Lenardos Debate - Round 5
This is round 5 in the debate between Lenardos and Jacobsen on the topic, "Do Extraordinary Events Require Extraordinary Evidence?"
Lenardos - Round 5
Paul,
On several occasions you have made the claim that the evidence for the reliability of the NT and the event of the Resurrection is insufficient. Yet, the same question that has been with us from the beginning of our discussion and has not changed is still with us: Can the atheist come up with a criteria and baseline that show the NT unreliable without completely destroying the rest of history from that period?
You seem to have missed this point of my last post. Let me ask you this question again: What does your attempt to attack the NT do to other works of the period? If we applied your standard to other historical works we would have to throw them all into the trash. Why? Because the evidence for the NT is so much superior to anything else form the period. Once again, this type of investigation is not done in a vacuum. The fact is historians would give their right arm to have a fraction of the documentary evidence for other books as we have for the NT. But even without all that evidence they are able to tell us about the past.
We started our discussion with comments concerning what comprises extraordinary evidence. I pointed out in my original paper that the atheist has no objective way to determine what extraordinary evidence would look like qualitatively or quantitatively. But it is really worst than that. The atheist has no method of judging any evidence at all. With all the letters that have gone back and forth between us, you have not offered any criteria that does not completely destroy all of ancient history. If you cannot first offer a methodology for dealing with ordinary evidence, how in the world do you expect to come up with any kind of objective standard for extraordinary evidence?
I have pointed to two different methodologies, which have been used in historical research, and when applied to the NT and the Resurrection have vindicated both. You have offered no methodology of any kind that has been used in historical research and that supports your position. I'll say it again, those attacks on the NT that you have offered, besides doing away with the NT, completely destroy all other history. So, where do we go from here? Either offer a real methodology for your conclusion that the NT is unreliable and the Resurrection didn't happen, or admit that this is not the conclusion of a reasoned historical investigation, it's just your unjustified belief statement.
Next Issue. You seem to suggest that I am trying to trick people with the chart I reproduced. You will note that it does say "earliest copy," And I did explain what was meant and gave a couple of examples that followed that chart so that people wouldn't get the wrong idea. It must also be noted that this is all public record. Anyone can do a search on the Internet and find the name of the texts, their dates and what they include.
But perhaps it is YOU who is trying to trick your readers with your chart of variations in the text. You fail to tell your readers that over 90% of all variations are what is called "insignificant variations." They are misspellings, double words, word order changes (in Greek, unlike English, the order of the words means little, it is the case ending that matters), etc.
Of course, it is also possible that you didn't know and just reprinted the chart without investigating the facts. I am sure Mr. Tobin didn't point this out in his paper.
The "significant variants" are used, as I explained in my last post, to help group texts, and by comparing these groupings work backwards to what the original said.
Here is an example of how this works:
Let's compare at three manuscripts, from three different families, found in three different regions:
[A] says, "Jesus wept."
[B] says, "Jesus slept."
[C] says, "Jesus wept."
Is it more reasonable to think that [B] misspelled the last word, or that [A] and [C] independently of each other, in a text of over 200,000 words, happened to make the same mistake at the same spot?
Given those three reading we determine that the correct reading is, "Jesus wept." Now, as I have explained before, this is a very simplified version of what takes place in textual criticism, but it does give you the idea.
Once again, historians would give anything to have this many early documents even with the variants for other historical writings. The NT has far more qualitatively and quantitatively superior evidence than any other document from the period. In fact, it can even be considered extraordinary compared to all other histories from the period taken together.
Paul, I don't mind you editing your posts: correcting spelling, rewording a sentence that didn't make since, etc. But to completely remove sections after I have begun answering them is unacceptable. If there are things you would like to recant from your original post, that is fine, recant, but don't just remove your arguments that later become known to obviously be in error. I request that you repost your response as originally written, so your readers can see the progress of our discussion. It is that original post I will be continually referring to and responding to until we come to agreement on those issues.
Regards,
Brady
Paul,
On several occasions you have made the claim that the evidence for the reliability of the NT and the event of the Resurrection is insufficient. Yet, the same question that has been with us from the beginning of our discussion and has not changed is still with us: Can the atheist come up with a criteria and baseline that show the NT unreliable without completely destroying the rest of history from that period?
You seem to have missed this point of my last post. Let me ask you this question again: What does your attempt to attack the NT do to other works of the period? If we applied your standard to other historical works we would have to throw them all into the trash. Why? Because the evidence for the NT is so much superior to anything else form the period. Once again, this type of investigation is not done in a vacuum. The fact is historians would give their right arm to have a fraction of the documentary evidence for other books as we have for the NT. But even without all that evidence they are able to tell us about the past.
We started our discussion with comments concerning what comprises extraordinary evidence. I pointed out in my original paper that the atheist has no objective way to determine what extraordinary evidence would look like qualitatively or quantitatively. But it is really worst than that. The atheist has no method of judging any evidence at all. With all the letters that have gone back and forth between us, you have not offered any criteria that does not completely destroy all of ancient history. If you cannot first offer a methodology for dealing with ordinary evidence, how in the world do you expect to come up with any kind of objective standard for extraordinary evidence?
I have pointed to two different methodologies, which have been used in historical research, and when applied to the NT and the Resurrection have vindicated both. You have offered no methodology of any kind that has been used in historical research and that supports your position. I'll say it again, those attacks on the NT that you have offered, besides doing away with the NT, completely destroy all other history. So, where do we go from here? Either offer a real methodology for your conclusion that the NT is unreliable and the Resurrection didn't happen, or admit that this is not the conclusion of a reasoned historical investigation, it's just your unjustified belief statement.
Next Issue. You seem to suggest that I am trying to trick people with the chart I reproduced. You will note that it does say "earliest copy," And I did explain what was meant and gave a couple of examples that followed that chart so that people wouldn't get the wrong idea. It must also be noted that this is all public record. Anyone can do a search on the Internet and find the name of the texts, their dates and what they include.
But perhaps it is YOU who is trying to trick your readers with your chart of variations in the text. You fail to tell your readers that over 90% of all variations are what is called "insignificant variations." They are misspellings, double words, word order changes (in Greek, unlike English, the order of the words means little, it is the case ending that matters), etc.
Of course, it is also possible that you didn't know and just reprinted the chart without investigating the facts. I am sure Mr. Tobin didn't point this out in his paper.
The "significant variants" are used, as I explained in my last post, to help group texts, and by comparing these groupings work backwards to what the original said.
Here is an example of how this works:
Let's compare at three manuscripts, from three different families, found in three different regions:
[A] says, "Jesus wept."
[B] says, "Jesus slept."
[C] says, "Jesus wept."
Is it more reasonable to think that [B] misspelled the last word, or that [A] and [C] independently of each other, in a text of over 200,000 words, happened to make the same mistake at the same spot?
Given those three reading we determine that the correct reading is, "Jesus wept." Now, as I have explained before, this is a very simplified version of what takes place in textual criticism, but it does give you the idea.
Once again, historians would give anything to have this many early documents even with the variants for other historical writings. The NT has far more qualitatively and quantitatively superior evidence than any other document from the period. In fact, it can even be considered extraordinary compared to all other histories from the period taken together.
Paul, I don't mind you editing your posts: correcting spelling, rewording a sentence that didn't make since, etc. But to completely remove sections after I have begun answering them is unacceptable. If there are things you would like to recant from your original post, that is fine, recant, but don't just remove your arguments that later become known to obviously be in error. I request that you repost your response as originally written, so your readers can see the progress of our discussion. It is that original post I will be continually referring to and responding to until we come to agreement on those issues.
Regards,
Brady
Jacobsen - Round 5
I inadvertently annoyed, Mr. Lenardos. I mistakenly left out one exchange between us. That has been now restored as Round 3. I received an e-mail from Lenardos agreeing that I have fixed the problem. So, hopefully we can leave that bit behind us and progress further.
Lenardos says that I missed the point of his points from round 4, that the evidence for the NT is so superior to anything else of the period. Then he goes on with a bit of finger pointing as to who is trying to trick whom? Is Lenardos' chart misleading, or is the material I presented from Tobin misleading?
Well, I confess to leaving something significant out, and that is Tobin actually agrees with Lenardos in a small way, Tobin agrees that using the kind of analysis that Lenardos explains, Tobin believes that modern translations are likely very close to the original. So, it might be said that I was "misleading" by leaving this out. Even so, the reasons and implications of this is what Tobin disagrees with. (Again, refer to Tobin's article, http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/manufall.html for further information.)
1. Tobin disagrees with the way apologists count manuscripts.
2. Tobin disagrees that the manuscript counts really are very noteworthy.
3. Tobin disagrees that current textual analysis validates the King James Version of the Bible, which was the standard English version of the Bible for centuries.
So, lets take each of these points in more detail. I'm going to include a chart from Kurt and Barbara Aland's Text of the New Testament:
I inadvertently annoyed, Mr. Lenardos. I mistakenly left out one exchange between us. That has been now restored as Round 3. I received an e-mail from Lenardos agreeing that I have fixed the problem. So, hopefully we can leave that bit behind us and progress further.
Lenardos says that I missed the point of his points from round 4, that the evidence for the NT is so superior to anything else of the period. Then he goes on with a bit of finger pointing as to who is trying to trick whom? Is Lenardos' chart misleading, or is the material I presented from Tobin misleading?
Well, I confess to leaving something significant out, and that is Tobin actually agrees with Lenardos in a small way, Tobin agrees that using the kind of analysis that Lenardos explains, Tobin believes that modern translations are likely very close to the original. So, it might be said that I was "misleading" by leaving this out. Even so, the reasons and implications of this is what Tobin disagrees with. (Again, refer to Tobin's article, http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/manufall.html for further information.)
1. Tobin disagrees with the way apologists count manuscripts.
2. Tobin disagrees that the manuscript counts really are very noteworthy.
3. Tobin disagrees that current textual analysis validates the King James Version of the Bible, which was the standard English version of the Bible for centuries.
So, lets take each of these points in more detail. I'm going to include a chart from Kurt and Barbara Aland's Text of the New Testament:
This chart lists the number of manuscripts for each century, as was known of at the time of the publication of the book (1988). The manuscripts are classified into three categories: papyri, uncials, and minuscules. According to an e-mail from Tobin, the counts have not changed significantly since that publication.
The first thing to note is that the count of manuscripts is very few until nearly a thousand years after the books were written! The total count of the manuscripts for the first five centuries totals only around 100. The next thing to note is that almost all of the early manuscripts are very incomplete. The papyri are generally only a few verses each! However, some of the uncials are fairly complete.
Then the next thing to note is that the chart shows trivial numbers of manuscripts compared to Lenardos' quote of 24,633. One reason is this chart does not include the lectionaries. Lectionaries are publications made for church services that have verses within them. I didn't bother to include a similar chart to the one above, but Aland's book contains another similar chart listing the lectionaries. They have a similar distribution--only a few exist within the first thousand years after the original writing.
But even if you add the Lectionaries, you still don't get anything like Lenardos' 24,633. The reason is, Aland is only counting Greek manuscripts. To get Lenardos' 24,633, you have to also include all the manuscripts in other languages. It would be fair to say the translated manuscripts have historical significance as they help show the historical progression of the religion. But, as far as textual analysis to discern the original words, the translated manuscripts are essentially useless. Having been translated, they are a full step further removed from the originals. Also, the translated manuscripts are also of a late date.
So, let me return to the three points above. Point number 1, I said that Tobin disagrees with how apologists count manuscripts. Well, I've pretty much covered that ground, but a couple of more points. Many apologists (including Lenardos) compare the number of manuscripts of the NT to the Iliad, which we have roughly 650 manuscripts. Lenardos' chart shows 24,633 NT manuscripts, but, this is erroneous. For example, we only got 287 manuscripts of the Book of Revelation, half the number of the Iliad. We only got 573 manuscripts of the Book of Acts, which is also less than the Iliad. Counting every single scrap that has so much as a single verse as a "manuscript of the NT" is just plain BS.
For point number 2, I said that Tobin disagrees that the manuscript counts are terribly significant. As I noted, the vast majority of them date a thousand years after the fact. Lenardos presents the manuscript counts as evidence of the factualness of the events in the NT. Of the people that wrote the manuscripts in, say, the year 1,000 have any great insights about the truth or fiction of the events in the NT? No, manuscripts that date a thousand years after the fact may attest to the religion growing in popularity--it does absolutely nothing to attest to the validity of the words.
Another thing that needs to get noted is that it is simply the nature of religion that books represented as holy books get reproduced a lot. For example, the library of Astan-i Quds-i Razavi in Mashhad, Iran alone houses eleven thousand manuscripts of the Koran in Arabic. I don't have any specifics, but I wouldn't doubt the Buddhist Sutras manuscripts situation to be similar. I don't see Lenardos jumping up and down about the the Koran manuscripts. As I said, major religions have their holy books reproduced. Should we decide which religion is right by which religion has had its holy book reproduced the most?
I have shown that Lenardos comparison of manuscript counts of the NT vs the Iliad are erroneous. But, even if the NT manuscript counts were genuine, nobody ever presented the Iliad as the path to salvation. It was never claimed to be, or treated like a holy book. So even if its manuscript counts were far inferior, it wouldn't be surprising. As noted, the Koran, which is of course also claimed as a holy book, saw similar numbers of manuscripts as Islam spread. (Actually, according to Tobin, the Koran actually has a superior numbers of manuscripts compared to the NT.)
For the third point, Tobin argues that textual analysis of the Bible reveals the KJV to be very flawed, which was the standard English language Bible for centuries after its first release in 1611. Apologists like to claim that God made sure that His word was preserved through all time. But modern textual analysis shows that the only Bible people had for centuries is very flawed. What does this tell you about God's concern for His word? In fact, it is ironic that Lenardos brings up the textual analysis as such analysis wouldn't even be necessary had God in fact preserved His word well. Its the very fact that it isn't so well preserved is why such analysis is required!
Therefore, I conclude that, yes, it is Lenardos' chart that is the "guilty party" in our finger pointing contest about who is being misleading. He denied this, saying that anybody could look the data up on the net. But I had found that most references on the net on the "24,633" manuscripts are Christian sites that also parrot the number without explaining, "oh, by the way, the vast majority of them are only a handful of verses each and date a thousand years after the fact". Clearly, from looking at Lenardos' chart, you would not get the idea that the situation is anything like what we see from Aland's chart. Therefore, I find his claim that anybody could look up the information on the net to be a poor excuse for his clearly misleading chart.
And of course Lenardos still maintains that the majority of the differences are trivial, and yet there is at least a couple of very significant changes, such as the ending of Mark. I've mentioned this twice already, and so far Lenardos remains silent. So, when he tried to point the finger back at me, "perhaps it is YOU who are trying to trick your readers," well, my first reaction was... well, I guess I'll not say what my first reaction was...
Now, I'm going to differ with Tobin. Tobin does agree with Aland (and even Lenardos) that we do now have a Bible that is likely very close to the original. He prefers the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Well, I'm certainly no expert and have no way to prove Aland/Tobin wrong, but, given that we have only a handful of verses that date within 50 years of the original writing, I can't help wonder, how can we know what the original words were? If, say, within the first twenty years of their writing, had the works been revised a dozen times, how would we know? How would the copies that date a thousand years later be able to prove or disprove this? Even if we had a million manuscripts that date a thousand years later, what good would that do to determine what happened in the very first few years? I've been told that it is often in the formative years of a religion that the writings of the "holy word" receives the most revision. I don't know this for a fact, but it certainly seems reasonable. So it certainly seems quite within the realm of possibility that lots of revisions took place very early. Sure, that is pure speculation. I guess I'm just saying, "who knows"?
In my last post, I said that Lenardos hasn't even presented evidence that the Gospels even were intended to be taken as factual. I'm actually going to give something that he should have used in defense of this charge:
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospelbioi.html
In this article, Tektonics argues that the Gospels do indeed fit the format of a "Bioi," an ancient biography. I confess this is a good article, and could have been used on Lenardos' side. Even so, since we don't have the authors of the Gospels to interview, we cannot be certain that they really are Biois, or simply fiction that somebody decided would be nice to present in Bioi format. We simply don't know.
Lenardos keep saying that if I apply the same standards to all history, all history would be destroyed. And I'll keep responding the same: all history is subject to revision--and especially history that ancient. We often only have a few sources on something, and if those sources are wrong, then what we believe happened might not really have happened. That's just the nature of the beast. We make our best guess what happened based on the evidence we have, nothing is history that ancient is very certain.
It is true that people distort what they report for all kinds of reasons, and certainly not just religion. Josephus, when he wrote his history of the period, is known to have had a pro-Roman agenda. Is it possible that what he wrote was distorted by this agenda? It is certainly possible. It is generally surmised that what he wrote is generally factual, but if it wasn't, if he lied, how would we know? Until we come across compelling contradictory data, we wouldn't know.
But, there are a few things to keep in mind. For one, whether Lenardos would like to admit it or not, religion has an effect on people that nothing else does. In Romans, chapter 3, there is an interesting discussion by Paul about lying in order to bring people to God. Paul says that they had been slandered as saying that it is okay to lie to bring people to God. Paul says that is slander, and not true, and it is is not okay. But does it not imply at least that Christians had a reputation of lying to convert people? And if they had such a reputation, is it not unlikely that some Christians did indeed do so? I know that Lenardos would say that I'm demonstrating an anti-religious bias if I say that religion is a more likely source of "exaggerations" (lies) than other sources of bias. But I'm afraid that I really think it is true. People tend to think their religion is the One True Religion, and it this seems to cause people to do all kinds of things to promote their religion.
By the way, I'm a "mythist"--I think that there was no Jesus Christ at all, he is a purely fictional character. I know that most people consider that an extreme position, not even most atheists hold this position. I don't deny the possibility I could be wrong, perhaps there was some guy that somehow got mythical attributes (born of a virgin, resurrected, etc.) attributed to. In other words, I'd say Jesus Christ was either entirely mythical, or merely mostly mythical. But I'd like to quote from a paper that is written by a Christian that tries to defend against the Christ-myth theory:
|
http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm
Occasionally people ask why there is no record of Jesus in Roman records. The answer is that there are no surviving Roman records but only highly parochial Roman historians who had little interest in the comings and goings of minor cults and were far more concerned about Emperors and Kings. Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive and there was no reason for Roman historians to notice him. Once Christianity was established as a major cult in the Empire then Jesus became rather more interesting and he is mentioned by Tacitus in the early second century. However, Jesus Mythers counter this by claiming that he could have got his information from Christians which means his evidence is not independent. So, we have a very convenient situation for the Jesus Mythers. Until Christianity had spread no one except Christians would be interested in Jesus but all later records are ruled out of court as they are tainted by association with Christianity. |
Basically, Bede is saying, "well, okay, there isn't any evidence of Jesus' existence, but I've got a very good reason for it. Therefore, to expect evidence isn't reasonable." Whether the situation is "convenient" for mythers, (as Bede says) or not, the fact is, if you got no evidence then you got no evidence. If Jesus was a historical figure, then he's the only historical figure that wasn't historically significant!
I'm not going to further argue at this time whether Jesus was a real guy or pure myth. My point of bringing up Bede's paper is simply that it does a good job of explaining the difference between the "history" of Jesus, vs. the history of other historical figures. Lenardos keeps insisting that if the standards that I'm placing on Jesus were to be placed uniformly on all ancient history, then all history would be destroyed. But as Bede says, "Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive, and there was no reason for Roman historians to notice him". History is about people that DO make "splashes" and get noticed while they are alive! History of people that nobody noticed until after they were dead is almost certainly going to be wrong.
So, no, Lenardos is not correct. To apply my standard of expecting contemporary references to historical events and historical people would not destroy all of history, it would only destroy the history of the non-historical!
Final note: there may be other events or figures in history that have similar problems, all of their contemporary references lost. And for these events or figures in history, we might similarly only have second or third hand (or later) information. And I'm afraid I'd have to conclude that what we know about these events or figures would have to be considered suspect as well. Of course, of events and people that we only have third-hand reports for doesn't for certain mean that the information is wrong. It just means that the possibility of that the reports are wrong is increased.
I'm not going to further argue at this time whether Jesus was a real guy or pure myth. My point of bringing up Bede's paper is simply that it does a good job of explaining the difference between the "history" of Jesus, vs. the history of other historical figures. Lenardos keeps insisting that if the standards that I'm placing on Jesus were to be placed uniformly on all ancient history, then all history would be destroyed. But as Bede says, "Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive, and there was no reason for Roman historians to notice him". History is about people that DO make "splashes" and get noticed while they are alive! History of people that nobody noticed until after they were dead is almost certainly going to be wrong.
So, no, Lenardos is not correct. To apply my standard of expecting contemporary references to historical events and historical people would not destroy all of history, it would only destroy the history of the non-historical!
Final note: there may be other events or figures in history that have similar problems, all of their contemporary references lost. And for these events or figures in history, we might similarly only have second or third hand (or later) information. And I'm afraid I'd have to conclude that what we know about these events or figures would have to be considered suspect as well. Of course, of events and people that we only have third-hand reports for doesn't for certain mean that the information is wrong. It just means that the possibility of that the reports are wrong is increased.
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