Why Historical Apologetics is Useless
_Many Christian apologists will acknowledge that the supernatural elements of the Gospel stories cannot be proven. But, they will claim that many historical claims related to the Gospel stories can be proven, to within the usual standards of historical accuracy. Typically, they will claim that we can know, to within usual historical standards, that there was a real Jesus Christ, who appointed twelve apostles and taught at least most of the teachings in the Gospels. This Jesus was then betrayed by one of his disciples, brought before Pontius Pilate, who had him crucified. Jesus’ burial tomb was found to be empty by the two Mary’s.
There is some variation to these claims, and I believe that some Christians using the basic argument would settle for fewer of those claims, some would insist on more. Some apologists add to the list of things they claim that we can know -- to within standard historical accuracy -- that we know who the authors of the Gospels; and they are, in fact the traditionally attributed authors: John Mark, companion of Peter; the apostle Matthew; Luke, the companion of Paul; and the apostle John.
Typical conversations with apologists making such claims is that when a skeptic challenges some of those claims, such as a skeptic saying they don’t believe the traditional authorship, the apologist will charge the skeptic of ‘arbitrarily’ changing their standard of evidence. The apologist may claim that the level of evidence for the Christian historical claims is on par with or superior to the evidence for secular figures and events in history. The apologist may make analogies to perhaps Alexander the Great, Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, Plato, Socrates, etc. The apologist may charge that the skeptic doesn’t doubt any of those secular people or events and therefore is being unreasonable to doubt at least the historical claims of Christianity.
For the moment, I won’t address any of those claims specifically. What I wish to point out up front is that it doesn’t matter even if the Christians are right, in regards to their historical claims that is. I will for the moment assume that those Christian claims are true – that to within historical standards of accuracy – the claims I outlined are true. That Jesus lived, had the twelve disciples, was crucified by Pontius Pilate, the tomb was empty, the Gospels were written by the traditional authors, etc., I am for the moment assuming to be all “historically verified and accurate” to normal historical standards. The problem for the Christian is, this just doesn’t mean jack diddly. In short, proving something to “normal standards of historical accuracy” is insufficient given the consequences of the claims. The reason? It’s called “margin of error”.
It is simply a fact that for different applications, different margins of error are acceptable. And accordingly, different rules of evidence apply. I had early noted that Christians will claim that skeptics “arbitrarily” change their standards of evidence. Skeptics may indeed change their standards of evidence, but it is far from “arbitrary.” In fact, using different standards of evidence for different applications is commonplace. If I said I walked to the store today, most people would take my word for it, no questions asked. Now, if I was on trial for murder, and I said I was walking to the store at the time of the murder, would everybody on the jury just take my word for it? If they met me under different circumstances they probably would take my word for it. Is the jury suddenly “arbitrarily” raising their standard of evidence?
No, they are not. The jurors are in a situation where a higher degree of accuracy is needed, so a higher degree of certainty of facts is needed. So, the same evidence for the same facts is perfectly accepted in some circumstances, and deemed unsatisfactory in others.
In fact, the different requirements of evidence for different purposes is coded into law. Civil law has more lax standards, only requiring a “preponderance” of evidence, while criminal law has more strict standards of requiring “beyond reasonable doubt”. So the fact is, using different levels of evidence for different circumstances is both commonly understood and used in daily life, and even coded into law. Not “arbitrary” at all.
As noted, civil law has more lax standards than criminal law. And standards of evidence in history are even weaker. If, hypothetically, historians have erred on, say, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the issue is literally academic. Nobody’s life is hanging on the issue. (Not to mention someone's eternal salvation!) Not even someone’s property hangs in the balance. It is, indeed truly academic.
What if hypothetically, someone is accused of murder, and by some bizarre twist of a case, the prosecution’s case hangs upon the fact that Caesar indeed crossed the Rubicon. The prosecutor convinces the judge that the issue is indeed pertinent to the case, and allows the prosecutor to bring his evidence. The prosecutor brings forth numerous historians pointing to solid evidence as to why it is an accepted fact in history and that no serious challenge to the claim is known to exist. The defendant would still have to be let go even if the jurors believed the fact to be likely. The prosecution could only bring forward hearsay evidence and the defense would have no ability to cross examine any witnesses. It would not meet standards of evidence required for a criminal case.
The point being, once again, sufficient evidence for one situation is not necessarily sufficient for other situations. Evidence sufficient for historical purposes is not sufficient for purposes of life and death. It is perfectly reasonable and justifiable for me to both accept all the Christian historical claims within the context of history and reject those very same claims in the context of deciding what religion (if any) to accept. Now, as it so happens, I also reject that the Christian claims meet historical standards, which I have argued at length elsewhere, and will do so again later in this same article. But the point is that I could legitimately accept Christian historical claims within a historical context and reject them otherwise.
I think that if you think about it, this totally makes sense. Keeping with the “crossing the Rubicon” analogy, sure, as far as I know it is true. I certainly accept it for historical purposes. I totally accept that it is proven to historical standards to have happened. But, what if hypothetically, some deity were to base the eternal fate of every human being on earth based on whether or not they get the right answer on whether or not Caesar in fact did cross the Rubicon? Wouldn’t such a deity be insane?
This is an obstacle that I’ve never seen any apologist attempt to address. As I noted, in criminal law, we attempt to use the highest standards of evidence. Yet we know for a fact that criminal law fails from time to time, innocent people are convicted, guilty people are let go. It only stands to reason that civil law comes to incorrect conclusions more often than criminal law, and it certainly stands to reason that historians come to incorrect conclusions even more so. The fact that history is as much art as science is even admitted by Louis Gottschalk, in his book, Understanding History. Here are some relevant quotes:
There is some variation to these claims, and I believe that some Christians using the basic argument would settle for fewer of those claims, some would insist on more. Some apologists add to the list of things they claim that we can know -- to within standard historical accuracy -- that we know who the authors of the Gospels; and they are, in fact the traditionally attributed authors: John Mark, companion of Peter; the apostle Matthew; Luke, the companion of Paul; and the apostle John.
Typical conversations with apologists making such claims is that when a skeptic challenges some of those claims, such as a skeptic saying they don’t believe the traditional authorship, the apologist will charge the skeptic of ‘arbitrarily’ changing their standard of evidence. The apologist may claim that the level of evidence for the Christian historical claims is on par with or superior to the evidence for secular figures and events in history. The apologist may make analogies to perhaps Alexander the Great, Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, Plato, Socrates, etc. The apologist may charge that the skeptic doesn’t doubt any of those secular people or events and therefore is being unreasonable to doubt at least the historical claims of Christianity.
For the moment, I won’t address any of those claims specifically. What I wish to point out up front is that it doesn’t matter even if the Christians are right, in regards to their historical claims that is. I will for the moment assume that those Christian claims are true – that to within historical standards of accuracy – the claims I outlined are true. That Jesus lived, had the twelve disciples, was crucified by Pontius Pilate, the tomb was empty, the Gospels were written by the traditional authors, etc., I am for the moment assuming to be all “historically verified and accurate” to normal historical standards. The problem for the Christian is, this just doesn’t mean jack diddly. In short, proving something to “normal standards of historical accuracy” is insufficient given the consequences of the claims. The reason? It’s called “margin of error”.
It is simply a fact that for different applications, different margins of error are acceptable. And accordingly, different rules of evidence apply. I had early noted that Christians will claim that skeptics “arbitrarily” change their standards of evidence. Skeptics may indeed change their standards of evidence, but it is far from “arbitrary.” In fact, using different standards of evidence for different applications is commonplace. If I said I walked to the store today, most people would take my word for it, no questions asked. Now, if I was on trial for murder, and I said I was walking to the store at the time of the murder, would everybody on the jury just take my word for it? If they met me under different circumstances they probably would take my word for it. Is the jury suddenly “arbitrarily” raising their standard of evidence?
No, they are not. The jurors are in a situation where a higher degree of accuracy is needed, so a higher degree of certainty of facts is needed. So, the same evidence for the same facts is perfectly accepted in some circumstances, and deemed unsatisfactory in others.
In fact, the different requirements of evidence for different purposes is coded into law. Civil law has more lax standards, only requiring a “preponderance” of evidence, while criminal law has more strict standards of requiring “beyond reasonable doubt”. So the fact is, using different levels of evidence for different circumstances is both commonly understood and used in daily life, and even coded into law. Not “arbitrary” at all.
As noted, civil law has more lax standards than criminal law. And standards of evidence in history are even weaker. If, hypothetically, historians have erred on, say, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the issue is literally academic. Nobody’s life is hanging on the issue. (Not to mention someone's eternal salvation!) Not even someone’s property hangs in the balance. It is, indeed truly academic.
What if hypothetically, someone is accused of murder, and by some bizarre twist of a case, the prosecution’s case hangs upon the fact that Caesar indeed crossed the Rubicon. The prosecutor convinces the judge that the issue is indeed pertinent to the case, and allows the prosecutor to bring his evidence. The prosecutor brings forth numerous historians pointing to solid evidence as to why it is an accepted fact in history and that no serious challenge to the claim is known to exist. The defendant would still have to be let go even if the jurors believed the fact to be likely. The prosecution could only bring forward hearsay evidence and the defense would have no ability to cross examine any witnesses. It would not meet standards of evidence required for a criminal case.
The point being, once again, sufficient evidence for one situation is not necessarily sufficient for other situations. Evidence sufficient for historical purposes is not sufficient for purposes of life and death. It is perfectly reasonable and justifiable for me to both accept all the Christian historical claims within the context of history and reject those very same claims in the context of deciding what religion (if any) to accept. Now, as it so happens, I also reject that the Christian claims meet historical standards, which I have argued at length elsewhere, and will do so again later in this same article. But the point is that I could legitimately accept Christian historical claims within a historical context and reject them otherwise.
I think that if you think about it, this totally makes sense. Keeping with the “crossing the Rubicon” analogy, sure, as far as I know it is true. I certainly accept it for historical purposes. I totally accept that it is proven to historical standards to have happened. But, what if hypothetically, some deity were to base the eternal fate of every human being on earth based on whether or not they get the right answer on whether or not Caesar in fact did cross the Rubicon? Wouldn’t such a deity be insane?
This is an obstacle that I’ve never seen any apologist attempt to address. As I noted, in criminal law, we attempt to use the highest standards of evidence. Yet we know for a fact that criminal law fails from time to time, innocent people are convicted, guilty people are let go. It only stands to reason that civil law comes to incorrect conclusions more often than criminal law, and it certainly stands to reason that historians come to incorrect conclusions even more so. The fact that history is as much art as science is even admitted by Louis Gottschalk, in his book, Understanding History. Here are some relevant quotes:
|
_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. (Gottschalk p. 47-48)
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. (Gottschalk p. 139-140) 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." (Gottschalk p. 170-171) |
_With this in mind, now let me return once more to the issue of the authorship of the Gospel of Mark. I’ve debated this at some length with YouTube apologist TheFunkyTheist. Another YouTube user, SonnyDelight55 has defended TheFunkyTheist’s arguments. He argues that we don’t have really strong evidence for the authorship of works by Plato and Plutarch and nobody doubts their authorship. He also argues that at least for claims like who wrote the Gospel of Mark should be judged the same way that authorship of the works of Plato and Plutarch.
My first comment would be that for historical purposes, I totally agree. If you want to find out who wrote the Gospel of Mark to the accuracy that history can provide, then yes, using standard historical means is exactly what to do. Now, if you want to put the alleged fact of traditional authorship of Mark as a linchpin to accepting a belief which allegedly impacts my eternal fate, then no, I’m afraid historical standards won’t do.
But okay, let us just work to the standards of historical research. Given that I’ve neither read nor studied Plato nor Plutarch, I’m at a decided disadvantage. Frankly, I don’t know how much evidence we have for traditional authorship of them. However, I will argue that if it is as flimsy as the evidence for the authorship of Mark then I will use the same standard and reject the authorship of Plato and Plutarch’s works as being unknown.
So, let us look at actual historical means to determine authorship of a work. I will use as my reference Chauncey Sanders’ book, An Introduction to Research in English Literary History. Now, true, he mainly talks about works much more recent, such as works of Shakespeare. But he also discusses some more ancient works. And, by the way, the reason I even read this book is because it is referenced by well-known Christian Josh McDowell in his book, More Than a Carpenter. Given that this book is on the basic subject of researching questions like authorship, and is used as a reference by a noted Christian apologist, I assume there should be no objection to my use of the book.
So, what does Sanders have to say about how determine authorship? First, he discusses the case where you have what is purported to be the original manuscript. If that is the case, you can do things like age date the paper and the ink. And the type of paper and ink can reveal what region of the world it probably came from. You can look at the handwriting and compare it to other known writings of the same author. Obviously we don’t have that for the Gospel of Mark, so that’s a dead end.
So what to do if you don’t have the original manuscript? Sanders asks if the document has a specific statement of authorship? No, the Gospel of Mark is internally anonymous. Another dead end.
What else? If you have other known works by the same author, you can compare writing style, vocabulary, common phrases used by the author, etc. But we don’t know of any other works by the author. Again, a dead end.
Sanders notes that you can often determine at least the approximate time of authorship, based on subject matter. A work mentioning an event can’t have been written before the event, unless you want to argue for prophecy. But this kind of evidence is generally only useful to disprove some possible authors. For example, a work couldn’t have been written by someone who died before the event. So we can discount people who died 100 BC as being the author of the Gospel of Mark. But that is hardly useful in actually specifying an author.
What else? Sanders says you can look at internal evidence. Is it the kind of work we would expect from the alleged author? Well, we don’t really know anything about this John Mark person, other than what we are told in Acts. Of course how reliable this information is, is also debatable. And even if we accept Acts at least in regards to John Mark, it’s hardly specific enough to give us enough information to assign authorship of the Gospel of Mark.
Christians do try to point to some forms of internal evidence. But funny thing is, they never point to internal evidence to suggest otherwise. As I pointed out in my previous response to TheFunkyTheist, the Gospel of Mark simply doesn’t look at all like what a second hand account would look like. No personal perspectives from Peter. It is also written in third-person omniscient format rather than second-person format. One would think that if the Gospel of Mark was really the writings of a man who has had close contact with an eyewitness to literally the most important events to ever happen, the work would look like it. This may not be iron clad. But, none of this is. And the meager bits of internal evidence that could be construed as being in favor of traditional authorship is substantially weaker. (See my response to TheFunkyTheist for this point to be argued in detail.) In short, the internal evidence is far more indicative of being not by John Mark.
Finally, if all else fails, Sanders says we can look to see if someone that knew the author affirms authorship. “Aha!” says the Christian! “This we have! We have the Presbyter John who affirms that the Gospel of Mark was indeed written by John Mark.” Of course the Christian invariably conveniently leaves out mentioning that we have exactly ONE such attestation, by a person who is otherwise anonymous to us. We know nothing about Presbyter John other than Papias tells us that is who told him who wrote the Gospel. And we know this is a biased source whose intent is to convince the reader that indeed Christianity is true.
So, of Sanders points on how to determine authorship, 90% or so the Christians have nothing at all. And of the one point that the do have something to offer, it is about the flimsiest it could possibly be -- a single, anonymous, biased source. This is the absolute only shred of evidence the Christian has to offer.
So, to compare Plato and Plutarch, one thing I do know is, we do have bodies of works from both of them. Such that we can determine to reasonable degree if all the “Plato” works were written by the same person, whether it was actually “Plato” or not. We can determine to a reasonable degree if all the “Plutarch” works are written by the same person, whether it was actually “Plutarch” or not. As I said, I’m no expert on Plato or Plutarch, but this much I know.
If there is any other work that is internally anonymous, internal evidence suggests it is not written by a suggested author, by an author who has written nothing else that we know of, and whose authorship is attributed by only a single source with an agenda, if there is any other work whose evidence for authorship is equally flimsy, I reject the authorship of those works also – on purely historical standards of evidence. I’m sure Chauncey Sanders would agree.
In conclusion, this discussion about traditional authorship was largely a digression from the main point. I believe I have reasonably argued against traditional authorship of Mark. Or, I have at least argued against having a good reason to accept traditional authorship – even if perchance traditional authorship happens to be correct. But even if I’m totally off base and that traditional authorship of the Gospels is well attested to, within historical standards, it is still meaningless for the apologist. Historical standards are simply insufficient to bet the eternal fate of even one single human, let alone the entirety of the human race. As I pointed out, the fact that different standards of evidence are used in different situations is perfectly mundane, and even coded into law.
Historical apologetics is useless.
My first comment would be that for historical purposes, I totally agree. If you want to find out who wrote the Gospel of Mark to the accuracy that history can provide, then yes, using standard historical means is exactly what to do. Now, if you want to put the alleged fact of traditional authorship of Mark as a linchpin to accepting a belief which allegedly impacts my eternal fate, then no, I’m afraid historical standards won’t do.
But okay, let us just work to the standards of historical research. Given that I’ve neither read nor studied Plato nor Plutarch, I’m at a decided disadvantage. Frankly, I don’t know how much evidence we have for traditional authorship of them. However, I will argue that if it is as flimsy as the evidence for the authorship of Mark then I will use the same standard and reject the authorship of Plato and Plutarch’s works as being unknown.
So, let us look at actual historical means to determine authorship of a work. I will use as my reference Chauncey Sanders’ book, An Introduction to Research in English Literary History. Now, true, he mainly talks about works much more recent, such as works of Shakespeare. But he also discusses some more ancient works. And, by the way, the reason I even read this book is because it is referenced by well-known Christian Josh McDowell in his book, More Than a Carpenter. Given that this book is on the basic subject of researching questions like authorship, and is used as a reference by a noted Christian apologist, I assume there should be no objection to my use of the book.
So, what does Sanders have to say about how determine authorship? First, he discusses the case where you have what is purported to be the original manuscript. If that is the case, you can do things like age date the paper and the ink. And the type of paper and ink can reveal what region of the world it probably came from. You can look at the handwriting and compare it to other known writings of the same author. Obviously we don’t have that for the Gospel of Mark, so that’s a dead end.
So what to do if you don’t have the original manuscript? Sanders asks if the document has a specific statement of authorship? No, the Gospel of Mark is internally anonymous. Another dead end.
What else? If you have other known works by the same author, you can compare writing style, vocabulary, common phrases used by the author, etc. But we don’t know of any other works by the author. Again, a dead end.
Sanders notes that you can often determine at least the approximate time of authorship, based on subject matter. A work mentioning an event can’t have been written before the event, unless you want to argue for prophecy. But this kind of evidence is generally only useful to disprove some possible authors. For example, a work couldn’t have been written by someone who died before the event. So we can discount people who died 100 BC as being the author of the Gospel of Mark. But that is hardly useful in actually specifying an author.
What else? Sanders says you can look at internal evidence. Is it the kind of work we would expect from the alleged author? Well, we don’t really know anything about this John Mark person, other than what we are told in Acts. Of course how reliable this information is, is also debatable. And even if we accept Acts at least in regards to John Mark, it’s hardly specific enough to give us enough information to assign authorship of the Gospel of Mark.
Christians do try to point to some forms of internal evidence. But funny thing is, they never point to internal evidence to suggest otherwise. As I pointed out in my previous response to TheFunkyTheist, the Gospel of Mark simply doesn’t look at all like what a second hand account would look like. No personal perspectives from Peter. It is also written in third-person omniscient format rather than second-person format. One would think that if the Gospel of Mark was really the writings of a man who has had close contact with an eyewitness to literally the most important events to ever happen, the work would look like it. This may not be iron clad. But, none of this is. And the meager bits of internal evidence that could be construed as being in favor of traditional authorship is substantially weaker. (See my response to TheFunkyTheist for this point to be argued in detail.) In short, the internal evidence is far more indicative of being not by John Mark.
Finally, if all else fails, Sanders says we can look to see if someone that knew the author affirms authorship. “Aha!” says the Christian! “This we have! We have the Presbyter John who affirms that the Gospel of Mark was indeed written by John Mark.” Of course the Christian invariably conveniently leaves out mentioning that we have exactly ONE such attestation, by a person who is otherwise anonymous to us. We know nothing about Presbyter John other than Papias tells us that is who told him who wrote the Gospel. And we know this is a biased source whose intent is to convince the reader that indeed Christianity is true.
So, of Sanders points on how to determine authorship, 90% or so the Christians have nothing at all. And of the one point that the do have something to offer, it is about the flimsiest it could possibly be -- a single, anonymous, biased source. This is the absolute only shred of evidence the Christian has to offer.
So, to compare Plato and Plutarch, one thing I do know is, we do have bodies of works from both of them. Such that we can determine to reasonable degree if all the “Plato” works were written by the same person, whether it was actually “Plato” or not. We can determine to a reasonable degree if all the “Plutarch” works are written by the same person, whether it was actually “Plutarch” or not. As I said, I’m no expert on Plato or Plutarch, but this much I know.
If there is any other work that is internally anonymous, internal evidence suggests it is not written by a suggested author, by an author who has written nothing else that we know of, and whose authorship is attributed by only a single source with an agenda, if there is any other work whose evidence for authorship is equally flimsy, I reject the authorship of those works also – on purely historical standards of evidence. I’m sure Chauncey Sanders would agree.
In conclusion, this discussion about traditional authorship was largely a digression from the main point. I believe I have reasonably argued against traditional authorship of Mark. Or, I have at least argued against having a good reason to accept traditional authorship – even if perchance traditional authorship happens to be correct. But even if I’m totally off base and that traditional authorship of the Gospels is well attested to, within historical standards, it is still meaningless for the apologist. Historical standards are simply insufficient to bet the eternal fate of even one single human, let alone the entirety of the human race. As I pointed out, the fact that different standards of evidence are used in different situations is perfectly mundane, and even coded into law.
Historical apologetics is useless.
