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

[Keith&Co.]

The name of the author isn't important but the author's job (why he wrote it) is. The writings of a fableist, a priest, and a historical chronicler should all be read as having very different meaning and reliability. If there is a lot of writings from one source then his job can be determined and the name becomes important only for identifying other works by the same author.

ETA:
For example, suppose in a thousand years some archaeologist finds two partial manuscripts, one credited to George Bancroft and the other to Mark Twain. If there is sufficient other manuscripts by both available then one of the new manuscripts will be known to be historical and the other pure imagination and entertainment with fictional characters but giving a sense of the times.

Yes.

Or another example, there was a writer extolling the virtues of Venice in the 1500's. He claimed the city was so sophisticated that 'virtually everyone' could read and write. This boast was bolstered by examining the tax records from the period. About 80-85% of the city workers filled out their own taxes, without having to hire a scribe.
The individual names of the tradesmen, laborers, etc. don't matter, but the tax forms were certainly not created with the intention of puffing smoke up anyone's hose.

 

[ruby sparks]

The name of the author isn't important but the author's job (why he wrote it) is. The writings of a fableist, a priest, and a historical chronicler should all be read as having very different meaning and reliability. If there is a lot of writings from one source then his job can be determined and the name becomes important only for identifying other works by the same author.

ETA:
For example, suppose in a thousand years some archaeologist finds two partial manuscripts, one credited to George Bancroft and the other to Mark Twain. If there is sufficient other manuscripts by both available then one of the new manuscripts will be known to be historical and the other pure imagination and entertainment with fictional characters but giving a sense of the times.

Yes.

Or another example, there was a writer extolling the virtues of Venice in the 1500's. He claimed the city was so sophisticated that 'virtually everyone' could read and write. This boast was bolstered by examining the tax records from the period. About 80-85% of the city workers filled out their own taxes, without having to hire a scribe.
The individual names of the tradesmen, laborers, etc. don't matter, but the tax forms were certainly not created with the intention of puffing smoke up anyone's hose.

Good example.

The likely intention/purpose (and indeed biases) of the writer (even if anonymous to us) as far as they can be reliably ascertained, are quite important, as I understand it (I'm not a historian).

I'm also not suggesting authorship doesn't matter. Knowing who the author is would be more information. I was only making the point that historians, particularly ancient historians, do not necessarily need to know it, apparently.

I have also read that the concept of 'author' is in some ways a modern-ish phenomenon. I can't remember all the details of what I read, but the upshot was that one has to be careful applying the term to times when it didn't necessarily imply what it does today. There was (and possibly still is for all I know) something called Delegated Authorship, apparently, where a noted person gave a basic, possibly verbal outline of something to an assistant or less notable person and that less notable (but possibly more erudite) person wrote the text in the noted person's name. This is one form of pseudepigraphy. Another, more extreme, would be outright and deliberate forgery with an intention to deceive readers as to who the author is or was. Even here it is not necessarily clear if at least some strongly-believing forgers actually believed that they were writing what the purported author really would have said (or did say, if they believed the purported author had said it). In other words, to them, it could have been more attempted homage than pure fiction/forgery.

 

[ruby sparks]

So how might all that relate to the bible? Well, as regards what Christians call the 'New Testament canon', the above might relate differently to the gospels than it does to the epistles, for starters.

As regards the gospels, as I said before, I don't think there is any reliable way to tell the historical from the non-historical, at least not throughout. They could include (a) historical material, including historical material about persons and not just places, as well as including a lot of (b) non-historical material (about both persons and places). Somewhere in between the two (at least as regards intent) might be material that the writer at least believed, or had heard, was historical, but either wasn't historical or its historicity could not and cannot be ascertained. Either way, the gospels are a long, long way from being considered historical documents.

Slightly different for the epistles. There's still copious amounts of woo, obviously, and heavy bias, and indeed quite possibly lies (for the purposes of converting or retaining believers) but the epistles belong in a genre of didactic literature that goes back to ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek and Roman practices.

That is the broad distinction, I think. When we ask 'what are the gospels?' and 'what are the epistles?' there may be overlap between the two also. For example, the gospel of Luke is arguably in the epistle form. One might also call it, and the other 3 canonical gospels, religio-political (unreliable) history, or religio-political pseudo-history (ie woo-infected, mostly-non-history, presented as history). How much the writers believed what they were writing was true is hard to tell. They could have sincerely believed at least a lot of it, based on stuff they had heard before and gullibly believed, and/or they may have deliberately made a lot of it up.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Were the canonical gospel authors writing history? Is that what we should assume? Should we automatically proceed from the assumption that within their minds they were recording actual history? Or should we consider they were primarily composing liturgy, not history?

If that priest giving his homily decades ago who stated that it was a historical fact that gospel jesus came back to life had instead stated that it was a liturgical fact, I wouldn't have had the same reaction to his claim.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Every child knows what happens when they play "telephone." Well, I should say, every Boomer to Gen X child knows what happens when they played "telephone." But we have evidence from Mark that even at the time (allegedly), people didn't know what the story was:

Mark 8:27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

Indeed, I think I've found exactly what Lumpen has been railing against in this piece: Oral Tradition and the Game of Telephone: A. N. Sherwin-White’s Famous Quote. Snippet:

Christian apologist William Lane Craig says that forty years is too short a period for legend to develop. He points to a claim made by A.N. Sherwin-White in Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (1963).

According to Sherwin-White, the writings of Herodotus enable us to determine the rate at which legend accumulates, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts. When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states that for the gospels to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be “unbelievable.” More generations would be needed. (Source)​

Craig’s summary has been quoted widely and was popularized in Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ (2008), and it sounds like a thorough slap down of the legend claim. However, when we see what Sherwin-White actually said, we find that Craig’s confidence is unwarranted.

(From this point forward, I’ll use “SW” to refer to historian A.N. Sherwin-White.)

SW never said “unbelievable”

Incredibly, the word “unbelievable,” which Craig puts into the mouth of SW, is not used by him in the relevant chapter in this book. If the word comes from another source, Craig doesn’t cite it. Craig also quotes the word in his essay in Jesus Under Fire (1995).

We all make mistakes, but it’s been twenty years. Where is Craig’s correction?

What did SW actually say?

From his Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament:

Herodotus enables us to test the tempo of myth-making, and the tests suggest that even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core of the oral tradition. (RSRL, 190)​

SW proposes an interesting experiment. If we can find examples in history where legend has crept into oral history and we have more reliable sources that let us compare that with what actually happened, we can measure how fast legendary material accumulates.

Notice the limitations in what SW is saying.

• He cites several examples where historians have (tentatively) sifted truth from myth, but Herodotus is the only example used to put a rate on the loss of historic truth. This isn’t a survey of, say, a dozen random historic accounts that each validates a two-generation limit.
• He isn’t saying that myth doesn’t accumulate, and he’s not proposing a rate at which it does. He’s writing instead about the loss of accurate history (“the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core”).
• He is careful to use the word “suggest” above. William Lane Craig isn’t as careful and imagines an immutable law that SW clearly isn’t proposing.
  What is SW’s point?

Here is more of what SW is saying.

All this suggests that, however strong the myth-forming tendency, the falsification does not automatically and absolutely prevail. (RSRL, 191)

The point of my argument is not to suggest the literal accuracy of ancient sources, secular or ecclesiastical, but to offset the extreme skepticism with which the New Testament narratives are treated in some quarters. (RSRL, 193)​

Craig imagines that myth never overtakes historic truth in two generations. By contrast, SW says that myth doesn’t always overtake historic truth.

Consider Craig’s difficulty. He proposes what may be the most incredible story possible: that a supernatural being created the universe and came to earth as a human and that this was recorded in history. We have a well-populated bin labeled “Mythology” for stories like this. If Craig is to argue that, no, this one is actually history, SW’s statement is useless. “Well, myth might not have overtaken historic truth in this case” does very little to keep Craig’s religion from the Mythology bin.

 

[Lion IRC]

WLC doesn't put the word "unbelievable" into Sherwins mouth.
It's Craig saying that word. Strobel is referring to Craig's conclusion that Sherwin's reasoning shows how unbelievable such rapid legendary accretion would be.

Every child knows what happens when they play "telephone." Well, I should say, every Boomer to Gen X child knows what happens when they played "telephone." But we have evidence from Mark that even at the time (allegedly), people didn't know what the story was:

Mark 8:27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

This is not an example of the Telephone Game.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Some years ago, I had an interest in FOAF tales. Friend of a friend tall tales. I had several books of collected FOAF tales and even a journal. Some had roots that went back centuries, tales that simply mutated as time went on, and then there were weird stories that came out of nowhere and swept the nation in a relatively short period of time. Jan Bruvand, a writer collected many of the tales and published several books on the subject.

It does not take years for urban legends to be created and spread far and wide. Having dived into this subject, one can see the FOAF tales roots of many little "miracles" that get passed around as true fact to this day. The idea than that 40 years is too short a time for rumors to be fleshed out with FOAF tales nonsense that somebody, 40 years later collected and wrote down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Harold_Brunvand

 

[ruby sparks]

Were the canonical gospel authors writing history? Is that what we should assume? Should we automatically proceed from the assumption that within their minds they were recording actual history? Or should we consider they were primarily composing liturgy, not history?

If you are/were asking me that (and all I have to go on is that your post follows two of mine) I would wonder why you were asking me that, since for my own part I've already set out a different set of possibilities, and, I've more or less excluded the specific idea that they were writing actual history.

So what were they writing? Liturgy? Having googled the definition of that I'd say probably not that specifically. But that doesn't help much. We still don't know either what it was they were writing or even what they thought they were writing. It just almost certainly was not actual history, in either case. Though it may have contained some history.

As to broad intent, my best guess is that the broad intent was to persuade, specifically to persuade/convince potential new converts, or in the case of the epistles, to retain and manage existing converts. It was a small cult and obtaining new members and/or retaining recent ones was probably a priority. This would seem to be true for both the epistles and the gospels. Perhaps not so much the 'hymns' and 'songs'. They might have been more liturgical, though there are not many if any of these in the NT (they are mostly in the OT). Another category might be apocalyptics (eg Book of Revelations). The intent behind that sort of thing was not so much about persuasion as about issuing dire (coded) warnings (although that's arguably a form of persuasion).

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

WLC doesn't put the word "unbelievable" into Sherwins mouth.
It's Craig saying that word.

Wrong. Here is WLC putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin's mouth:

When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states that for the gospels to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be "unbelievable." More generations would be needed.

That's what quotation marks denote; that he is quoting Sherwin-White. He is literally putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin-White's mouth.

This is not an example of the Telephone Game.

What did I say the quote from Mark was? It's just above it. Here, I'll repeat it for you since you seem to be having some sort of aneurysm:

But we have evidence from Mark that even at the time (allegedly), people didn't know what the story was:

Mark 8:27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

So that would be an example of the people at the time not knowing what the story was regarding Jesus. The point being, of course, that, on top of the well-known problem of oral tradition (as exemplified by the game of "telephone"), people at the time Jesus supposedly existed did not know who he was supposed to be, with rumors apparently running rampant.

So if there were "some" saying to their children and grand-children that he was "John the Baptist" and "some" saying he was "Elijah" and "still others" saying he was just "one of the prophets," then which oral tradition out of just those three differing accounts is the correct one and how the fuck would anyone know?

Particularly since the rest of that section is:

29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Good thing, too, since there is no one "messiah" to Jews, but to those who say he's "Elijah" they would have said, "But Elijah is a Messiah" so what's different between what we are saying and what Peter said??

So, again--and even if they broke Jesus' rule and told people about him--there would still be "some" saying to their children and grand-children that he was "John the Baptist" and "some" saying he was "Elijah" and "still others" saying he was just "one of the prophets," and then still others saying, apparently, he was an unspecified "Messiah," so, again, which oral tradition out of those now four differing accounts is the correct one and how the fuck would anyone know?

Each disciple somehow tracked down every one of the "some" who thought those different things and said, "No, no, that's not the right story. Here, in forty years one of us is going to write it down so give me your address..."

Regardless, Jesus did not verify Peter's vague reference so far as we know from the text. Peter says, "the Messiah" and Jesus just warns them not to tell anyone about him, not necessarily that, "Yeah, that's who I am. I am the Messiah!"

Because that would have been very confusing to any Jews and completely meaningless to any gentiles.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Matthew 11
Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,
3 And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?
⁴ Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:
5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

However

Matthew 3
16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

History or sloppily written tall tale?

 

[ruby sparks]

Identifying dubious, inconsistent or implausible things in the gospels is like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Only if your mind is attuned to looking for dubious, inconsistent or implausible things. Many theists never really notice them, and if they do, ignore them or invent convoluted apologist's ways of avoiding reasoning about them. There are many websites devoted to trying to explain them away.

 

[Rhea]

And still, my mind continues to ask,

What kind of idiot god can't send a coherent, convincing message to all of creation? A useless weak not believable god, that's who.

Seriously. These people are claiming it's A GOD!!!1!!!!!

And it can't even manage to write an instruction manual for good living that doesn't include slavery, rape and threatening to kill your children?

Hellloooo?!
How's that for a case against ... all of the woo?

 

[Learner]

It is appointed for humans to die once because of the New Earth and all that.

Just come across an understanding or idea from the Christian collective etc..so to speak, who are studying rigourously. Basically, the New Earth is how it was at the beginning during Adams time before the corruption. We DO have new physical bodies when the old one's gone - not being soley spirits IOWs.

Edit: Meaning most of us are not going directly to Heaven and dwell there, according to this interpretation because of the physical New Earth.

 

[Lion IRC]

Wrong. Here is WLC putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin's mouth:


That's what quotation marks denote; that he is quoting Sherwin-White. He is literally putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin-White's mouth

Well in that case Sherwin-White must have used the word "unbelievable".

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It is appointed for humans to die once because of the New Earth and all that.

Just come across an understanding or idea from the Christian collective etc..so to speak, who are studying rigourously. Basically, the New Earth is how it was at the beginning during Adams time before the corruption. We DO have new physical bodies when the old one's gone - not being soley spirits IOWs.

Edit: Meaning most of us are not going directly to Heaven and dwell there, according to this interpretation because of the physical New Earth.

Strobel should have subtitled his work, If Woo, then...

I don't derive a great deal of satisfaction and comfort in hearing someone claim that we're all going to be ghosts again one day so don't sweat the small change. If that's the case what's the point of even getting up in the morning?

 

[Atheos]

Wrong. Here is WLC putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin's mouth:


That's what quotation marks denote; that he is quoting Sherwin-White. He is literally putting the word "unbelievable" into Sherwin-White's mouth

Well in that case Sherwin-White must have used the word "unbelievable".

And even that doesn't matter. Comparing legendary development for the Jesus myth to legendary development for, say, Julius Caesar is like comparing legendary development for Abraham Lincoln to legendary development for Paul Bunyan.

I'm serious. Paul Bunyan fits into the exact same mold. Hailing from Bimidji, Minnesota, Paul Bunyan would have been a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln. Bunyan was a giant lumberjack who managed to perform many incredible feats, but somehow left no evidence he ever actually existed. No historians wrote about him. There is no contemporary witness to his actual existence. Oral stories of his exploits circulated for at least 30 years before ever being written down in print. The only way the development of the Paul Bunyan myth could be more like the development of the Jesus myth would be if there was some intangible reward offered for swallowing the Paul Bunyan stories.

Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, hailed from Hodgenville, Kentucky. He became a lawyer, was politically active and eventually was elected president of the United States. There is a vast amount of evidence of his existence, from personal letters written to and from him, newspaper articles about him, artifacts he personally owned, houses in which he lived, and copious references in history books.

Once you start thinking about it the comparison is striking. Christian apologists want to have it both ways. They want a Jesus who was so unknown that they get a pass for there not being anything in the way of contemporary attestation or historians noting his existence. But then they want a Jesus who was so well known as far away as Rome (1500 miles) that his established history protects him from legendary development in the same way that the well-known actual history of Julius Caesar protected his story from legendary development.

Abraham Lincoln, like Julius Caesar, had a well established historical record. Over the next 30 or so years after his death, about the biggest legendary development in his story was that he walked 5 miles to return six cents worth of change, earning him the nickname "Honest Abe."

But Paul Bunyan, like Jesus, was a Tabula Rasa. Anyone and everyone with a modicum of imagination could freely embellish the story and if their stuff was good enough it would become part of the canonical story. In 30 years time many incredible tales were added to the life of Paul Bunyan. The extraordinary (and sometimes contradictory) tales of the legendary acts of Jesus strongly match up with this model. Paul the mystic communicated with Jesus beyond the grave and told people what he wanted of them. Paul's converts told others of Jesus and inevitably many of the elements of existing mythology (Poseidon, Dionysus, Zeus etc) were either absorbed or one-upped by developing stories of Jesus's exploits.

And this is exactly why Lee Strobel is a big fat liar with pants on fire. He tries to pass this bullshit off like it's "hard nosed investigation" when it's nothing but apologetic tripe without a moment's consideration of the many flaws in these arguments. But he's in good company. Pious Fraud has been a traditional part of Christian Apologetics since the discovery of the Holy Lance (and before, I'm sure).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is appointed for humans to die once because of the New Earth and all that.

Just come across an understanding or idea from the Christian collective etc..so to speak, who are studying rigourously. Basically, the New Earth is how it was at the beginning during Adams time before the corruption.

Corruption? That seems to be an odd word to use in lieu of "enlightenment". And isn't it odd that there is this whole world outside of the Garden to begin with.

Man: So what is beyond this tree line?
God: Earth.
Man: What is Earth?
God: The planet you live on.
Man: Wait what?
God: You live on a planet called Earth. In fact, your name is based on me creating you from it... it is poetic and all.
Man: How big is Earth?
God: Not as big as the gas giants, but it is the biggest terrestrial planet in this solar system.
Man: ...
God: Made of metal and rock.
Man: ...
God: ...
Man: So uh... you put me in this relatively tiny garden that is located on a relatively decent sized planet?
God: Yup!
Man: Why?
God: Why what?
Man: Why create a large planet and keep me in a tiny Garden.
God: You don't like the Garden I have created for you?
Man: Well, of course... I just assumed that all of Earth would be as good as the Garden because you created both.
God: ...
Man: *shoulder shrug*
God: Well... it isn't.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Leave it to the experts

https://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_doland/strobel.html#approach

 

[Learner]

Corruption? That seems to be an odd word to use in lieu of "enlightenment". And isn't it odd that there is this whole world outside of the Garden to begin with.

It's the same concept of belief. Through the generations from Adam and onwards, out there in the world, all types of abominations occurred. The flesh (or the biology if you will) is tainted, biblically speaking.