Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus - Part 3

This is an excerpt from Part 17 of my Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
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Doubting the Doubting Thomas Story

Why doubt the Doubting Thomas story? There are three different kinds of considerations that support a skeptical view of the Doubting Thomas story.

1. General Problems with the Gospels – including the Fourth Gospel
a. It was written by a Christian believer with the purpose of promoting Christian beliefs.
b. It was probably not written by an eyewitness.
c. It was composed decades after the crucifixion of Jesus.
d. It provides no attribution of specific stories or details to named and known eyewitnesses or sources.
e. It was written in Greek rather than Aramaic (the language Jesus and his disciples used).
f. It appears that the words and sayings of Jesus were preserved in oral traditions that failed to reliably preserve the original situations or contexts of those words and sayings, thus opening the door to misunderstanding, distortion, and corruption of the original meaning of Jesus’ words and teachings.
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Point (1b) suggests a specific applicable question/criterion:

(SAC3) Was the author of the account an eyewitness to the events in the life of Jesus contained in the account?

Why is this question relevant to an evaluation of the historical reliability of a Gospel or any other  account of events?  It is relevant because being an eyewitness to an event is a good way of obtaining accurate and detailed information about an event.  An eyewitness to an event is (in general) in a good position to know lots of relevant details about that event.  So, this question relates to the credibility of the author concerning the events that are described in the account.

Point (1d) suggests a related specific applicable question/criterion:

(SAC4) Did the author obtain information about the events in the life of Jesus in the account directly from one or more alleged eyewitnesses to those events?

A general question related to these specific applicable criteria  would be:

(GQ3)  How did the author of the account obtain the information about the events in the life of Jesus contained in the account? 

One good way to obtain information about an event is by being an eyewitness to the event, but there are other good ways to obtain such information.  Another would be to carefully interview an eyewitness shortly after the event occurred (like a newspaper reporter or a detective would interview an eyewitness to an event or crime).

It is important to recognize that eyewitness accounts are not completely reliable.  Physical evidence, such as fingerprints and DNA evidence, is becoming more important in criminal trails, because it has become increasingly clear that many innocent persons have been convicted of serious crimes, such as rape and murder, on the basis of erroneous eyewitness testimony.  This is also not merely a matter of dishonesty or deception on the part of alleged eyewitnesses, it is also a matter of the unreliability and corruptability of human memory.

Some very general questions related to the above specific and general questions  and to the credibility of the author would be:

(VGQ3)  How did the author of the account obtain the information about the events in question? 
(VGQ4) How reliable in general is that way of obtaining information about events?
(VGQ5) How reliable is that way of obtaining information for events or details of the type in question?

CONCLUSION:
The credibility of an author of an account depends heavily upon how the author obtained the information about the events contained in the account.  Ideally, the author would be an eyewitness to all of the events in the account.  But there are other generally reliable ways of obtaining information about events, such as carefully interviewing one or more eyewitnesses of an event.

Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus - Part 2

This is an excerpt from Part 17 of my Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
=================================
Doubting the Doubting Thomas Story


Why doubt the Doubting Thomas story? There are three different kinds of considerations that support a skeptical view of the Doubting Thomas story.

1. General Problems with the Gospels – including the Fourth Gospel
a. It was written by a Christian believer with the purpose of promoting Christian beliefs.
b. It was probably not written by an eyewitness.
c. It was composed decades after the crucifixion of Jesus.
d. It provides no attribution of specific stories or details to named and known eyewitnesses or sources.
e. It was written in Greek rather than Aramaic (the language Jesus and his disciples used).
f. It appears that the words and sayings of Jesus were preserved in oral traditions that failed to reliably preserve the original situations or contexts of those words and sayings, thus opening the door to misunderstanding, distortion, and corruption of the original meaning of Jesus’ words and teachings.
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Point (1a) actually suggests a couple of specific applicable questions/criteria:


(SAC1) Was the author a Christian believer?
(SAC2) Was one of the main purposes of the author to promote Christian beliefs?


Why are these questions relevant to assessing the historical reliability of an historical document/source about Jesus?  The concern here is about objectivity and bias.  The point of view of an author can and usually does introduce bias into an account of events, and the purpose of the author in creating the document also relates to the possibility and likelihood of bias in the account.  


If a primary purpose of an author of an account of the life of Jesus is to promote Christian beliefs, such as the belief that Jesus was the divine Son of God, and the Savior of humankind, then that purpose introduces certain biases into the account.  Such an account will tend to select events that support this point of view and tend to exclude or downplay events that undermine or dis-confirm that point of view.  An author with such biases will tend to accept without question stories and details that support these beliefs, while tending to reject without good reason other stories and details that dis-confirm or cast doubt on those beliefs. 


Two general questions related to the above two questions would be:


(GQ1) What assumptions and beliefs does the author have about Jesus, and how might those beliefs introduce bias into the historical document or account of events?


(GQ2) Is one of the main purposes of the historical document or account of events to promote certain beliefs about Jesus or beliefs concerning some of the (alleged) teachings of Jesus?


Very general questions related to the general questions would be:


(VGQ1) What sort of ideological or philosophical or theological beliefs does the author have, and how might those beliefs introduce bias into the historical document or account of events?


(VGQ2) Is one of the main purposes of the historical document or account of events to promote certain ideological or philosophical or theological beliefs?


These fairly general questions relate to the categories of objectivity and bias.


CONCLUSION:
In evaluating the objectivity or bias of an account of events, one should consider (among other things) questions about the beliefs and assumptions of the author related to the subject matter of the account, as well as the purposes of the author in writing the account.

Sean Carroll's List of 6 Arguments Used by Science Denialists

Sean B. Carroll is a noted evolutionary biologist, author, and vice-president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I haven't read his book, The Making of theFittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, but I'm told it contains a summary of 6 arguments used by science denialists that could be applied to most any subject.

Here are the 6 arguments.

1. Cast doubt on the science.
2. Question the scientists' motives and integrity.
3. Magnify any disagreements among the scientists; cite gadflies as authorities.
4. Exaggerate the potential for harm from the science.
5. Appeal to the importance of personal freedom.
6. Object that acceptance of the science would repudiate some key philosophy.

 Since this hadn't been previously mentioned on this blog, I thought readers might find it of interest.

THE HYPERBOLE EXCUSE

Check this out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/pastor-sean-harris-beat-gay-children-sermon_n_1474510.html?ref=gay-voices Typical. Whenever an extremist is called out for making violent and hateful remarks, the response is always the same: "Just kidding. Hah hah. I was only using hyperbole to make a point." OK, well, I guess sauce for the goose... I think a 320 pound, heavily tattooed, leather-clad gay biker should collar Rev. Harris, beat his bigoted butt with a baseball bat, and then bend him over and teach him a new lesson about how to love one's neighbor. Just kidding. Hah hah. I was only using hyperbole to make a point. Actually, I WAS just using hyperbole to make a point, so, for the sake of fairness, let's assume that Rev. Harris was too. The problem is that in any communication there are two parts: (1) what was meant, and (2) what was actually heard. Even if the Rev. Harris was intentionally indulging in rhetorical excess to achieve an oratorical effect, I sincerely doubt that every bubba in his congregation was properly parsing each nuance of homiletical phrasing. Fundamentalist folk tend to be, oh, a tad literal-minded, and so when the pastor says to beat the gay out of your kids, should anyone be surprised if someone actually thinks he means it?

Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 1

A comment by ‘Pulse’ on one of my recent posts about the resurrection, has sparked an idea: the need for a checklist of historical criteria for claims about Jesus.  One purpose for such a checklist is to enable others to think critically about claims about Jesus.  Another purpose would be to enable one (myself included) to think more systematically and objectively about such questions, to avoid ‘cherry picking’ the relevant evidence.

Jesus scholars often discuss and use criteria of authenticity to separate out history from fiction in the Gospel accounts, so there are lists of such criteria offered by various Jesus scholars.  But historical issues surrounding the Gospels are more extensive than what those criteria cover, so I think it would be useful to assemble a broader and more comprehensive list of criteria that can and should be used to evaluate the historicity or probability of a particular claim about Jesus.

I can think of at least three areas where historical criteria can and should be used concerning Jesus:

Criteria of Authenticity (of Jesus’ sayings and events in Jesus’ life)

Criteria of Historicity (of the existence of Jesus)

Criteria of Historical Reliability (of a Gospel)

So, discussions of these three sorts of issues can be used as input for assembling a more comprehensive checklist.

I envision a checklist that has two or three levels of abstraction:

1. Specific readily applicable criteria (e.g. How many years between time of event and time that the historical document was written?)

2. More general categories or criteria that subsume various ‘specific readily applicable criteria’

3. Possibly one more level of abstraction higher that encompasses two or more of the general categories/criteria.

The purpose of the more general categories is to provide some logical organization and to help in identification of logical gaps, to make the checklist as comprehensive as possible.

I propose to start by examining specific points made in support of a skeptical view about the authenticity or historicity of certain claims about Jesus, or about the unreliability of a Gospel, and identify the questions at issue (i.e. the specific readily applicable criteria that are being used), and then abstract more general categories or criteria from those specific criteria.

Next, to make sure that my list is comprehensive and not skewed in favor of skepticism about Jesus, I will examine specific points made by Christian apologists in support of the authenticity or historicity of certain claims about Jesus, or in support of the historical reliability of a Gospel, and identify the questions at issue (i.e. the specific readily applicable criteria that are being used), and then abstract more general categories or criteria from those specific criteria.

I think by going through such an exercise, I can produce a useful checklist for the evaluation of historical claims about Jesus, which might also help with evaluation of other historical issues.

Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus: INDEX

PART 7
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_07.html

I think the best way to make a case for my skeptical view of the resurrection, is to develop a dilemma, following the lead of the great Enlightenment skeptic David Hume.

The main question at issue is: Did God raise Jesus from the dead? But at the crux of my skeptical argument will be the following claim:

(JAW) Jesus of Nazareth was alive and walking around unassisted on the first Easter Sunday.

PART 8 

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_08.html

2. (JAW) is not true.
If we suppose (2) to be correct, does that in fact favor or support a skeptical view of the resurrection of Jesus?

PART 9 

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_09.html

4. (JAW) is false.
On this supposition, there are three logical possibilities:

A. Jesus was not alive on the first Easter Sunday.
B. Jesus was alive on the first Easter Sunday but did not walk at all that day.
C. Jesus was alive on the first Easter Sunday but was walking only with assistance from others.

PART 10 

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_10.html

A. Jesus was not alive on the first Easter Sunday.

Now lets consider supposition (A). The most obvious way that (A) would be true, would be for Jesus to have been dead on the first Easter Sunday. Since (JAW) implies that Jesus was alive for at least a portion of the first Easter Sunday, Jesus being dead for only a portion of Sunday would not contradict (JAW).

PART 11 

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_17.html

(JAW) Jesus of Nazareth was alive and walking around unassisted on the first Easter Sunday.

This claim is either true or it is not. In posts 7 through 10 of this series, I have been examining the implications of the supposition that (JAW) is not true. This supposition appears to represent five different logical possibilities, as illustrated in the following diagram.

PART 12

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_23.html

Now I'm going to start looking into the implications of the supposition that (JAW) is the case.

There are many ways to divide up the logical pie, but I propose to analyze(JAW) into eleven different logical possibilities...

PART 13

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_27.html

Another key claim made by Christian apologists concerns the alleged crucifixion of Jesus:

JWC = Jesus was crucified on Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday.
 

In proposing a probability of .9 for the truth of (JWC), I am taking into account not just the NT evidence, but also the non-Christian historical evidence (see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, p.49) from Josephus (Antiquities 18:63), Tacitus (Annals 15:44), Lucian of Samosata, (The Death of Peregrine, 11-13), and the letter of Mara Bar-Serapion.
  

PART 14

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/01/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

The Fourth Gospel plays an important role in determining the probability of the claim that Jesus died on the cross.

Two of the key injuries allegedly inflicted upon Jesus are documented only in the Fourth Gospel:

1. Jesus' hands and feet were nailed to the cross.
2. Jesus was stabbed in the chest with a spear while on the cross.
 

PART 15

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/02/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

But it is not just the liberal scholars of the Jesus Seminar that doubt the historical reliability of the Fourth gospel and the traditional view that John the apostle wrote the Fourth gospel. Several Evangelical NT scholars and conservative Jesus scholars and moderate Jesus scholars doubt or reject the view that the apostle John wrote the Fourth gospel, and doubts about the historical reliability of the Fourth gospel are also common among NT and Jesus scholars who are moderate or conservative scholars.

PART 16

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/02/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_13.html

One key factor determining the probability that Jesus actually died on the cross is the probability (or improbability) of the following claim:

(NTC) Jesus' hands (or arms) and feet were nailed to the cross.

Crucifixion does not necessarily involve nailing the victim to a cross, and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion don’t indicate how Jesus was attached to the cross. Binding the victim to the cross was more common than nailing.

PART 17

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/03/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

DSW = On Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus received a deep spear wound to his chest (i.e. the tip of the spear penetrated at least 3” deep, measured perpendicular to the surface where the spear entered his chest).

HAF = On Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus’ hands and feet were nailed to a cross.

The probability of both of these claims rests in large measure on the historicity and reliability of the Doubting Thomas story in the Fourth Gospel.

PART 18

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/03/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_20.html

Because the occurrence of each alleged major wound significantly increases the probability that Jesus died on the cross on the same day he was crucified, the non-occurrence of each major wound significantly decreases the probability that Jesus died on the cross on the same day he was crucified.  

But we don't have certain knowledge on any of these claims about the major wounds/injuries allegedly suffered by Jesus, so a rational approach is to examine the evidence and it's quality and make a probability assessment for each claim about an alleged major wound or injury.  Once we have assigned an estimated probability to each claim about an alleged major wound or injury, then we can attempt to draw some general conclusions about the probability that Jesus died on the cross on the same day that he was crucified. 

PART 19

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/03/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_23.html

Before I say anything more about this specific passage, I would like to take a closer look at Chapter 19, where the spear wound story is found.  If Chapter 19 is as questionable and problematic as the Fourth Gospel in general, then we would have additional good reasons for doubting the historicity or reliability of the spear-wound story from that Chapter. 

PART 20

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/04/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

In addition the Gospel of John reports that one of the guards pierced Jesus to confirm that he was already dead (see John 19:34-37), a practice likewise mentioned by Quintillian, a Roman historian in the first century.
(Michael Licona, from "Can We Be Certain that Jesus Died on a Cross?" in Evidence for God, p.166)

There are at least two problems with Licona's claim: 
1. Quintillian was not a Roman historian, 
and 
2. Quintillian probably did not write the passage that Licona references. 


PART 21
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/04/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_27.html

Another bit of historical information allegedly supporting the spear-wound-of-Jesus story in Chapter 19 of the Fourth Gospel is a quote from Origen.  I think I originally came across this information five years ago from a website called A Lawyer Examines The Swoon Theory. 

PART 22

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

Given the brevity of the quotation, one should not simply accept Reincken's and Humber's interpretation of Origen.  One ought to first examine the passage that this short phrase came from, to see the context and to form one's own interpretation in view of that context.  That is why it is especially sloppy and careless for Reinckens and Humber to fail to provide a specific reference to where this phrase appears in Origen'sCommentary on Matthew.