Questions for Christians

[AAA]

Thanks for your lengthy examination of the roots of your faith Aero, and thanks for your candor. I don't expect you to go tit for tat with me, but if you are inclined, I'll state my comments and questions beneath you relevant quotes. They represent my sincere understanding and thoughts, and are not meant to insult:

The difference for me is going back to the 12. ... They state that they saw the risen Christ and spoke / interacted with him.

I think that it is widely agreed that the 4 gospels are not eyewitness accounts. The very fact that they were written at least 30-40 years after the crucifixion indicates that the reports were not contemporaneous. The people writing these gospels were trying to convince other highly superstitious iron-age thinkers of the validity of their faith, so not only are these reports not contemporaneous eye witness accounts, but they are also not unbiased. Accordingly, 2 of the most important features of historical evidence are sorely lacking from the gospels.

Considering that we we do not hold up other historical documents to this level of scrutiny but still see them as reliable I would think that these facts are compelling as well.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I can't possibly see how a few 2000 year-old, biased, non-eyewitness accounts can be considered good enough evidence to conclude that a carpenter named Jesus was born of a virgin, raised the dead (etc), and was raised from the dead himself (let alone that all this happened so that mankind will somehow be saved in the eyes of his invisible deity father, providing eternal life in his supernatural after-death kingdom).

I just know when I try to discern all that is currently unknown and try to fathom why all of "this" is here, I do not have an answer and neither does anyone else on earth.

On this, we can agree.

What I will say is that someone or something knows.

On this, we cannot agree. How do you know that someone or something knows?

I had to make up my mind what I thought was more plausible. Option 1: That we were all created as a circumstance of random chance with no purpose. We are just here. Option 2: That we have a Creator that created all of this for a reason. Based on my journey I am compelled to believe in Option 2 more than Option 1.

What about your journey compels you to believe #2? The human race is billions of years in the making and part of probably only 1% of all species that ever lived (ie. 99% of all species on earth have gone extinct). We live on a tiny speck of dust in an unimaginably immense universe. This is not what I would expect to be the result of an omnipotent personal agent who had the creation of the human race in mind. Personally, I just say, "I don't know". Even if I could be convinced of a creator as a personal agent, I really don't see why Yawheh/Jesus/HolyGhost would fit the bill.

I have probably read 20+ books in the last year or so on the subject and countless articles.

Have you read "Misquoting Jesus" by the highly acclaimed biblical scholar, Bart Erhman? Or either of Sam Harris' 2 books?

I am a better person as a result and have a sense of peace I have never felt before in my 37 years of life...Hopefully this helps.

I don't deny that religions have incredible transformative powers. It just seems to me that all religions do, and so do placebos and lies. I think that we all can learn lessons from the story of Jesus, just as we can learn lessons from works of fiction (which is what I think the gospels actually are), and while I am truly glad for your well-being, I remain unconvinced of the value of reaching conclusions that are unjustified given the available evidence.

 

[francisdesales]

I think that it is widely agreed that the 4 gospels are not eyewitness accounts.

Widely agreed by whom??? Other atheists?

While the written accounts that we NOW have were written 30 years later, it does not follow that they were not eyewitness accounts. That's nonsense. I can write an eyewitness account of a car accident I saw 30 years ago - it was a significant event in my life and remember it like it was yesterday...

To the Gospels, first, you are not taking into account the ORAL tradition that was passed on initially. In other words, the Gospels were taught by word of mouth by the same apostles who wrote the Scriptures. It is hard to contemplate how the most amazing events in their lives (witnessing a prophet who healed the dead and cured the blind - and then appeared to them AFTER he was killed) was forgotten, while they made it part and parcel of their lives! Every day, they lived by what they were taught by the most amazing man they had ever witnessed. You don't just forget that sort of thing, just like you don't forget witnessing a car accident where someone died.

Furthermore, to make matters worse for these "hypocritical experts", ancient historians are QUITE accepting of the fact that historians often write about their topic MANY MANY years after that person actually lived. Again, oral tradition was very important to these people. Need I remind you that the Iliad was sung by bards by memory long before it was written down? Are you familiar with the formation of the Masoretic text of the OT, based on oral tradition of the where the vowels go in each and every word, passed down faithfully from generation to generation? We have not a single "eye witness" account of Alexander the Great, everything we written on his was done hundreds of years AFTER HE DIED! Do you know of any "widely agreed" points of view that discount his military exploits??? Tell me why the hypocrisy?

Very few secular historians discount the Gospels as historical writings BECAUSE they were written 30-40 years after the time they relate. This would be hypocritical, since they accept other writings that are even further removed from their subject. People do not accept the Gospels because it invades their philosophical preconceptions, so it is easier to pretend that they are inventions then consider that they need to change their way of thinking and living.

The very fact that they were written at least 30-40 years after the crucifixion indicates that the reports were not contemporaneous. The people writing these gospels were trying to convince other highly superstitious iron-age thinkers of the validity of their faith, so not only are these reports not contemporaneous eye witness accounts, but they are also not unbiased. Accordingly, 2 of the most important features of historical evidence are sorely lacking from the gospels.

Again, you are presuming that the FIRST TIME that Christians heard about Jesus Christ was THROUGH the WRITTEN GOSPELS... False.

The bible itself states otherwise. Paul on a number of occasions refers to previous traditions he had taught them, while writing a "first letter" to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, for example. Clearly, the oral traditions he taught them preceded his first writing. Virtually every historian agrees that the Gospel was taught FIRST by oral word of mouth, then, particular sayings of Jesus were collected, (ever hear of "Q"?) THEN the Gospels were put together into a coherent writing. This blows apart the idea that the Gospels were just made up 30-40 years after the fact, as if "Mark" just woke up one day and said "Hey, I think I'll write a Gospel" and think back to what happened 40 years ago... The heart of the Gospel was "written" immediately!

As to "unbiased", practically every writing is biased in some way. Even scientific journals are full of bias, bias for one's own opinions and hypothesis. Evolutionists are biased that life as we know it is based upon material evolution, despite no hard evidence, just extrapolation... Historical accounts are biased. Read battlefield accounts by the winners and then the losers... You'll get the point. Bias does not discount the validity of the basic truth of a writing. A writer is not taken seriously ONLY when OTHER sources that are reliable are taken together and discount the first source, calling into question the validity of the first source. We don't see this with the New Testament books.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I can't possibly see how a few 2000 year-old, biased, non-eyewitness accounts can be considered good enough evidence to conclude that a carpenter named Jesus was born of a virgin, raised the dead (etc), and was raised from the dead himself (let alone that all this happened so that mankind will somehow be saved in the eyes of his invisible deity father, providing eternal life in his supernatural after-death kingdom).

Believing that the Bible accurately records history does not require "extraordinary evidence". We can approach the individual writings as we approach any other writing, and have confidence that the writings as a whole are worthy of belief. The rest flows from that. What holds you back is that you have a priori decided that this cannot happen.

If I believe that Alexander the Great could not have conquered Asia, you would have a very difficult time convincing me. I could use your same arguments against you. "No, it's impossible, Alexander would not do it that way". "No, the Greeks would never have followed him all the way to India." "No, 50000 men could not defeat 250000 men...." and on and on...

Hopefully, this example will show that my disbelief would be based upon my OWN PERSONAL bias. My beliefs are based upon my own view of what is possible. Thus, I am not open to the fact that I am wrong, or that my view is too narrow, or that, indeed, the Greeks DID defeat the Persians at Arbela, despite the written accounts from men who lived hundreds of years after the battle...

This is not a matter of a lack of evidence, but a philosophical problem. Your obstacle in this lies in your philosophical idea that "this cannot have happened" and "God would not do this"...

Regards

 

[AAA]

This is not a matter of a lack of evidence, but a philosophical problem. Your obstacle in this lies in your philosophical idea that "this cannot have happened" and "God would not do this"...

Well, I will ponder this possibility closely, but I must admit that my first impression is that you are incorrect. I don't assert that "this cannot have happened", only that the available evidence cannot possibly suffice to conclude that "this did happen".

Bart Ehrman sums the gospel situation up in his widely-used intro work The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings: “…They were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus’ death by authors who did not know him, authors living in different countries who were writing at different times to different communities with different problems and concerns.â€

More on this by other scriptural scholars can be found at PBS here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... spels.html

Nothing about what you have written changes the important facts that (1) the gospels are not contemporaneous eyewitness accounts and (2) that they were recorded by biased reporters. These serious faults remain even if much historical evidence is similarly faulted, shedding light not on the truths of the accounts, but on the weakness of historical evidence that is thousands of years old.

The hypocrisy you speak of seems misplaced to me. Nobody is claiming that Alexander the Great was the embodiment of our omnipotent creator who listens to our prayers and cares for us in personal relationships that lead to everlasting spirit life (though I believe that some suggested that he was born of a virgin...and nobody believes that). Nobody is organizing their current and apparently eternal lives around the historicity of Alexander. Extraordinary claims really do require extraordinary evidence.

 

[AAA]

Let's imagine that Sathya Sai Baba dies today, and his followers begin an oral tradition of his exploits culminating, in 30-70 years from now (ie. 2040-2080), in a few of them finally writing down accounts of his miracles (including virgin birth, by the way).

Now lets suppose that Sathya Sai Baba followers make thousands of copies of these accounts by hand over the next several hundred years, and that those copies contain changes that, at least on some occasions, seem deliberate so as to make the accounts more believable, not to mention honest copying errors that affect the meaning of those accounts (see Misquoting Jesus - NY Times best seller by Bart Erhman).

Now let's imagine that 2000 years go by and there are no reports of these apparent miracles by skeptics or un-believers ... in fact, there are only a few accounts apparently attributed to Sai Baba's disciples or, as Bart Erhman has put it, "authors who did not know [Sai Baba], authors living in different countries who were writing at different times to different communities with different problems and concerns". Furthermore, when these few accounts are read horizontally rather than vertically, one can find dozens (if not hundreds) of factual discrepancies in them.

Would those accounts really amount to sufficient evidence to conclude in the year 4010 that Sathya Sai Baba actually performed miracles - not that a man named Sathya Sai Baba lived and made certain claims, but that he actually performed miracles and was divine?

 

[francisdesales]

This is not a matter of a lack of evidence, but a philosophical problem. Your obstacle in this lies in your philosophical idea that "this cannot have happened" and "God would not do this"...

Well, I will ponder this possibility closely, but I must admit that my first impression is that you are incorrect. I don't assert that "this cannot have happened", only that the available evidence cannot possibly suffice to conclude that "this did happen".

I have a distinct feeling that there is no evidence short of you eyewitnessing it that will suffice for you. The easy way out is to set the bar so high that it is virtually inconceivable to "prove" anything. Again, this is more a philosophical mindset, rather than lack of historical evidence...

The evidence is plentiful, more so than many other ancient history that we take for granted.

Bart Ehrman sums the gospel situation up in his widely-used intro work The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings: “…They were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus’ death by authors who did not know him, authors living in different countries who were writing at different times to different communities with different problems and concerns.â€

Bart Ehrman is biased, so we should throw his book away, according to your idea of useable literature in proving our point of contention...

I would like to point out that Mr. Ehrman's point is moot, and I have already explained why in my last post. A person does not need to write about something TODAY to remember a life-changing event that recounts the details accurately and faithfully. Your point is a departure from reality.

Nothing about what you have written changes the important facts that (1) the gospels are not contemporaneous eyewitness accounts and (2) that they were recorded by biased reporters. These serious faults remain even if much historical evidence is similarly faulted, shedding light not on the truths of the accounts, but on the weakness of historical evidence that is thousands of years old.

Whatever. :gah

The serious fault is your desire not to consider and reflect on what I am saying. If I witnessed an auto accident 30 years ago, spoke about it everyday for the last 30 years because it had such a tremendous impact, would my writing about it today make it "non-contemporaneous"???? Mr. Ehrman and your point is made moot when we consider that obvious effect Jesus had on the apostles. I think witnessing a man you saw crucified and die come back to life would be a life-changing event! Have you ever experienced a major event in your life from long ago that you recall as if it happened yesterday? I cannot speak about your life or experiences of them, but even atheists can have life-changing events happen to them, things they will remember for the rest of their lives...

The hypocrisy you speak of seems misplaced to me. Nobody is claiming that Alexander the Great was the embodiment of our omnipotent creator who listens to our prayers and cares for us in personal relationships that lead to everlasting spirit life (though I believe that some suggested that he was born of a virgin...and nobody believes that).

We are not speaking of the claims, but the historical validity of the writers. You discount the writers because they "claim too much". Again, this is a philosophical problem, not an historical one. Those who wrote these gospels were known by other people and their lives were proof that their writings were worthy of belief.

Nobody is organizing their current and apparently eternal lives around the historicity of Alexander. Extraordinary claims really do require extraordinary evidence.

That is a cute cliche. However, those on the ground at the time vouch for the extraordinary evidence. It is not necessary for "extraordinary evidence" to be available every day and continuously for the sake of future generations, although miracles still happen today. Practically everything we believe is based upon the acceptance that others DID witness something and reliably give accounting of that witness. Thus, the charge of hypocrisy and my insistence that this is based upon philosophical a priori "it couldn't have happened that way because God wouldn't do that". This issue is not based upon historical lack of evidence, but your inability to accept that something IS.

Regards

 

[francisdesales]

Let's imagine that Sathya Sai Baba dies today, and his followers begin an oral tradition of his exploits culminating, in 30-70 years from now (ie. 2040-2080), in a few of them finally writing down accounts of his miracles (including virgin birth, by the way).

Now lets suppose that Sathya Sai Baba followers make thousands of copies of these accounts by hand over the next several hundred years, and that those copies contain changes that, at least on some occasions, seem deliberate so as to make the accounts more believable, not to mention honest copying errors that affect the meaning of those accounts (see Misquoting Jesus - NY Times best seller by Bart Erhman).

Now let's imagine that 2000 years go by and there are no reports of these apparent miracles by skeptics or un-believers ... in fact, there are only a few accounts apparently attributed to Sai Baba's disciples or, as Bart Erhman has put it, "authors who did not know [Sai Baba], authors living in different countries who were writing at different times to different communities with different problems and concerns". Furthermore, when these few accounts are read horizontally rather than vertically, one can find dozens (if not hundreds) of factual discrepancies in them.

Would those accounts really amount to sufficient evidence to conclude in the year 4010 that Sathya Sai Baba actually performed miracles - not that a man named Sathya Sai Baba lived and made certain claims, but that he actually performed miracles and was divine?

Apparently, you seem to believe that men are incapable of living good lives without the desire to "trick" others. Thus, we must discount everything that was written about the ancient world, since "everyone" is out to stretch the truth to make themselves or their belief "better". Thus, all that stuff about Pharoahs and kings, toss it in the trash. Military writings, worthless, because we all know that the winner will exaggerate. NO ONE is capable of writing an honest assessment of what happened in life.

And of course, the conspiracy theories pile up when we start talking about politics, war, and religion. No one could possibly give any truthful information on such matters.

:gah

Further proof that this is a philosophical problem. You don't trust anyone, not because someone's life vouches for his writings and that he wouldn't trick anyone, but because all men are liars and deceitful. I am sorry that you have such a jaded opinion about humanity.

 

[AAA]

I am sorry that you have such a jaded opinion about humanity.

Do you really think, based on my posts in this thread, that that is a reasonable conclusion to draw about me? Why don't we just deal with the questions and issues at hand and avoid drawing sweeping conclusions about each other's character and opinions on broader matters?

In any case, you didn't answer the simple question I posed in the Sai Baba example I provided above (Oct 29, 10:12 am).

 

[seekandlisten]

Would those accounts really amount to sufficient evidence to conclude in the year 4010 that Sathya Sai Baba actually performed miracles - not that a man named Sathya Sai Baba lived and made certain claims, but that he actually performed miracles and was divine?

Would it be sufficient evidence? No. Would there be a group of people that taught about him and regarding the writings of him as truth? probably. From following this thread I think I know where you were going with this but I would rather you explain so i'm not assuming.

I will post a comment hopefully tonight as I don't have the time right now to convey what I want to get across right now. I will say, just something to think about, i believe at lot people have beliefs based on blind faith and never really understand or see where this belief stems from. Now these people will deny blind faith but rather more along the lines of what they believe and that you need faith to believe which may not entirely be wrong in logic. My beliefs don't align with a lot of denominations but does it mean i have to deny all logic and guidance that I believe comes from the Holy Spirit in order to align myself with a man made church denomination's set of beliefs? I don't think it does. I also don't think I should disregard the whole religion of Christianity because the Truth is still there you just have to look for it with an open mind to God's guidance. I believe this goes with the scriptures being "God-breathed" or whatever the term is.

A point to make in regards to my beliefs is I don't believe in the trinity. Do I preach against it? Not necessarily. If you tell me that God has revealed to you what the trinity means and you fully understand it well who am I to deny you that? Do I have to believe it in order to be a Christian, or have the same revelation as you? I don't think so. God reveals himself to us individually and as we are ready for it. Now I could go the other way and say that people who believe in the trinity are committing idolatry in a 3 person man-made God but would that not mean that anything else having to do with that religion would be corrupt and irrelevant then? That is technically what is done in regards to those that Christians believe are cults without even attempting to see where that person's belief comes from. God tells us to judge everything by it's fruit and I think that includes aspects of religion. We may have disagreements but lets not let that hinder our understanding of God more. John the Baptist would have been considered a cult leader along with Jesus and the early christians in fact they were killed as heretics and blasphemers.

AAA
I think i understand your position in this thread and your looking for evidence and I think I may be able to contribute to that venture. Again, just a few thoughts on the conversation taking place and I will post a more thought out comment later on tonight and we'll see where this takes us.

 

[Drew]

I think it was Carl Sagan who said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I can't possibly see how a few 2000 year-old, biased, non-eyewitness accounts can be considered good enough evidence to conclude that a carpenter named Jesus was born of a virgin, raised the dead (etc), and was raised from the dead himself (let alone that all this happened so that mankind will somehow be saved in the eyes of his invisible deity father, providing eternal life in his supernatural after-death kingdom).

I politely suggest that Mr. Sagan, while no doubt accomplished in his own domain of expertise, routinely demonstrated a startling lack of sophistication when venturing into other domains. But that's an aside.

I put forward the criterion known as "double similarity and dis-similarity" for consideration. In the context of this issue, this criterion can be described as follows:

1. In order to be historically credible, the "Jesus story" needs to have have enough similarity to what is otherwise known of Judaism of that time so as to at least make the story plausibly fit into that world. If there is too much dis-similarity, one is led to conclude the story is an invention, since one cannot make sense of how the story of Jesus "makes sense" in the Jewish context.

2. On other hand, in order to be historically credible, the "Jesus story" needs to have enough dis-similarity from what is otherwise known of Judaism of that time to over-rule the argument that the story has no sniff of originality. In other words, if the story in no sense deviates from the Jewish worldview, then there is the strong suspicion that there is no "reality" behind it, since "reality" usually entails small deviations from "the expected".

I hope what I am writing is at least comprehensible. I submit that the Jesus story fares rather well in terms of the application of these criteria .

 

[Drew]

The people writing these gospels were trying to convince other highly superstitious iron-age thinkers of the validity of their faith, so not only are these reports not contemporaneous eye witness accounts, but they are also not unbiased. Accordingly, 2 of the most important features of historical evidence are sorely lacking from the gospels.

I agree that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. But with respect to the matter of bias, I believe that is simply naive to think that any historian is unbiased. Every perspective on historical events is somebody's perspective. So I suggest it is somewhat unrealistic to expect an historical account to be written by an "unbiased" person in order to at least be considered as credible.
I suggest that we need to accept the universality of bias and come up with other criteria to judge the factual correctness of historical accounts.

 

[Drew]

Don't get caught up in philosophical discussions about what is real and what is not. Christianity is very simple, people complicate it.

I politely, but vigourously, disagree. While there is a limited sense in which this is true, I suggest that one of the biggest failings of western evangelicalism has been its tendency to flatten out and dumb down the gospel.

The irony of this is, I suggest, that the complex, rich, sophisticated, and, yes, subtle, tapestry of the history of God's redemptive activities is precisely the thing that many agnostics might see as compelling evidence for the truth of the gospel.

But by playing this down, we come across as presenting a "child's story" as our apologetic for the faith we believe in.

 

[AAA]

I put forward the criterion known as "double similarity and dis-similarity" for consideration.

Thanks Drew. I am aware that the concept of dissimilarity is a very controversial method of determining which, among a series of contemporaneous textual copies, may be the more accurate (ie. more closely resemble the presumed original), but I've but I've never heard of this combination the way you put it, and I do not think that it is recognized by historians as a way of determining the historical truth of ancient evidence. Can you show otherwise?

 

[AAA]

I agree that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. But with respect to the matter of bias, I believe that is simply naive to think that any historian is unbiased. Every perspective on historical events is somebody's perspective. So I suggest it is somewhat unrealistic to expect an historical account to be written by an "unbiased" person in order to at least be considered as credible.
I suggest that we need to accept the universality of bias and come up with other criteria to judge the factual correctness of historical accounts.

My understanding is that the way historians and textual scholars work around this is by being be able to collect reports of events from different perspectives and biases. If they all point to the same thing, then that strengthens the likelihood of the events being true.

In the case of Jesus' miracles, there are no extra-biblical accounts that I am aware of. The state of the evidence is simply such that one can only conclude with the fact that the accounts of Jesus' miracles are written by biased individuals with a vested interest in, or specific intention of, "spreading the word".

Its really worse than that: these "multiple accounts" rely heavily on each other for their content.

 

[AAA]

Bart Ehrman is biased, so we should throw his book away

It is noteworthy that Mr. Erhman started out with an incredibly strong bias in favor of believing exactly what you believe. He is quite candid about the fervour of his belief in Christianity and the incredible strength of his dedication to pursuits of biblical scholarship.

It was a combination of his many-decade-long examination of the textual evidence (under the tutelage of some of the most highly regarded Christian scholars in this field) and the problem of evil that lead him to lose his faith.

 

[Drew]

I put forward the criterion known as "double similarity and dis-similarity" for consideration.

Thanks Drew, but I've never heard of it, and I do not think that it is recognized by historians as a way of determining the historical truth of ancient evidence. Can you show otherwise?

This criterion is deployed by theologian and historian NT Wright. While Wright certainly is "biased" - as we all are - I believe that even his critics acknowledge his sound academic credentials.

 

[Free]

The state of the evidence is simply such that one can only conclude with the fact that the accounts of Jesus' miracles are written by biased individuals with a vested interest in, or specific intention of, "spreading the word".

If we were then to conclude that we shouldn't trust what was written, to be consistent, we would have to conclude the same about nearly every non-fiction book in existence as well.

 

[Drew]

My understanding is that the way historians and textual scholars work around this is by being be able to collect reports of events from different perspectives and biases. If they all point to the same thing, then that strengthens the likelihood of the events being true.

Fair enough, but I suggest that assessing whether the "multiple perspectives" approach is even realistic in the Jesus scenario is not at all clear.

The central event - the resurrection of the one man Jesus - is, by its very nature, an event that does not even lend itself to "multiple views". It was not really a public event. And we can sensibly explain why Jesus, if He was indeed resurrected, would appear only to people who were already his followers. It needs to be stressed that this does not "prove bias". If a sensible case can be made that "independent third parties" would not witness the event even if it did occur, then the absence of "other" perspectives is not a problem. For example, if you whack me on the knee with a bat, no one, other than me. will experience the pain. The relevant principle is that the very nature of the event restricts "other perspectives.

I hope to address the rest of your post later....

 

[AAA]

If we were then to conclude that we shouldn't trust what was written, to be consistent, we would have to conclude the same about nearly every non-fiction book in existence as well.

Don't you think that that is a grossly sweeping over-generalization? For example, who bombed Pearl Harbor, the Japanese, or the Canadians? Who first landed in North America and when? etc.

And what about the other side of that coin? If we were to accept the gospels as historical fact, then what other miracle claims would we have to also accept on similar (or better?) levels of evidence?

Can you name 3 non-biblical accounts of miracles that we should accept as historical fact, or do you only believe that the miracle accounts in your bible are good enough to be considered historical facts?

More to the point, can you answer my question regarding the Sai Baba example I provided earlier (Oct 29, 10:12)? Only one person so far has, and I think it is the crucial question on this forum, since it addresses an apparent deity other than the one in whose belief you are all heavily invested.

I also remain interested in your response in our earlier discussion:

If the Christian god is apparently capable of providing us with a world where we can have free will yet not suffer, the how can this world be the best of all possible worlds, given that in this world, we are forced to suffer apparently because of our having free will?

 

[Drew]

In the case of Jesus' miracles, there are no extra-biblical accounts that I am aware of. The state of the evidence is simply such that one can only conclude with the fact that the accounts of Jesus' miracles are written by biased individuals with a vested interest in, or specific intention of, "spreading the word".

I do not how this follows. Let's say that people at a Barak Obama rally report that he "healed" somebody. Would our disbelief lie be grounded in the "bias" of the pro-Obama people who reported the healings? Obviously not. Our disbelief would rather be grounded much more in the a priori inclincation to disbelieve that "healings" can even take place.

As I am sure you will agree, even if I am right here, I still have a challenge before me- to assert the possiblity of healings on the part of Jesus, given the relatively clear fact that they rarely, if ever, happen today.

But I do not think the "bias" argument has much legs. If we were truly consistent in applying the "multiple perspectives" criterion that you talk about, I suggest much material that is accepted as historical would need to be tossed out.

I think it is too restictive a criteria.

 

[AAA]

But I do not think the "bias" argument has much legs.

This is simple: whose testimony would carry less weight?

Sarah Palin claiming that Obama healed a child, or Joe Biden making the same claim?

If I, 45 years after your death, and based on some stories I have heard about you, begin to believe that you are a deity (even though you aren't) then when I hear a story where the condition of a sick child improved after contact with you, am I more or less likely to believe that you had healed that child 50 years ago?

The bias issue is real and it is at play when we assess claims everyday in our own lives, in courts of public opinion, in courts of law, etc. Furthermore, it is widely agreed upon by historians as a feature of historical evidence that matters.