Lenardos' fans: See here for my response to Lenardos' response to this paper
Historical Methods: Lenardos' Framing the
Misdirection:
A commentary on G. Brady Lenardos'
"Atheists and the Resurrection--Framing the Argument"
by Paul Jacobsen
G. Brady Lenardos has a new paper on his site entitled
"Atheists and the Resurrection--Framing the Argument". In
this new paper, Lenardos revisits a lot of the same ground that is covered in
another paper of his, "Do Extraordinary Events Require Extraordinary Evidence?"
Both of these papers deal with the subject of historical methods. The
arguments he uses are used by many apologists, and therefore I believe the
arguments I present in this paper will be of relevance to other apologetics.
Some time ago, I debated Mr. Lenardos over the content of his earlier paper. At the time of my debate, I did not know very much about historical methods. I am still no expert on history, but I have now read a couple of books and some articles on the subject, so at least I have some basic understanding of the subject matter. During that debate, the subject of historical methods was a frequent point of contention. I freely admitted that I was no expert on history, but I felt that his presentation of historical methods could not possibly be accurate. Now that I have read some more information on the subject, I believe I can now defend my position better.
As I already said, Lenardos' new paper and his older one cover a lot of the same ground. Specifically, the material on historical methods is virtually identical between his two papers. Lenardos contends that in order to discount the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the atheist must provide his or her historical methodology. Lenardos allows for the atheist to choose the methodology as long as it meets some of his "simple guidelines." Specifically, he insists the atheist provide an "objective" criteria." Here's what he says:
3) The criterion must be objective. In other words, the test should yield the same result, regardless of the personal opinions of those applying it.
This criterion appears deceptively simple. The problem is, there is no such thing. When I would try to raise this point in the debate, Lenardos would insist I was trying to destroy all history in order to avoid concluding the Resurrection was real. No, that is simply not true, which I shall defend momentarily, after presenting some groundwork.
During our debate, Lenardos introduced the "Sanders Method" as an objective criterion. Since that time, I've discovered that Sanders' book is a popular reference for Christians arguing for the historical validity of the Resurrection. For example, Josh Dowell, in his book More Than a Carpenter, references Sanders' book.
Lenardos said that the Sanders Method encompasses three basic principles of histeography: the bibliographical test, the internal evidence test, and the external evidence test. (This is the same basic claim of McDowell as well.) This comes from Sanders' book, An Introduction to Research in English Literary History.[1] The first thing I would like to point out is this book by Sanders is primarily focused on researching historical authors such as Shakespeare and Chaucer. For example, sometimes works reputed to be by a famous author are in dispute as to whether or not they were actually written by that author. These are the kinds of questions Sanders is interested in researching in this book. Sanders' book is definitely not a general textbook on historical methodologies.
Of course someone studying ancient history, such as the time of Jesus, may use somewhat similar techniques as Sanders describes. But, the vast majority of what Sanders says is not relevant to this subject. For example, Sanders discusses looking at the handwriting style of a work in question to try to determine if it matches the known handwriting of the author. As nobody claims to have original copies of the Gospels, handwriting style is irrelevant. The point is, Sanders' book for the most part is totally irrelevant to the historical validity of the Gospels. One wonders why Lenardos, McDowell, et al. pick this particular book as their "gospel" for validating the historical legitimacy of the New Testament.
But more importantly, never does Sanders make the claim that he is providing a totally objective methodology. Never does he make the claim that everybody following his methodology will get the same results. In other words, Lenardos claims far more about Sanders' method than Sanders himself claims. It appears to me that Lenardos (and McDowell, etc.) are merely using Sanders to make their arguments sound good without bothering to find out what Sanders actually says on the subject. It appears they don't expect people to actually pick up Sanders' book and read it to learn what it really says.
But, if Lenardos is anxious to assert that Sanders' book is relevant to studying the NT, well, then let's have a look at exactly what Sanders does say about biographies:
The student, in his capacity as reader, or even as student of the period, may find both pleasure and profit in the psychographic works of such men as Strachey and Bradford, and other biographical work in which interpretation carries the author far beyond--but not counter to--established fact. But for the student qua scholar, the only satisfactory biography is one that is fully documented, one in which a reference citing chapter and verse, is given to substantiate every fact set forth. Only such biographical studies will be considered in the remainder of this chapter. (p. 126-127)
The Gospels, if intended to be taken as biographies of Jesus Christ, fail miserably at this test. As I said, Sanders is talking about biographies of authors, and may not be directly applicable to the study of the Gospels. But Sanders is making an important point: if we are to take a biography seriously then we need documentation. We need to know the source of each claim. We do not have that with the Gospels. Not even close. Take the basic claim of Mary being a virgin. Never mind for a moment whether that claim is true or not--the point is, the only person who could possibly know whether the claim is true or not is Mary herself. So here we have a claim that we know for a fact could not possibly have been verified, and yet stated as a fact. This means we can immediately throw out the Gospels as being a reliable, verified biography of Jesus Christ.
Another book referenced by McDowell is called Understanding History by Louis Gottschalk.[2] I don't know of any instance of Lenardos referencing this book, but it is a better book for the subject at hand, because it deals with history in a more general context. Therefore, I will use Gottschalk's book for reference for the rest of this article. But, I didn't pick this merely because it supports my position. On the contrary, I picked this book simply because it was referenced by McDowell's apologetic; and, to McDowell's credit, appeared to be a legitimate reference on historical methods in a general context. That is the entirety of my reasoning for picking this book.
Now, I'm not claiming that Gottschalk's book is the be-all, end-all reference book on historical research. And if Lenardos chooses to respond to this article and wishes to take issue with any of Gottschalk's claims, he is free to do so. But at least I'm using for reference an actual book on historical methods--as opposed to Lenardos' naked assertions.
Earlier I mentioned that Sanders said a reliable biography is one that is completely documented. I've heard it claimed that that was simply not the norm for the time of the Gospels and therefore I shouldn't expect modern historical presentation in ancient documents. Even if that was a true statement, then we shouldn't simply give the Gospels the benefit of the doubt and act as if they are fully documented. After all, if poor documentation is the norm, that doesn't then elevate poorly documented works into a good historical document. However, as it turns out, it is not true that ancient historians did not practice documentation. For example, here is what Gottschalk says about a fifth century B.C. historian:
Thucydides, who in the fifth century B.C. wrote his famous history of the Peloponnesian War, conscientiously told his readers how he gathered his materials and what tests he used to separate truth from fiction. (p. 51)
Here we can see that the idea of documenting a historical record is an idea that predated the Gospels by at least five centuries. Therefore one cannot argue that the Gospels fit the norm of historical record for its time. They don't.
Earlier I claimed there is no such thing as an objective historical methodology. Here is what Gottschalk has to say on the issue:
In short, the historian's aim is verisimilitude with regard to a perished past--a subjective process--rather than experimental certainty with regard to an objective reality. [emphasis added] He tries to get as close as approximation to the truth about the past as constant correction of his mental images will allow, at the same time recognizing that the truth has in fact eluded him forever. Here is an essential difference between the study of man's past and a man's physical environment. Physics, for example, has an extrinsic and whole object to study--the physical universe--that does not change because the physicist is studying it, no matter how much his understanding of it may change. History has only detached and scattered objects to study that do not together make up the total object that is the historian is studying and that object--the past of mankind--having largely disappeared, exists only in as far as his always incomplete and frequently changing understanding of it can re-create it. (p. 47-48)
Additionally:
In other words, the historian establishes verisimilitude rather than objective truth. Though there is a high correlation between the two, they are not necessarily identical. (p. 139-140)
The problem of re-creating the historical past grows more and more difficult the further back in history we look. Here is some of what Gottschalk says about studying ancient history:
For many early periods of history, less disagreement is found among the sources, because there are fewer sources than for more recent periods. [...] Thus a greater degree of consensus and certitude my easily exist among historians where the testimony is lacking than where it is full. Perhaps nothing provides more eloquent proof than this that the historian's "truths" are derived from analytical evaluations of an object called "sources" rather than an object called "the actual past." (p. 170-171)
The above passage is important, because it shows that apparent "consensus and certitude" doesn't necessarily imply factualness at all. "Consensus and certitude" may only mean that simply no contradictory evidence has survived. In the following passage, Gottschalk elaborates on the issue of missing data:
The past, having happened, has perished forever with only occasional traces. To begin with, although the absolute number of historical writings is staggering, only a small part of what happened in the past was ever observed. A moment's reflection is sufficient to establish that fact. How much, for example, of what you do, say, or think has ever observed by anyone--including yourself? Multiply your unobserved actions, thoughts, words and physiological processes by 2,000,000,000 and you'll get a rough estimate of the amount of unobserved happenings that go on in the world all the time. And only a part of what was observed in the past was remembered by those who observed it; only a part of what was remembered was recorded; only part of what was recorded has survived; only a part of what has survived has come to a historian's attention; only a part of what has come to their attention is credible; only a part of what is credible has been grasped; and only part of what has been grasped can be expanded or narrated by the historian. The whole history of the past (what has been called history-as-actuality) can be known to him only through the surviving record of it (history-as-record), and most of history-as-record is only the surviving part of the recorded part of the remembered part of the observed part of that whole. (p. 45-46)
Having quoted substantially from Gottschalk on the problems that face the historian, one might think the historian's task is totally hopeless. But of course the point of Gottschalk's book is that there are methods to obtain "verisimilitude." Gottschalk provides a guideline for testing the validity of historical testimony:
To [the historian,] any single detail of testimony is credible--even if it is contained in a document obtained by force or fraud, or is otherwise impeachable, or is based on hearsay evidence, or is from an interested party--provided it can pass four tests:
1. Was the ultimate source of the detail (the primary witness) able to tell the truth?
2. Was the primary witness willing to tell the truth?
3. Is the primary witness accurately reported with regard to the detail under examination?
4. Is there any independent corroboration of the detail under examination? (p. 150)
Note that Gottschalk does not call this his "method." But then, Sanders never called his method the "Sanders Method" either. But this guideline by Gottschalk seems reasonably close to the idea of a "historical method" that Lenardos clamors for. So for point of discussion, I will call the above passage the "Gottschalk Method."
While trying to avoid putting words into Lenardos' mouth, but my guess is that he would agree in principle that the above passage qualifies as a "historical method." If my guess is correct, I believe he would then try to argue each of those four points and claim that the NT is indeed "validated" by the "Gottschalk Method." For the remainder of this article, I will argue that the NT fails the Gottschalk Method miserably. Gottschalk spends a good deal of time elaborating on each of those four points, to help provide better guidelines on whether a document in question passes each of those tests. I will make use of Gottschalk's elaborations to argue my position.
The first point is of the "Gottschalk Method" is whether the primary witness is able to tell the truth. In the following passage, Gottschalk explains the importance of using a primary witness:
The historian, let us repeat, uses primary (that is, eyewitness) testimony whenever he can. When he can find no primary witness, he uses the best secondary witnesses available. [...] However, he does not rely upon them fully. On the contrary, he asks: (1) On whose primary testimony does the secondary witness base his statements? (2) Did the secondary witness accurately report the primary testimony as a whole? (3) If not, in what details did he accurately report the primary testimony? (p. 165)
It is frequently argued by apologists that the Gospels are indeed eyewitness testimonies. However this is an unsubstantiated claim. In fact, the first two verses of Luke state specifically that he is not an eyewitness:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. [Luke 1:1-2 NIV]
Of course Luke claims to have carefully investigated everything he writes, but he tells us nothing on his methodology. He tells us nothing of his sources. We just know nothing about Luke's motives, his methods, his witnesses, etc. The three questions that Gottschalk asked above in regards to secondary sources (whose primary testimony, etc.), we can't answer.
Now it is often claimed that because Luke displays a good knowledge of history of the time, such as some of the history of King Herod, then we can infer he is accurate about the rest of his material. That simply isn't true. I could write a book that has lots of true details about George W. Bush, and still have lots of completely false claims in the book. Gottschalk addresses this issue specifically in the following passage:
In the process of analysis the historian should constantly keep in mind the relevant particulars within the document rather than the document as a whole. Regarding each particular he asks: Is it credible? It might be well to point out that what is meant by calling a particular credible is not that it is actually what happened, but is as close to what actually happened as we can learn from a critical examination of the sources. (p. 139-140)
The point being that you can't just say that since Luke is correct about Herod being king then he must be correct about everything else he said. As Gottschalk points out, each claim made in a document must be evaluated on its own. After all, if I write an article stating George W. Bush is president, that doesn't mean everything else I write is correct.
Back to the point about primary witnesses, as noted, Luke specifically states he is not a primary witness. Mark and Matthew make no claims one way or the other, so there is no good reason to assume that they are eyewitness accounts. Now John's account does indeed claim it was written by John the apostle, a claim to be an eyewitness. But remember, that is one single claim that must be judged on its own and not assumed to be true if something else that John says is true. In other words, we need better reason to believe it is an eyewitness account besides simply a claim that it is an eyewitness account. After all I can claim that I was a witness to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but that doesn't make it true. In short there is no good reason to believe any of the Gospels are eyewitness accounts.
Further, I believe there are good reasons to conclude that John isn't an eyewitness account. However, I believe that discussion to be out of scope of this paper. I will refer the interested reader to an article by Paul Tobin, "The Gospel of John".
But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the Gospels are based on eyewitness accounts, there are further problems with assuming that they are correct. Memory is faulty, and the more time that passes between the time an event happens and it was recorded, the greater the chance of error. The following passage by Gottschalk addresses this issue:
Ability of to tell the truth rests in part upon the witness's nearness to the event. Nearness is here used in both a geographical and chronological sense. The reliability of the witness's testimony tends to vary in proportion to (a) his own remoteness from the scene in time and space, and (b) the remoteness from the event in time and space of the recording of it. there are three steps in historical testimony: observation, recollection, and recording. At each of these steps something of the possible testimony may be lost. (p. 150-151)
Here is another passage on this issue:
Incomplete observation and faulty memory are often responsible for the inadequacy of testimony. Because a witness's reliability is, in general, inversely proportional to the time-lapse between the observation of the event and the witness' recollection, the closer the time of making a document was to the event it records, the better it is likely to be for historical purposes. (p. 90)
There is quite a good deal of debate about exactly when the Gospels were written. However, even the most conservative of Christian scholars admit they were written at least twenty years after the events. Note that Gottschalk doesn't provide any exact rule, or even a rule of thumb, as to exactly how close to the events an account should be written to be considered accurate. But it is fairly safe to say that human memory over twenty years is far from perfect. Christian apologists may claim that some record predating the Gospels may have been used as a source for the Gospels. Therefore, the claim goes, the Gospels really represent a record very close to the time of the events. But we have no evidence for this, it is just speculation.
The second point on the Gottschalk method is the issue of willingness to tell the truth. In the following passage, Gottschalk warns against about the problems inherent of the testimony of an interested witness:
One of the most elementary rules in the analysis of testimony is that which requires the exercise of caution against the interested witness. A witness's interest is obvious when he himself may benefit from the perversion of the truth or may thereby benefit someone or some cause dear to him. Certain kinds of propaganda are perhaps the worst examples of deliberate perversion of truth out of a desire to benefit a cause. (p. 156)
Now of course it is true that that just because a witness is an interested witness does not mean for certain that the testimony is wrong. An interested party can also be an honest party. That said, the fact is, the Gospels were written by Christians to support Christianity--they were written by "interested parties." Therefore, it is reasonable to exercise caution against taking them at face value. Of course this doesn't mean for sure that the reporting is in error, it just means that it is reasonable to exercise caution.
Gottschalk didn't actually elaborate much on his third point. Therefore, I will move on to the fourth point, which is about independent testimony of multiple witnesses. In the following passage, Gottschalk elaborates on this point:
The general rule of historians [...] is to accept as historical only those particulars which rest upon the independent testimony of two or more reliable witnesses. [...] Independence is not, however, always easy to determine, as the controversy over the Synoptic Gospels well illustrates. Whenever any two witnesses agree, it may be that they do so because they are testifying independently to an observed fact, but it is possible that they agree only because one has copied from the other, or because one has been unduly influenced by the other, or because both have copied from or been unduly influenced by a third source. Unless the independence of the observers is established, agreement may be confirmation of a lie or a mistake rather than a corroboration of a fact. (p. 166-167)
It is interesting that Gottschalk happened to use the Gospels to demonstrate his point. It is widely argued by many scholars that the Synoptic Gospels borrow heavily from each other and therefore they do not represent independent accounts.
Further, we have no extra-biblical confirmation of any central event in the Gospel stories. Yes, we have extra-biblical confirmation of details of setting, such as the fact that Herod was king. But of any central event, like the Slaughter of the Innocents, there is NO extra-biblical confirmation. For that matter, there isn't even any extra-biblical confirmation that Jesus was even born lived and died, I'm aware of many claims of extra-biblical confirmation, such as Josephus' "Testimonium Flavianum." Debating the merits of the Testimonium Flavianum is beyond the scope of this paper. (See here if interested.) But, even if it is genuine, Josepheus was not a contemporary of Jesus. There is not one single contemporary reference to Jesus Christ at all. And, since the Gospels are admitted by Christians to be written years after his death, not even the Bible itself is a contemporary reference to Jesus Christ. The grand total of contemporary references to Jesus Christ is zero and that is even including the Bible itself!
I suspect at this point, Lenardos might claim that based on the standards I have outlined above, all of history is destroyed. In other words, he might claim that I am asking for the impossible and therefore nothing in the historical record would be deemed valid by these standards. Fortunately, this is not the case. I will refer to an article by Richard Carrier, "Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story":
Christian apologist Douglas Geivett has declared that the evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus meets, and I quote, "the highest standards of historical inquiry" and "if one takes the historian's own criteria for assessing the historicity of ancient events, the resurrection passes muster as a historically well-attested event of the ancient world," as well-attested, he says, as Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C. Well, it is common in Christian apologetics, throughout history, to make absurdly exaggerated claims, and this is no exception. Let's look at Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon for a minute:
First of all, we have Caesar's own word on the subject. Indeed, The Civil War has been a Latin classic for two thousand years, written by Caesar himself and by one of his generals and closest of friends. In contrast, we do not have anything written by Jesus, and we do not know for certain the name of any author of any of the accounts of his earthly resurrection.
Second, we have many of Caesar's enemies, including Cicero, a contemporary of the event, reporting the crossing of the Rubicon, whereas we have no hostile or even neutral records of the resurrection until over a hundred years after the event, which is fifty years after the Christians' own claims had been widely spread around.
Third, we have a number of inscriptions and coins produced soon after the Republican Civil War related to the Rubicon crossing, including mentions of battles and conscriptions and judgments, which provide evidence for Caesar's march. On the other hand, we have absolutely no physical evidence of any kind in the case of the resurrection.
Fourth, we have the story of the "Rubicon Crossing" in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age: Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, Plutarch. Moreover, these scholars have a measure of proven reliability, since a great many of their reports on other matters have been confirmed in material evidence and in other sources. In addition, they often quote and name many different sources, showing a wide reading of the witnesses and documents, and they show a desire to critically examine claims for which there is any dispute. If that wasn't enough, all of them cite or quote sources written by witnesses, hostile and friendly, of the Rubicon crossing and its repercussions.
Compare this with the resurrection: we have not even a single established historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians. And of those few others who do mention it within a century of the event, none of them show any wide reading, never cite any other sources, show no sign of a skilled or critical examination of conflicting claims, have no other literature or scholarship to their credit that we can test for their skill and accuracy, are completely unknown, and have an overtly declared bias towards persuasion and conversion.
Fifth, the history of Rome could not have proceeded as it did had Caesar not physically moved an army into Italy. Even if Caesar could have somehow cultivated the mere belief that he had done this, he could not have captured Rome or conscripted Italian men against Pompey's forces in Greece. On the other hand, all that is needed to explain the rise of Christianity is a belief--a belief that the resurrection happened. There is nothing that an actual resurrection would have caused that could not have been caused by a mere belief in that resurrection. Thus, an actual resurrection is not necessary to explain all subsequent history, unlike Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon.
It should be clear that we have many reasons to believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, all of which are lacking in the case of the resurrection. In fact, when we compare all five points, we see that in four of the five proofs of an event's historicity, the resurrection has no evidence at all, and in the one proof that it does have, it has not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence--a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses. Indeed, you really have to look hard to find another event that is in a worse condition than this as far as evidence goes. So Geivett is guilty of a rather extreme exaggeration. This is not a historically well-attested event, and it does not meet the highest standards of evidence.
One of the points that Carrier makes, I want to point out for special consideration. He notes that scholars of the age, (Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, Plutarch) did understand the concept of documenting their work. This underscores my arguments above that those who claim the Gospels meet the standards of their time are simply wrong.
I believe I have defended my case on the following points:
That said, I would like to address briefly one other point Lenardos makes in regards to historical method. Lenardos says:
2) The conclusions of the criterion cannot conflict with known fact. It is also improper to have a test that not only falsifies the issue at hand, but other issues we already affirm to be true.
Interestingly, I agree with Lenardos here, but not in the way Lenardos meant it. Rather, I agree with Gottschalk on this issue:
Conformity or agreement with other known historical or scientific facts is often the decisive test of evidence, whether of one or more witnesses. A claim that Cellini saw fire-dwelling salamanders, devils, halos, and other supernatural phenomena would hardly seem credible to any modern historian, even if Cellini were otherwise generally truthful, consistent and un-contradicted. And even if Cellini's statements were confirmed by independent witnesses, the historian would only believe that Cellini and his corroborators saw things they thought were fire-dwelling salamanders, devils and halos. General knowledge of how little effect a thumb in a hole in a dyke that had begun to crumble would be sufficient to destroy credence in a well-known legend, even if there had been witnesses to that Dutch hero's tale. (p. 168-169)
Obviously, claims of rising from the dead do conflict with known scientific facts. Therefore, using Lenardos point 2 all by itself, we can see that the Resurrection can't possibly be considered historically validated! I know that Christians will claim special circumstances, but then we've stopped talking about historical methods, which deal with normal scientific facts of people not rising from the dead. Lenardos simply can't have it both ways. Either you talk about historical methods, which implies events follow normal scientific facts, or you don't. It really is as simple as that. (This encroaches on the subject of whether science and miracles are compatible, which I explain in more detail in my Objection 2 of my The Case for Faith critique.)
The above issue by Gottschalk brings us full circle back to the issue of extraordinary events requiring extraordinary evidence. Lenardos adamantly maintained that one should use the same level of evidence to validate the mundane as the extraordinary. I doubt any real historian would agree with that--Gottschalk doesn't. And really, so does everybody else--Lenardos included--except when it comes to one's own religion. Only when discussing one's own religion does anybody ever argue that fantastical claims should be taken at face value. Nobody takes fantastical claims of anybody else's religion at face value. As Stephen Roberts said, "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
References:
[1] Sanders, Chauncey. An Introduction to Research in English Literary History. The MacMillan Company.
[2] Gottschalk, Louis. Understanding History. Alfred A. Knopf Publishers.
Copyright 2005
Paul Jacobsen
See here for my response to Lenardos' response to this paper