not occur instantaneously.

Evidence is not a demand that a mind change; it is a standard for what would warrant change. I have considered the alternative—“not of human origin”—and asked for its discriminating markers. There are none: no independent attestation of the revelation, no unique predictive content, no textual features requiring a superhuman cause, and a thoroughly human manuscript history. Considering possibilities is not the same as crediting them without differential support.

All issues are matters of understanding, and that means that understanding is always at issue.

Understanding is necessary, but public claims of origin are adjudicated by causes and traces. On those criteria, everything about Paul’s letters—language, genre, arguments, and transmission—maps cleanly to human processes. Until you produce an observation that is more expected if a non-human source acted than if humans wrote, copied, and debated these texts, the only warranted conclusion is that the origin claim is a faith assertion with no evidential purchase in public analysis.

NHC