The Case For Christ - A defence of Lee Strobel's 1998 apologetic book

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I know to a 100% degree of certainty that there were many men named "Jesus" (or whatever it was supposed to be) that have walked the Earth just as I know to a 100% degree of certainty that not a one of them was an omnicapable being that created the entire universe in order to trifurcate into "flesh" at point X in order to kill himself as a necessary sacrifice to himself to stop himself from punishing all of us for something none of us ever did.

When I was young and in a church the ladies would recite these litanies in the front pews, there was probably some kind of special power or intercession involved. They mentioned lots of glorious mysteries, one was probably the mystery of the Trifurcation. I think these glorious mysteries somehow were worked into their reciting the rosary. Certain beads meant you had to do certain things. The big beads maybe had something to do with these mysteries.

 

[Horatio Parker]

No one knows who wrote the first gospel...

Well if that's true, then no one can say that they aren't firsthand accounts.

Bible skeptics : The Gospels are all hearsay written centuries after the event.
Me : written by who?
Bible skeptics : We don't know who.

Me :

You're making assumptions namely that the first gospel was intended as history. We don't know that.

Parts of the gospels were written centuries later e.g. the "cast the first stone" adultery story.

 

[Atheos]

No one knows who wrote the first gospel...

Well if that's true, then no one can say that they aren't firsthand accounts.

Bible skeptics : The Gospels are all hearsay written centuries after the event.
Me : written by who?
Bible skeptics : We don't know who.

Me :

You're making assumptions namely that the first gospel was intended as history. We don't know that.

Parts of the gospels were written centuries later e.g. the "cast the first stone" adultery story.

Hearsay: Claims made by unverifiable sources.

Lion is misrepresenting skeptical claims. I know of no one who argues that the canonical gospels were written "centuries" after the (alleged) events. Decades, yes.

The accusation of hearsay is not subject for debate. Anonymous writings are the textbook definition of hearsay.

I can just imagine the courtroom:

"Your honor, someone claims he saw Fred standing over the bleeding victim with a smoking gun."

"Someone? Who is this person making this claim?"

"I don't know. It's just someone. Since we don't know who it was we can't be sure it wasn't an eyewitness."

"Objection your honor, hearsay."

"Overruled. The prosecution has a point. We can't be sure it wasn't an eyewitness. Guilty."

 

[Atheos]

In the interest of fairness I'd like to take back the claim that "I know of no one who argues that the canonical gospels were written "centuries" after the (alleged) events." Upon further reflection I have seen those who do make such arguments. One formerly prolific poster on this site (mountainman) used to argue that the gospels were created under the order of Constantine in the 4th century and that the evidence they existed earlier was planted by Eusebius.

I never found his arguments particularly persuasive, and as far as I know few others did. But the argument was made by at least one skeptic.

Having said that I still stand behind my denial of Lion IRC's implication that skeptics routinely claim the gospels were "centuries" removed from the events they depict. I, for one, only claim what the evidence supports. And the evidence strongly supports that the first canonical gospel was written by one or more individuals living in or around Rome around the year 75 C.E. There is absolutely no reason to believe that anyone involved in its production witnessed any of the events described in it. The fact that the next two canonical gospels borrowed heavily on this first one, that each was written at least a decade later, and that they are also anonymous gives one even less reason to suspect that any eyewitnesses were involved in their production. The latest canonical gospel is also anonymous and was written no less than 60 (possibly as many as 90) years removed from the events described therein. There were lots of gospels being produced by then, most of which did not make the cut. So the chances that any one of them was written by an eyewitness becomes vanishingly small.

 

[Lion IRC]

Your courtroom scenario is not analogous to my claim.
I don't argue that we should believe the witness' (Gospel) accounts because they are anonymous.
I want to know why you think their ambiguous identity proves that they weren't eye witnesses.

In your court scenario, you would be the lawyer arguing that even if we know someone witnessed a murder, and took the time to leave a written statement of what they saw, we should ignore that evidence because the identity of that witness can't be proven.

This is not a black/white, yes/no, guilty/innocent question. Nor do biblical theists have to prove the historicity of the Gospel events beyond all reasonable doubt. But you should at least acknowledge that if you don't know the identity of the Gospel writers, then you can't refute the claim that they were (in part) written by eye witnesses.

 

[Treedbear]

... There were lots of gospels being produced by then, most of which did not make the cut. So the chances that any one of them was written by an eyewitness becomes vanishingly small.

There's another issue I haven't seen brought up and that's how the particular gospels in the New Testament were chosen. We not only need to estimate how likely it is that they reflect fact vs fiction in the canon as it exists today, but out of all those circulating around 397 CE how do we judge the ability of the church (as it was then) to faithfully chose between them? You really need to rely on divine intervention, and that means you have to believe to begin with. The Bible describes miracles so it was a miracle by which the correct books were included in the Bible.

 

[Keith&Co.]

... There were lots of gospels being produced by then, most of which did not make the cut. So the chances that any one of them was written by an eyewitness becomes vanishingly small.

There's another issue I haven't seen brought up and that's how the particular gospels in the New Testament were chosen. We not only need to estimate how likely it is that they reflect fact vs fiction in the canon as it exists today, but out of all those circulating around 397 CE how do we judge the ability of the church (as it was then) to faithfully chose between them? You really need to rely on divine intervention, and that means you have to believe to begin with. The Bible describes miracles so it was a miracle by which the correct books were included in the Bible.

There's a board game, Dogma, where every player is a Church that was active at the time of the Councils where the Articles of Faith were chosen. And those articles became the rubric for picking authentic books of The Bible.

Each Church is issued the articles they hold as absolute (Jesus IS God, Jesus is LIKE God, Jesus is apart from God but made of the same materials as God), or Medium important, or stuff you hold to be true, but not necessarily worth a religious war over.

Then the game plays out like a cross between monopoly and backgammon. You try to attract followers, as the more followers you have the more votes in council.
And you try to control the Pope, who's worth a shitload of votes.
And you try to control secular figures, like emperors, who have the power to exile other player's authority figures. And eventually, someone calls a vote to see which church's version of Article 1 is adopted. More play, more exiles, alliances (You support (Two gods: One good and one evil) for me, I'll support your (John the Baptist was the Messiah) next round.

Then everyone who's still playing the game at the end (a lot like Monopoly!) reads the resulting Articles of Faith out loud. Kinda pissed off my aunt when she realized that the resulting list was not necessarily going to match the historical one. Which would have produced a different Bible...

 

[ruby sparks]

.....the mythicists have the stronger argument IMO.

I have yet to hear one.

They have however, collectively, cast significant doubt. Imo.

What argument(s) for HJ do you consider strong?

It would take too long. I'm not sure I have the enthusiasm for a prolonged debate. I kind of overdosed on this topic at one time. There isn't one strand which tips the balance for me. But if you want an example, I do think that what's in the Epistles may be considered reasonably good evidence in favour of his existence, all things considered. I don't tend to put much stock in the Gospels as sources.

In a nutshell, whatever else about the Epistles, the writer (who, it seems likely, wrote at least some of the letters) was talking about someone. That it was a Judean Jewish bloke who had not long before died seems to me slightly the better explanation than any other. And 25 years after events would be practically nothing in terms of sources when it comes to ancient history. And when trying to determine existence, we are after all dealing with ancient history.

More importantly, what there isn't, imo, is enough strength in the counter-explanations, and imo they are less parsimonious, and sometimes imo just implausible. Earl Doherty's go into this category as far as I am concerned. This view was reinforced after I participated in a discussion with him on an online forum a few years ago. Quite apart from finding him to be borderline crank personality-wise (just my personal opinion) his analysis and conclusions are imo unreliable, dubious, and not very informed, and furthermore I think it was bad judgement on Richard Carrier's part to endorse his ideas. The apparent absence of mythicists at or near the time period in question doesn't help the mythicist case either.

It may be annoying, but as I understand it, in the study of ancient history, allowing probable existence is sometimes akin to the default where there's evidence for existence and unless there's a good case to the contrary.

So in that sense, there's the argument that it's inconsistent to declare him not to have existed when, although it's a close call to make, and agnosticism/neutrality or something close to it (in either direction) is/are arguably the most warranted positions, there's arguably as much evidence for him as we have any reasonable right to expect in the circumstances, and possibly more evidence than for many other figures of similar status or renown from ancient history, during their lifetime I mean. Name me any messianic claimant, preacher or magic man from 1st Century Judea, for instance. There were quite a few, apparently. Then, tell me how we come to know about them. At least one, apparently, had more followers than Jesus is supposed to have had at the time.

 

[Atheos]

Your courtroom scenario is not analogous to my claim.
I don't argue that we should believe the witness' (Gospel) accounts because they are anonymous.
I want to know why you think their ambiguous identity proves that they weren't eye witnesses.

In your court scenario, you would be the lawyer arguing that even if we know someone witnessed a murder, and took the time to leave a written statement of what they saw, we should ignore that evidence because the identity of that witness can't be proven.

This is not a black/white, yes/no, guilty/innocent question. Nor do biblical theists have to prove the historicity of the Gospel events beyond all reasonable doubt. But you should at least acknowledge that if you don't know the identity of the Gospel writers, then you can't refute the claim that they were (in part) written by eye witnesses.

You're about as wrong as you can be on every count.

First of all I didn't say you were arguing we should believe the accounts because they are anonymous. Red herring.

Secondly, there is a vast difference between proving that they weren't eyewitnesses and having any reason to believe they were. It is indeed possible that GMark was written by an eyewitness. It's nearly equally possible that I am Donald J Trump and I hang around this lame discussion board because I don't find being president enough of a challenge to keep me occupied.

The point is that by 75 C.E., there were quite a few Christians living in or around Rome. But there were very few (perhaps none) "eyewitnesses" there. It is incredibly unlikely that if a Peter or Andrew happened to be there and was personally responsible for writing that book (or dictating it to someone else) that those who authored it wouldn't have mentioned that key bit of information. Most books of the NT Canon make some attempt of identifying who is doing the writing (or use a pseudonym for someone famous like the epistles of Peter). There are lots of reasons to name the writer(s) if they were eyewitnesses and absolutely none to withhold that information.

Third, I can guarantee you that in a court of law if they can't identify with certainty who is making a claim (and allow the defense to cross-examine) the testimony will not be allowed.

I agree that this is not a black/white issue. But I also know with certainty that if someone tells me a tall tale that includes verifiable lies (Herod's slaughter of the innocents / Night of the Living Dead / 3 Hours of Darkness), along with stories of a magic man who walks on storm-tossed water, conjures up feasts from scraps, controls storms on command, cures blindness and neurological ailments with a touch and levitates off into the sky never to be seen again ... I am going to need a lot more than "well it could have been told by an eyewitness - you can't prove it wasn't" before I'm going to give it anything more than what it rightly deserves: A trip to the same wastebasket Joseph Smith's Moroni bullshit, Mohammad's Gabriel bullshit and L Ron Hubbard's Xenu bullshit go.

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

So in that sense, there's the argument that it's inconsistent to declare him not to have existed when, although it's a close call to make, and agnosticism/neutrality or something close to it (in either direction) is/are arguably the most warranted positions, there's arguably as much evidence for him as we have any reasonable right to expect in the circumstances, and possibly more evidence than for many other figures of similar status or renown from ancient history, during their lifetime I mean. Name me any messianic claimant, preacher or magic man from 1st Century Judea, for instance. There were quite a few, apparently. Then, tell me how we come to know about them. At least one, apparently, had more followers than Jesus is supposed to have had at the time.

There is one I can think of off the top of my head. Where Jesus is not mentioned in any other work than the Gospels that were written much later, John the Baptist is mentioned in Josephus' works.

As an alternate scholarly view of the Gospels and Jesus, there was a book published by a Biblical scholar, Joseph Atwill, Caesar's Messiah. Such scholarly books are generally 'just so stories' but then most ancient history is. The thesis of the book is that the Gospels (and Jesus) was war-time propaganda created by the Flavians. The militant Jewish messianic movement of the time was a real serious problem for Rome. It was decided to give the Jews a peaceful messiah that opposed the Jewish priesthood and painted Rome as not so bad. In the Gospels, Jesus says to 'give unto Rome that which is Rome's' and it is the Jewish priesthood that is blamed for Jesus' death.

 

[ruby sparks]

... snip ...

So in that sense, there's the argument that it's inconsistent to declare him not to have existed when, although it's a close call to make, and agnosticism/neutrality or something close to it (in either direction) is/are arguably the most warranted positions, there's arguably as much evidence for him as we have any reasonable right to expect in the circumstances, and possibly more evidence than for many other figures of similar status or renown from ancient history, during their lifetime I mean. Name me any messianic claimant, preacher or magic man from 1st Century Judea, for instance. There were quite a few, apparently. Then, tell me how we come to know about them. At least one, apparently, had more followers than Jesus is supposed to have had at the time.

There is one I can think of off the top of my head. Where Jesus is not mentioned in any other work than the Gospels that were written much later, John the Baptist is mentioned in Josephus' works.

I don't buy the suggestion that Jesus was not referred to at all by Josephus. It's possible, but on the whole I'm not especially persuaded.

If it were the case, then J the B would be an exception, as an example of what I asked, yes.

Well, sort of. It's from Josephus that we get all the magic/messianic preacher men of the time. That was my point.

 

[ruby sparks]

As an alternate scholarly view of the Gospels and Jesus, there was a book published by a Biblical scholar, Joseph Atwill, Caesar's Messiah. Such scholarly books are generally 'just so stories' but then most ancient history is. The thesis of the book is that the Gospels (and Jesus) was war-time propaganda created by the Flavians. The militant Jewish messianic movement of the time was a real serious problem for Rome. It was decided to give the Jews a peaceful messiah that opposed the Jewish priesthood and painted Rome as not so bad. In the Gospels, Jesus says to 'give unto Rome that which is Rome's' and it is the Jewish priesthood that is blamed for Jesus' death.

Just before that, you seemed to imply that Josephus did not mention Jesus. Or did I pick you up wrong? Were you saying that Josephus mentioned J the B as well as Jesus?

You did seem to imply that Josephus did not, in your opinion, mention Jesus.

 

[skepticalbip]

As an alternate scholarly view of the Gospels and Jesus, there was a book published by a Biblical scholar, Joseph Atwill, Caesar's Messiah. Such scholarly books are generally 'just so stories' but then most ancient history is. The thesis of the book is that the Gospels (and Jesus) was war-time propaganda created by the Flavians. The militant Jewish messianic movement of the time was a real serious problem for Rome. It was decided to give the Jews a peaceful messiah that opposed the Jewish priesthood and painted Rome as not so bad. In the Gospels, Jesus says to 'give unto Rome that which is Rome's' and it is the Jewish priesthood that is blamed for Jesus' death.

Just before that, you seemed to imply that Josephus did not mention Jesus. Or did I pick you up wrong? Were you saying that Josephus mentioned J the B as well as Jesus?

You did seem to imply that Josephus did not, in your opinion, mention Jesus.

I can make no sense of this post. Yes I said that Jesus was not mentioned in any historical accounts of the time... including the works of Josephus. If you have any link to a quote from his work that names Jesus, I will be proven wrong.

Or are you claiming that Josephus wrote the Gospels as history?

 

[ruby sparks]

I can make no sense of this post. Yes I said that Jesus was not mentioned in any historical accounts of the time... including the works of Josephus. If you have any link to a quote from his work that names Jesus, I will be proven wrong.

Or are you claiming that Josephus wrote the Gospels as history?

I, in turn, can make very little sense of your post.

'Names' Jesus? There are two entries in Josephus that appear to relate or refer to Jesus. Neither may be genuine, or relate/refer to Jesus. As I said, personally, I'm not convinced that's the case.

'Historical accounts'? Is that meant to rule out the Epistles? If so, why?

Proof? This subject isn't amenable to proof.

I don't know what your last line refers to. I am not claiming that Josephus wrote the gospels, as history or otherwise.

I was merely noting that you seemed to move from suggesting that Josephus didn't mention Jesus to an alternative view that he did. That was all. So I was just checking that your alternatives involved that change.

 

[skepticalbip]

I can make no sense of this post. Yes I said that Jesus was not mentioned in any historical accounts of the time... including the works of Josephus. If you have any link to a quote from his work that names Jesus, I will be proven wrong.

Or are you claiming that Josephus wrote the Gospels as history?

I can make very little sense of your post.

'Names' Jesus? There are two entries in Josephus that appear to refer to Jesus. Neither may be genuine, or refer to Jesus. Personally, I'm not convinced that's the case.

Proof? This subject isn't amenable to proof.

I don't know what your last line refers to. Obviously, I am not even claiming that Josephus wrote the gospels at all.

I was merely noting that you moved from suggesting that Josephus didn't mention Jesus to an alternative view that he did. That was all.

???
The Flavians that the book claims commissioned the writers of "the Gospel propaganda" were a Roman imperial dynasty, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Though the book does propose that Josephus taught the writers about the subtleties of how Jewish religious texts were written so that the invented story and characters would be accepted by the Jews.

By Flavians, I, and the book, mean the Flavian Caesars. They would be the only ones interested in creating war time propaganda to weaken the Jewish militant messianic movement. Josephus had the name Flavius added to his name when he was 'adopted' by these Caesars.

 

[ruby sparks]

I was merely noting that you moved from suggesting that Josephus didn't mention Jesus to an alternative view that he did. That was all.

???
The Flavians that the book claims commissioned the writers of "the Gospel propaganda" were a Roman imperial dynasty, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Though the book does propose that Josephus taught the writers about the subtleties of how Jewish religious texts were written so that the invented story and characters would be accepted by the Jews.

By Flavians, I, and the book, mean the Flavian Caesars. They would be the only ones interested in creating war time propaganda to weaken the Jewish militant messianic movement. Josephus had the name Flavius added to his name when he was 'adopted' by these Caesars.

Does Atwill not think the TF was written by Josephus?

In any case, what you have there is basically quite a massive and complex (and most, including those with any relevant expertise, would say very implausible) conspiracy theory.

And I find it amusing that even Richard Carrier, for whom Earl Doherty apparently does not qualify as a crank, nonetheless dismisses Atwill as a total crank.

 

[skepticalbip]

I was merely noting that you moved from suggesting that Josephus didn't mention Jesus to an alternative view that he did. That was all.

???
The Flavians that the book claims commissioned the writers of "the Gospel propaganda" were a Roman imperial dynasty, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Though the book does propose that Josephus taught the writers about the subtleties of how Jewish religious texts were written so that the invented story and characters would be accepted by the Jews.

By Flavians, I, and the book, mean the Flavian Caesars. They would be the only ones interested in creating war time propaganda to weaken the Jewish militant messianic movement. Josephus had the name Flavius added to his name when he was 'adopted' by these Caesars.

Does Atwill not think the TF was written by Josephus?

In any case, what you have there is basically quite a massive and complex (and most, including those with any relevant expertise, would say very implausible) conspiracy theory.

And I find it amusing that even Richard Carrier, for whom Earl Doherty apparently does not qualify as a crank, nonetheless dismisses Atwill as a total crank.

As I said, it is a 'just so story' like almost all ancient history. But I do find either this 'just so story' or the exaggerated mythical 'hero's journey' story more plausible than accepting the story told in the Gospels as literal truth.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The first celebration of a birthday for the christian godman and the first "discovery" of the TF by Eusebius occurred within 10 years of each other. First we have Eusebius make Jesus an actual person, then we give him a birthday that coincides with Pagan festivals. And of course we enforce orthodoxy at pain of death.

I don't think there was anything like a conspiracy happening, just good old fashioned politics.

 

[Horatio Parker]

What argument(s) for HJ do you consider strong?

It would take too long. I'm not sure I have the enthusiasm for a prolonged debate. I kind of overdosed on this topic at one time. There isn't one strand which tips the balance for me. But if you want an example, I do think that what's in the Epistles may be considered reasonably good evidence in favour of his existence, all things considered. I don't tend to put much stock in the Gospels as sources.

In a nutshell, whatever else about the Epistles, the writer (who, it seems likely, wrote at least some of the letters) was talking about someone. That it was a Judean Jewish bloke who had not long before died seems to me slightly the better explanation than any other. And 25 years after events would be practically nothing in terms of sources when it comes to ancient history. And when trying to determine existence, we are after all dealing with ancient history.

More importantly, what there isn't, imo, is enough strength in the counter-explanations, and imo they are less parsimonious, and sometimes imo just implausible. Earl Doherty's go into this category as far as I am concerned. This view was reinforced after I participated in a discussion with him on an online forum a few years ago. Quite apart from finding him to be borderline crank personality-wise (just my personal opinion) his analysis and conclusions are imo unreliable, dubious, and not very informed, and furthermore I think it was bad judgement on Richard Carrier's part to endorse his ideas. The apparent absence of mythicists at or near the time period in question doesn't help the mythicist case either.

It may be annoying, but as I understand it, in the study of ancient history, allowing probable existence is sometimes akin to the default where there's evidence for existence and unless there's a good case to the contrary.

So in that sense, there's the argument that it's inconsistent to declare him not to have existed when, although it's a close call to make, and agnosticism/neutrality or something close to it (in either direction) is/are arguably the most warranted positions, there's arguably as much evidence for him as we have any reasonable right to expect in the circumstances, and possibly more evidence than for many other figures of similar status or renown from ancient history, during their lifetime I mean. Name me any messianic claimant, preacher or magic man from 1st Century Judea, for instance. There were quite a few, apparently. Then, tell me how we come to know about them. At least one, apparently, had more followers than Jesus is supposed to have had at the time.

I'm not that familiar with first century magic men, but I know there are four contemporaneous attestations for Socrates.

Not even one for Jesus.

 

[Rhea]

Nor do biblical theists have to prove the historicity of the Gospel events beyond all reasonable doubt.

Now that’s an interesting thing to assert.

You would THINK that an all-powerful god, with a message that he WANTED to get to the humans, WOULD effortlessly prove himself beyond all reasonable doubt.


Now, if the god were either NOT all-powerful, or NOT interested in anyone receiving his message accurately, then we get what we see here. Or, of course, if there is not god at all, it would also look like this.