(Note: my recent interview with Edouard Tahmizian of Internet Infidels is at the end of this post.)
Christian apologist Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, a New Testament Baptist scholar, pastor and author who ministers internationally as president of Christian Thinkers Society, was recently interviewed by Ruth Jackson on the show, Unapologetic, from Premium Unbelievable about his latest book, Body of Proof: The 7 Best Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus–and Why It Matters Today (Bethany House Publishers, 2023). Dr. Johnston wrote a 93,000-word dissertation while he was studying at Oxford on the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus, concluding that the resurrection was the best explanation for what happened. In his interview, he makes an even stronger claim (13:11): “We can prove the resurrection of Jesus really happened.” That’s a very tall claim, to put it mildly. As Scripture testifies, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
The “meat” of Dr. Johnston’s 30-minute interview starts at (13:55) and ends at (29:12). My overwhelming impression, after listening to the interview, was that Dr. Johnston’s reasons would not impress an unbeliever. I’d now like to explain why, by briefly commenting on each of Dr. Johnston’s seven reasons. The quotes are from Dr. Johnston’s interview.
1. Christianity created a better world
“Number one is: it’s the only way you can explain that everywhere the Christian movement goes, society has improved for the better.”
My comment: You have got to be kidding me. Does “everywhere” include pre-Columbian America, where tens of millions of native Americans died from wars, genocidal violence, enslavement, oppression and above all, diseases (such as smallpox, measles and influenza), after coming into contact with European Christians in 1492? And what about the Atlantic slave trade, which imposed hellish conditions on Africans and their slave descendants in the New World, over a period of several centuries, resulting in tens of millions of deaths? (If Dr. Johnston doesn’t think that Christianity was responsible for these crimes against humanity, then I’d suggest that he read All Oppression Shall Cease (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2022), a highly acclaimed history of slavery and the Catholic Church by Jesuit priest Fr. Christopher Kellerman.) To convincingly counterbalance these appalling numbers, one would have to demonstrate that Christianity saved hundreds of millions of lives, in other ways. So, where are the stats? I don’t see any.
Dr. Johnston also mentions hospitals and health care, and he does have a valid point here, as atheist scholar Professor Bart Ehrman himself acknowledges:
“Hospitals – defined as buildings or building complexes that provided both outpatient and inpatient health care by professionally trained doctors and nurses based on the most advanced medical knowledge of the day — were a Christian invention. The services they provided were free of charge.”
Dr. Ehrman, who is currently working on a book tentatively titled, The Invention of Charity: How Christianity Transformed the Western World, notes that “in the Roman world at large, those with wealth showed almost no concern for those in need, even desperate need.” When they did give to the poor, it was usually out of a desire for self-improvement, rather than concern for the suffering of the poor. However, as Ehrman points out, the Christian concept of charity ultimately derives from Judaism. Christianity served as the vehicle to universalize this notion throughout the Roman empire.
It is not that Christians invented the idea of “charity”: they inherited a concern for the needy from their Jewish forebears. But they, not the Jews, converted the Roman world, and, in the end, universalized and, to some extent, institutionalized the imperatives, incentives, and practices of charity… Prior to the Christian conquest of the Empire, the Western world knew of no such things as hospitals, orphanages, private charities, or governmental assistance to the poor. These are Christian innovations.
So while Christianity has done a ton of good in the world, it has also done a lot of harm. Which is greater, the good or the harm? It’s really hard to say. And while the tireless labor of Christian medical missionaries may have saved a great many lives in Third World countries during the 20th century, one could fairly argue that modern science, rather than religion, deserves much of the credit here.
2. Jesus predicted his own resurrection
“Number two: Jesus called it. If the Church had a hash tag, it would be: on the third day… Jesus called his resurrection. He predicted his violent death and resurrection in Mark 8:31, Mark 9:31, and Mark 10:33-34. He quotes Hosea 6:2-3 – ‘After two days he will revive us. On the third day [he will restore us.]'”
My comment: If Jesus actually predicted his own resurrection, then he created an expectation in the minds of his disciples that he would rise. And if that’s the case, then the popular apologetic argument, that the disciples couldn’t have hallucinated the risen Jesus because they were beaten men whose hopes had been dashed by seeing him crucified, is rendered invalid. On the contrary, the disciples were primed to expect a resurrection. And we know for a fact that three of them (Peter, James and John) were prone to seeing visions: Mark 9:2-13 explicitly tells us that even before Jesus’ death, they’d seen him arrayed in clothes of dazzling white, accompanied by Moses and Elijah, and that they’d heard the voice of God speaking from a cloud, on a mountain. A skeptic might say that these were highly imaginative and impressionable witnesses.
But did Jesus really predict his own resurrection? The vast majority of critical Biblical scholars would say that he did not. Let’s not forget: the Gospels were written decades after Jesus’ alleged resurrection, by people who were already committed Christians. Certainly, Jesus may have expected some last-minute miraculous vindication from God, immediately before his death, which would account for his cry of desolation on the cross when none eventuated. Alternatively, he may have been resigned to his crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, but looked forward to being vindicated at some future point in history, when he would return at God’s right hand to judge the living and the dead. But the prophecies of the resurrection found in Mark’s Gospel are generally regarded by scholars as theologically motivated: if God actually raised Jesus from the dead, then He must have told Jesus in advance, and of course, Jesus must have told his disciples. At any rate, when Dr. Johnston claims that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, he is going against the consensus of New Testament scholars. That doesn’t make him wrong, but it does make his argument questionable.
3. Jesus was able to raise the dead
“Three: Jesus performed. He demonstrated resurrection power… He raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. That’s Mark, chapter 5. Luke 7: the widow of Nain’s son. He stops a funeral procession. The boy would have died that day. He said, ‘He’s not dead; he’s sleeping.’ Jesus raised him up. And of course, John 11: Lazarus, where he brings Lazarus forth from the dead, after being dead four days. So Jesus showed that he did indeed have power over death… Jesus is the first-fruits [of the] resurrection, never to die again. We will have ‘un-dieable’ bodies in the resurrection. They will never need to be upgraded… They will always be in perfect condition. And Jesus’ resurrection body is a model of that. What’s fascinating to me is: I also talk about those who had to die twice – these individuals who were not the first fruit of the resurrection like Jesus. They would have died twice. We actually have two different burial spots for Lazarus: Bethany and on the island of Cyprus, where he was buried a second time, which is really cool.”
My comment: The resurrection miracles described by Dr. Johnston were written down by the Gospel writers at least three decades after they actually happened, at a time when many (and perhaps all) of the original witnesses would have been dead. Would Dr. Johnston believe a claim that a Hindu healer had worked such a miracle three decades earlier, if he were unable to interview the witnesses? I doubt it.
Another point that needs to be considered is that Jesus himself declared that Jairus’ daughter (whom he healed) wasn’t dead, but asleep. What if he was right, and the girl was actually in a deep coma? The same applies to the widow of Nain’s son. Even in today’s world, people can be mistakenly pronounced dead, and there have been tragic cases of people buried alive. So, were the people Jesus raised really dead? Maybe not. To be sure, the story of Lazarus being raised four days after his death cannot be explained away in this fashion, but despite allegedly happening right before Palm Sunday, it is found only in John (which is generally thought to be a late Gospel): Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t mention it at all.
But even if the narratives were all true, and Jesus actually had the power to raise the dead, the point is that they died again, as Dr. Johnston rightly points out. Such narratives fail to establish that Jesus was able to raise himself to life (or be raised back to life) in an immortal, indestructible, “un-dieable” body (to use Dr. Johnston’s term). That’s a much taller claim.
4. There was no motivation for the disciples to invent the story of Jesus’ resurrection.
“We [previously] talked about number four: there was no motivation to invent a resurrection narrative. That’s the original contribution to knowledge in Body of Proof.” Earlier on in the interview (10:12), Dr. Johnston declared, “I’ve talked to a lot of marketing people, and if you were trying to market a new religion, … you talk about a tone-deaf way to start a new religion. Female witnesses, your Messiah is killed by Roman crucifixion, your Messiah is resurrected from the dead. Nobody believed in resurrection outside Judaism in the Roman Empire. You could not have started with worse talking points than what the new Christian movement started with, if you wanted to draw a following. The only reason it did, in spite of the marketing bias, … is that’s what actually happened… It was what they experienced, and it was true… There is no psychological motivation to invent an early resurrection narrative about Jesus, if it didn’t happen… Judaism is a coherent religion. They believe that there will be a resurrection at the end of days, a general resurrection… There was no reason to claim that Jesus rose from the dead. You could have honored him as a great prophet, a great thinker, a moral teacher. You had no reason, there was no psychological motivation to go out and about and say, ‘Hey, he really rose from the dead.'”
My comment: What the above argument demonstrates is that the resurrection narrative wasn’t invented out of whole cloth, as there would have been no religious motive for such a fabrication. What the argument fails to establish is that the resurrection narrative is actually historical. Other explanations for the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection are possible: perhaps the unexpected discovery of the empty tomb (after the body had been stolen by grave robbers), coupled with Jesus’ repeated predictions (assuming he made them) that he would be raised back to life, was enough to trigger spontaneous, post-mortem visual and tactile apparitions of Jesus among Peter, James and John, and later the other disciples, causing them to believe that he had indeed risen. (In this connection, see Dale Allison’s discussion of the best skeptical scenario here, at 55:42.) I’m not claiming that this scenario is a likely one; I’ll leave that for others to judge. My point is that belief in Jesus’ resurrection didn’t need a motivation. All it needed was a sufficiently powerful cause.
5. Archaeology supports the reliability of the Gospel accounts
“Number five: … it’s the truth that written and archaeological sources overwhelmingly support the Gospel resurrection narratives, which are embedded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When we study the material culture, we see that archaeology is Christianity’s closest cousin. We see that unlike any other faith [or] belief system in the world, Christianity puts itself to the historical test, and says, ‘Hey! Test us!’ … I go into depth [in my book] about Jewish burial traditions… No Jew would lose track of their loved one… Scholars have sold lots of books by saying that Jesus’ body was likely eaten by stray dogs, that his body was never buried [in a tomb]; it was buried in a mass criminal pit… When we acquaint ourselves with Jewish burial tradition, we understand that you would not lose sight of your brother, even if he was an executed criminal. Even if he died as a crucified criminal, you would not lose track of his bones. We have this from Jehohanan, who was discovered during the reign (sic) of Pontius Pilate. Crucified, had to be buried before nightfall, in accordance with Jewish burial traditions. He was buried with a crucifixion spike stuck through his heel. When you look at the archaeology, I quote Jodi Magness from the University of North Carolina. She’s an atheist archaeologist, but she says, ‘When you look at the Jewish juridical procedure, as presented in the Gospels, … the Gospels get it right.’ And that’s from an archaeologist… We have to appeal to Roman emperors for the same level of textual attestation as Jesus of Nazareth.”
My comment: Dr. Magness’s conclusion is a fairly modest one: “Although archaeology does not prove there was a follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea or that Pontius Pilate granted his request for Jesus’ body, the Gospel accounts describing Jesus’ removal from the cross and burial are consistent with archaeological evidence and with Jewish law.” Moreover, Dr. Magness’s proposal differs from the Gospels in a key respect. In her article, What did Jesus’ Tomb Look Like? (Biblical Archaeology Review, 32:1, January/February 2006; reprinted in The Burial of Jesus, Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington DC, 2007), Dr. Magness puts forward her own novel interpretation of statements found in the Gospels, that Jesus was laid in a new tomb where no-one had ever been laid (Matthew 27:60, Luke 23:53, John 19:41). She thinks they simply mean that Jesus’ body was laid in a new burial niche in the wall (or loculus) inside Joseph of Arimathea’s family rock tomb:
Joseph’s tomb must have belonged to his family because by definition rock-cut tombs in Jerusalem were family tombs… The Gospel accounts apparently describe Joseph placing Jesus’ body in one of the loculi in his family’s tomb. The “new” tomb mentioned by Matthew probably refers to a previously unused loculus. (2007, p. 8)
However, the Gospels speak of Jesus being laid in “a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid” (Luke 23:53). That’s completely different from a new niche in the wall of an existing tomb, where many bodies have already been laid. Thus even Dr. Magness doesn’t think the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial are completely accurate.
I might add that I don’t know of any critical Biblical scholar who believes that Jesus was buried with 100 Roman pounds of myrrh and aloes (or 75 of our pounds), as John 19:39 informs us – an amount literally fit for a king!
But here’s the thing: even if the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial were accurate in all details, how on earth would that establish the truth of Jesus’ resurrection? Burial is a completely natural event; resurrection, a supernatural one. To infer the latter from the former is to make an invalid inference.
Finally, although the textual evidence for Jesus’ existence compares favorably with the textual evidence for the Roman emperors, Dr. Johnston overlooks the fact that we have coins commemorating the Roman emperors. We don’t have any such coins for Jesus.
6. The conversion of two prominent skeptics: Paul and Jesus’ brother James
“Number six is really key, because Jesus appeared to those who believed in him, Jesus appeared to those who doubted him, Jesus appeared to those who opposed him… I talked in detail in [my] chapter about the apostle Paul, and how radical his conversion was, but also, I want to talk about the Lord’s brother, James. When Paul is converted in A.D. 31 or 32, … Paul goes into Arabia, and then after Arabia, he goes to Jerusalem… Paul goes and he spends fifteen days, according to Galatians 1 and 2, with Peter and with James, in the city… And they talk all about the Gospel. Paul wants to make sure he [has] … the Gospel right. And so, here’s the fascinating thing: James did not believe that his brother was the Jewish Messiah until the Resurrection… What would it take for you to die, believing and proclaiming your brother was the Son of God? We know that … Jesus appears to James. That’s 1 Corinthians 15:7… Hyper-critical scholars acknowledge Paul wrote 1 Corinthians [15] verse 7: ‘And he appeared to James.’ What’s fascinating, James then becomes a pillar of the Church. He then dies in A.D. 62. According to Josephus, he is stoned to death, proclaiming that his brother is the resurrected Son of God, the Messiah. So, wow! So when you look at the ‘hostiles’ that came to Christ – those that doubted him, those that opposed him – it’s compelling evidence.”
My comment: Two quick points. Regarding Paul, we don’t know exactly what he saw when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, but judging from the descriptions in Acts 9:1-9, Acts 22:1-11 and Acts 26:9-18, he seems not to have seen a flesh-and-blood Jesus but a blindingly luminous being of light, as well as hearing a voice from the sky. In other words, whatever he encountered, it was not Jesus’ resurrected body, but an apparition. Therefore it cannot count as evidence for Jesus’ bodily resurrection.
Regarding James, Paul’s mention of him in 1 Corinthians 15:7 is indeed authentic, as scholars of all stripes acknowledge. However, as Christian apologist Ryan Turner acknowledges in his online article, An Analysis of the Pre-Pauline Creed in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (October 1, 2009), verse 7 (which refers to Jesus appearing to James) is most likely not part of the original creed: it was appended by Paul. In any case, as Professor Dale C. Allison points out in his widely acclaimed book, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (T & T Clark, 2021), we do not know if James’ conversion came before or after Jesus’ resurrection appearances. Perhaps he was already a believer by the time he encountered Jesus. Or perhaps he was only half-hearted in his opposition to Jesus, or possibly, he vacillated back and forth between supporting and opposing Jesus. Professor Allison concludes that “‘conversion’ might be too strong a word for what happened to him” (2021, p. 79). What’s more, details of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to James are scant: we don’t know where or when it happened, what Jesus looked like when he appeared to James, what (if anything) Jesus said to James, or how James felt when he saw Jesus. Finally, Josephus’ narrative of the death of James in A.D. 62 (Antiquities 20, chapter 9) does not say that he was martyred for his faith in Jesus’ resurrection, but rather, for being a breaker of the law.
7. Jesus’ resurrection is the only reason why we are able to make sense of suffering
“Number seven … Jesus’ resurrection is the only reason we can make sense of the suffering in our lives. When we look at Romans 8:18, the apostle Paul said, ‘I don’t count these sufferings worthy to be compared with the glory that I will receive some day, in heaven.’ Paul said …, ‘Better for me to die in Christ than to live.’ He was looking constantly to the hope of the resurrection as the answer to all the suffering… The resurrection is what ultimately makes sense of all the suffering.”
My comment: Here’s a question for Dr. Johnston. Suppose you were living in Judea before the time of Christ, but after the time when the Jewish Scriptures had been compiled. Do you really mean to tell me that you’d be utterly unable to make any sense of the suffering in the world, despite growing up in a society based on ethical monotheism? Or again: suppose you lived in fourth-century B.C. Athens, and you were listening to philosophers debate the existence of a supreme, benevolent God. Do you really mean to say that you think the atheists would have the better of the argument, prior to Jesus’ resurrection? I think not. In that case, all you can possibly mean is that you believe Christianity makes better sense of the suffering we see in the world than other religions (including Judaism and philosophical monotheism). But even if this is true, it, at best, a supplementary reason for believing in Jesus’ resurrection, and it’s a theological reason, not a historical one.
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And finally, ere’s a recent 42-minute interview I did with Edouard Tahmizian, Vice-President of Internet Infidels, about my recent article on The Skeptical Zone, Dr. Gavin Ortlund’s defense of C.S. Lewis’s “Liar, Lunatic or Lord” trichotomy, and Why I think it won’t work on skeptics. Most of my readers will already be familiar with this post. At about 24:00, when I conclude my presentation, the discussion gets more interesting, and you’ll see me looking up at the camera again, instead of looking down at my notes. Ed also raises some points relating to his Internet Infidels paper, The Origin of Evil (which he’s recently revised), and we talk about Jesus mythicists (whom Ed knows very well). Finally, around 30:30, I talk about life in Japan. Enjoy!
How would you argue that the documented evidence (letters and gospels) are not “historical”?
They contain written evidence of a past event.
Bart Erhman arguing for an arbitrary definition of history is essentially a labeling fallacy. He is trying to paint a narrative that the gospels don’t fall into a category that the public trusts.
So does nearly every novel ever written. Some of the referenced past events in novels happened, some did not happen. If all you have is the novel, you have no reliable way to tell the difference.
Flint,
Like Harry Potter 🙂
Yep. Also like War and Peace.
vjtorley,
I wonder how Johnston addresses the issue of the missing material. It’s known that members of the several Jewish sects active during the first century (as well as before and after) wrote all manner of material, both religious and secular, in large quantities. It’s also known that the early church would have done everything in their power to preserve any writings that could corroborate their doctrine. And yet NONE of this material was preserved. Indeed, secondary materials that made significant reference to the primary materials were ALSO not preserved, and we only know about them because a few references to such material escaped being redacted completely.
Several histories written by Greek and Roman as well as Jewish historians suffer similar lacunae. Volumes written by several such writers were preserved except those covering the period where, if gospel tales were true, the evidence would have been highly notable. This includes the presumed birth, ministry and death of Jesus. And those periods, and ONLY those periods, somehow failed to be preserved, but the remainder of the histories survived. Why?
Then there’s the matter of Paul’s letters. Several of those letters are known forgeries, and those believed to be genuine make no mention of any earthly Jesus. Indeed, in two places Paul insists that everything he knows about Jesus came from direct revelation or existing scripture, and his accounts rely on the words of no man. Paul’s Jesus was a strictly celestial figure. There is some internal indication that Paul wrote several letters, perhaps quite a few, which are referred to here and there but which were not preserved. Could it be possible that Paul was too explicit in the non-preserved letters that his Jesus never actually came to earth at all? The general pattern of non-preservation strongly implies that such contrary-to-gospel letters would have been lost. Paul’s resurrection-related writings do not comport with the gospels even as it is.
I think there’s a lot to think about when considering both what was preserved, and what was not. If the gospels were historically nonfiction, they would be attested by substantial quantities of related material written by a great many people both witnesses and hearsay. Where is this material? Why wasn’t it preserved? Why are so many of Paul’s letters missing? Why are there conspicuous holes in histories written by Romans and Greeks? What sayeth
Dr. Johnston? Or yourself, for that matter.
Hi colewd,
In answer to your query, I’m not arguing that the letters of Paul and the Gospels are not “historical.” In many ways, they are, and I think Bart Ehrman would readily agree. Are the resurrection accounts historical? That’s a different question. They are wildly divergent (much more so than the Passion narratives, for instance) and give totally different answers to even the most basic questions (e.g. Why did the women go to the tomb? Where did the risen Jesus appear? Who saw Jesus first? What did Jesus say to his disciples?), as well as showing signs of theological polemics (i.e. attempts to refute alternative explanations for the resurrection of Jesus), which makes them partisan accounts. They may well preserve historical memories of the disciples’ apparitions of the risen Jesus, but it’s hard to say which parts are genuinely historical.
Hi Flint,
I wasn’t aware of the lacunae in the accounts by Greek and Roman as well as Jewish historians. Could you supply me with a reference? I’d like to follow that up. It’s certainly quite possible that the early Church Fathers actively suppressed negative remarks about Jesus made by pagan and Jewish authors whom they perceived as hostile to Christianity.
As for Paul, it’s known that he refers to other letters of his, within his own writings. We know that he wrote at least four letters to the Corinthians, for instance. However, I don’t see any reason to believe that he regarded Jesus as a purely celestial figure. For instance, Romans 1:3-4 speaks of him as being “descended from David according to the flesh and … declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead,” while in 1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul insists that “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” But is it possible that the early Church discarded certain letters of Paul which it did not like? Certainly, but who knows? Cheers.
Hi VJT
They are documented accounts of an event in the past. This is a definition of historical.
If Bart has a different definition then he should state it clearly other wise his argument appears to be based on a poorly defined label.
The real issue is not if the documented evidence fits into a subjective category like “historical”. The issue is if the evidence is convincing that the documented event occurred.
Yes, this is the real issue. But the key word there is “convincing” when the events are central to a deeply held religious conviction. And let’s be honest, documentation of nearly all events of 2000 years ago is both generally scant and deservedly suspect. When the only evidence of certain events that has survived was written in testimony of a religious belief, and was preserved by people dedicated to continuing a religious tradition, how much confidence should we place on the accuracy of their essentially religious records?
The most comprehensive account I have found of writings that should have, but somehow didn’t, mention Jesus is in Chapter 8, Section 3 of On the Historicity of Christ by Richard Carrier. That discussion is quite extensive.
But the point I was trying to make was a bit different – these historians were not in any way perceived as hostile to Christianity (which didn’t actually exist as a label at that time). They were simply recording events on the ground, in some considerable detail. Now, silence has a thousand explanations, but it seems odd that greek and roman histories of the region that surely would have mentioned events in the gospel have missing volumes during those years, but other volumes were preserved. One would expect that IF these histories discussed such events, they’d have been top priority to preserve, and not simply omitted.
To respond to this, I would need to start typing whole long volumes concerning the cosmology of Paul’s day. You know, the multiple heavens, and the “firmament” not being here on earth, but rather being the lowest “real” celestial level (the cosmology of the day regarded earth as a very imperfect copy of what went on in the firmament). The Firmament, where Paul’s Jesus took on fleshly form to trick the adversary, was described as above the highest clouds but no higher than the moon. Paul’s version of the resurrection took place in the firmament, not on earth. And we note that Paul’s Jesus (who became Christ after resurrection, a prerequisite) had no mentioned family, or ministry, or birthday, told no parables, etc. Instead, Paul’s Christ was a spirit who had descended from a higher level of heaven to take on a fleshly body in the firmament to fool the devil. It worked, and the fleshly costume was killed, but the spirit, being immortal, rose back to the upper levels of heaven. I consider it an oddity that Paul’s Christ knew from the start that he could not be killed, and the resurrection was no miracle, it was unavoidable.
It’s also important that Paul emphasized that everything he knew about Jesus he learned directly from revelation or from scripture, and not from any man. Paul insists he relied on no eyewitnesses.
Also important is the fairly large number of people claiming to be the messiah, because existing scriptures were commonly interpreted as predicting the messiah would come around that time. The most common reading was that the messiah would be a military leader. This became more urgent after Rome annexed Judea in 6 CE. Of course, small bands of Jews were no match for Roman legions, and most Jewish sect leaders were killed in the Jewish War of 66 CE. But even the Romans could not kill a celestial messiah.
And here, we have the same problem as with the historians – we can speculate that Paul made Christ’s purely celestial existence too explicit in his missing letters, and therefore too incompatible with the Jesus crafted by Mark.
Flint,
Hi Flint
Do you understand most of the followers were Jewish? Why do you think they originally followed Jesus? Why did both Paul and James convert after first denying Jesus? How did this special sect of Judaism become the standard religion in the Roman Empire within 300 years of Christs crucifixion while its followers suffered persecution?
You have not been able to explain the universe without an intelligent Creator yet you are ignoring a book that gives you insight to the nature of this Creator.
These are good questions, but their answers are not to be found in any surviving materials. This is disturbing and odd: although all these Jewish sects continued to write prolifically during the first century, NONE of that writing has survived. If any of it had been preserved, we would have some insight into why a few Jewish sects became politically dominant (and their doctrines became the bible), while others lost out. But alas, any history or discussion of what was going on in Judea among the Jewish tribes is forever lost. Roman and Greek historians cover some events during this period, but the evolution of certain sects into what became Christianity is unknown.
I’ve read some fairly persuasive theses that Christianity flourished because it provided hope for the vast multitudes of the poor. For them, it was clear that their earthly lives were going to stay miserable, so the solid promise of a fabulous afterlife was attractive. Carefully managed, a religion like Christianity could be used to keep the peasantry controlled and pacified, rather than an organized threat. So everyone from the slaves to the nobility found it useful.
(And it should be pretty plain to you that I find the evidence for the existence of Jesus to be unconvincing, since all we have is a book claiming that the book making the claim is all true. Some of what Paul wrote is preserved, but the book you worship is largely fiction that provides plenty of insight into the religious preferences of the political forces that wrote it, but no insight into the historicity of its contents. Paul and James did what the bible’s authors had them do, just like any author controls the life of their creations. Historically, the bible is straight propaganda – that is, communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda. The gospels are aimed at different audiences (Jews and Gentiles) but they are in the business of SELLING. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the sales pitch is not necessary strictly accurate either.)
There are many supporting documents that can answer these questions. The writings of Historians like Josephus, the book of Acts and early Christian fathers like Justin Martyr. Your argument is still supported by assertions some of which are false.
I understand your opinion is the new treatment is mostly myth but this is your opinion based on other skeptics opinions that lack understanding of the evidence. The prophetic nature of the Bible and the large chain of archeological findings supporting Christianity are very strong.
You don’t appear to have any concept of Judaeo Christian theology and how this supports the truth of the messages found in the Bible. Respectfully you are not alone here as this takes intention and time to understand.
The gospels and the writings are to a great extent historic clarification of the Hebrew Scriptures. If you are a very well studied Orthodox Jew you will understand Christian theology.
I think we are talking past one another. I don’t think the bible is entirely fiction, not even the new testament. But while (some of) the letters of Paul are genuine, they are not history. The book of Acts, probably written by the author(s) of Luke, may well be a forgery and is certainly not authentic history. And while much of Paul’s material is derived from his extensive knowledge of Hebrew scriptures, those scriptures are not history either. I accept most of Josephus as being history, but certain passages are considered interpolations. See for example here:
Anomaly in Josephus
Based on what Josephus actually wrote, he had no knowledge of Christianity.
Where we aren’t communicating, I think, is in matters of theology. I find the character of Jesus in the gospel to be both thoughtful and wise, and the lessons presented in the gospels are valuable beyond theology. I don’t believe Jesus was an actual historical person (even Paul’s Jesus is a spirit who never comes to earth), but that certainly doesn’t mean I find nothing of value in the NT.
(As a footnote, I find it interesting that using parables to teach was NOT a Hebrew tradition, nor did Paul ever mention such a thing. As an educational tool, parables are often helpful. But that doesn’t make them historical. They seem to be an invention of Mark.)
I don’t care about the authenticity of Scripture — that was never an issue in my religious education, to begin with — but I would like to make a general observation about the basis of our knowledge of antiquity.
It’s this: papyrus decays very easily in a humid climate.
What this means: as long as everything is written on papyrus or similar material, it will be gone within a generation.
The only way to preserve written knowledge, before the printing press, is to copy it out by hand.
And this involved scribes; people whose job it was to hand-copy a document, text, book, essay, treatise, etc.
And they did it for pay. It wasn’t a charity and it wasn’t done out of spiritual commitment (as it was for medieval monks).
This means that if you couldn’t afford to pay the scribes to keep the written knowledge intact, it would be gone — forever — within a generation or so.
From the fact that we’re missing documents from antiquity, it’s possible that those documents never existed. But it’s also possible that the documents just weren’t copied, because of a lack of scribes, or lack of funds, or because the document wasn’t considered important enough to preserve, or any number of other factors — and that was enough to lose those documents forever.
Among the documents that we know are permanently lost to decay and destruction:
– Socratic dialogues written by people other than Plato and Xenophon, along with Xenophon’s other Socratic dialogues. (We only have one of his, The Banquet).
– everything that Aristotle wrote for publication (everything of his are his private lecture notes and notes by his students)
– philosophical treatises by Democritus, including his work on ethics. (We have fragments only).
– the second half of Parmenides’s poetic-metaphysical treatise, “The Way of Opinion” (we have the first few pages of it, but not the rest, so we don’t know how it ended).
– of the major Greek tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides) we have most of Euripides but lots of Aeschylus and Sophocles are missing. We’re also missing the comedies that they wrote as conclusions to their tragedies. And we’re missing hundreds of other Greek tragedians.
Fortunately, much of civilization evolved in dry climates. And many documents collected by people living in dry climates.
Modern paper, properly stored, will outlive our digital media. Like papyrus, digital storage devices have lifetimes measured in years or decades. The only way to archive stuff is to keep copying it, and not everything will be preserved.
Civilization is not static. It descends with modification.
When the CD-ROM was invented, it was noted that this was the first digital storage medium expected to outlast the ability to read it. Properly stored, vellum or other non-acid based paper can last centuries, but nothing outlasts stuff carved into rocks in dry climates.
But preservation (endless recopying) of religious material wasn’t nearly so dependent on paying scribes, which means the selection of what to keep recopying was driven by an agenda different from economics.
So you believe that Paul is a real historical figure?
The letters of Paul were real but Acts which is written by a companion of Paul’s is false.
What is your opinion of 1 and 2 Peter?
This is supporting a conspiracy theory certainly the biggest of all time. Fringe beliefs can be correct. How do you support this idea? Who is behind this conspiracy? We celebrate two major holidays over a mythical figure?
If Jesus is mythical and God is mythical then theology does not exist as a real academic subject. Theology is the study of the nature of God.
There are people from other religions today who convert to Christianity despite never having seen Jesus or any of the events purported to surround his life. And they defend the claim that it occurred simply because they read it in the Bible, or because they have positive experiences in their life that they rationalize as being somehow orchestrated by Jesus.
That proves we do not need a special or miraculous explanation for how people can become convinced of Christianity despite not having personally witnessed the purported miracles of Jesus.
Heck, Christianity is just another branch that grew out of Judaism, like Islam and Mormonism basically grew out of Christianity. Despite emerging in a culture saturated in Christian and Jewish traditions, Islam and Mormonism grew and are still growing. Miracles not required. It’s a social phenomenon.
Yes.
Close. SOME of the purported letters of Paul are considered forgeries, but others are likely genuine. My reading is that the author of Luke also wrote Acts. I think both are largely or entirely fiction.
I think 1 Peter is genuine, but 2 Peter almost surely is not.
Not sure what you are driving at here. Major holidays vary with cultures, and have various provenance. And as I’m sure you’re aware, a great deal of, uh, contamination (is that the right word?) has entered into these celebrations. Where did Santa Claus come in? Christmas trees? How about the Easter bunny? Easter egg hunts?
Yes, quite. You are aware that theology as a term encompasses a great expanse of traditions, across many cultures. The Christian god (who comes in a great many flavors) is the object of only Christian theology. Theologists in India study the nature of their gods – they have six major gods and countless minor gods. Makes for a much richer, more substantive theology.
Gods are like the elephant in the bedroom – unavoidably obvious to those who believe in them, but in principle indetectable to those who don’t.
And there are tens of thousands of different Christian sects, diverging from an overall class into various Protestant and evangelical and fundamentalist orders, with families below that, a full taxonomy. Speciation in religion is much like speciation in nature, where branches split off never to re-merge back. And this happens because there is no other mechanism for resolving theological disputes, other than to start your own church. And THAT happens because unlike science, there is no underlying reality any sect can appeal to. It is ALL made up.
That’s certainly true by the time we get to established scriptoria as part of the medieval monastic system. I don’t know how old that system is.
In any event, I was thinking of the preservation of documents from last few centuries BC and first few centuries AD. Didn’t the preservation of documents still depend on paid scribes during that time period?
I don’t know. I know there was copying, but I don’t know if paid scribes did it. I know that the various mystery cults during that period preserved their scriptures, and that it seems to have been common practice for new documents to quote, sometimes heavily, from documents that haven’t been preserved. I would guess there were scribes working within these cults, perhaps supported by the cults. As far as I can tell, nothing survives that explains who did the copying, or how it was done, or who decided what to copy. From what I have read, the evidence suggests that each tribe preserved their own scriptures and secrets, there was little or no exchange of such material between tribes, so what we can find today is almost always fragmentary or secondary.
Flint,
On what basis do you think these writings were fiction? Who was behind this conspiracy that resulted in Christianity and Messianic Judaism and to some extent Islam?
Your Santa analogy is not convincing as these are not the reason for the holiday and known fictional characters.
Why do you believe 2 Peter is not genuine?
From 1 Peter
You acknowledge that Peter believed in Christ’s resurrection?
For me it is much more interesting if it can be shown to be likely based on a real explanation of our origin..
Do you think you understand Judaeo Christian theology? Can you briefly describe the basics behind it?
“The Bible is not meant to be read selectively or metaphorically,” says Area Man who reads the Hebrew Bible as figurative anticipation of Christ.
Just out of curiosity, do you think you could briefly describe why the very term “Judeo-Christian” is offensive to Jews?
Who is behind the conspiracy that has resulted in tens of thousands of Christian sects worldwide? I don’t see any conspiracy, I see doctrinal disagreements leading to schisms.
I was trying to make the point that the Christian church kind of horned in on existing celebrations and holidays (the winter solstice, the spring equinox) which were celebrated differently in various places. So a lot of these festivals had pagan origins, and are still encrusted with pagan practices.
Yes, but bear in mind that Peter is talking about the same resurrection as Paul — that is, a resurrection that happened in the firmament and not on earth. The earthly resurrection was an invention of Mark.
I’m with you there. I think the near-total silence for the first century gives us few clues about the origin of what became Christianity, which Jewish cults of the time were involved and in what ways.
I’m not sure what you want here. Jewish theology regards Jesus as one of a line of many prophets, not as the promised messiah.
Flint,
Hi Flint
The theology is the study of the nature of God. Jesus taught and clarified the Jewish writings of the Tanakh (Torah, prophets and writings). If an Orthodox Jew studies the Jewish scripture in detail he will understand Jesus teaching.
BTW as an aside I do not think Christians should be involved in politics. This is very different then how Christ told us to live. Christianity is about working to change hearts, which in in Hebrew hearts means our very essence. If this becomes universal politics as we know it does not matter.
Talk about begging the question! One would think that it would first be necessary to establish that something exists in the first place, before studying its nature. The fact that there are, and have been, many many gods suggests that, just maybe, gods have no objective reality, and the theologians are fools doing detailed analysis of unicorn biology.
I think I can agree with this, provided we substitute the gospels for “Jesus”. I’m quite confident the authors of the gospels, being Jews themselves, were quite knowledgeable about Jewish scripture. Putting their understanding into the mouth of a fictional character is an effective communication device, and very commonly used even today.
Flint,
A universe with observers made of trillions of cells is evidence of a creator. The Bible and its prophetic nature is evidence of who that creator is.
The knowledge is beyond any Rabbi of any time in human history. The fictional character is a fringe conspiracy theory. If you are trying to sell against Christianity I give you credit for realizing it is necessary as now you can explain the prophetic nature of the Bible regarding Messiah. The problem you have is Jewish scriptures themselves are also prophetic.
If you look at the case for Christianity as I have over the last couple of years it has a greater chance of being reality then your or my existence. We could just be simply bots chatting.:-)
I always thought it was a curious juxtaposition….
You remind me of the soldier who saw everything twice in Catch-22. No matter how many fingers someone held up, he always saw two! And by golly, no matter where you look, you find the god you knew was there in the first place. For you, everything you see is “evidence” of your god, even if you close your eyes. And if there’s something you do NOT see, why, that’s also “evidence” of your god. You are rolling intellectual dice which have your god on every face, and this reinforces your faith with every roll.
Among Christians, yes it is. Just like a free and fair election is regarded as a fringe conspiracy by the trumpies. But among atheist historians, Jesus is regarded as highly likely to be fictional, for many reasons Christians don’t care to consider. You know, things like no external documentation, and the gospels following the rules fiction rather than of history for their day, and being anonymous, and not citing any sources, and things like that.
I have no problem with Jewish scriptures being prophetic, AFTER we take out all the “prophecies” made after the fact. But making prophecies is easy – Jeanne Dixon made a good living doing it. Of course, most of her predictions were also wrong, but if you ignore all of those, and consider her hazy predictions after the fact that can be interpreted as “true” if you squint hard enough, why, she could see the future!
(And more seriously, what evidence we have tells us that many Jewish sects interpreted their scripture as predicting a messiah around the time the Gospels place Jesus. Most of those sects interpreted scripture as predicting a military leader, so quite a few Jewish leaders tried to BE that leader. The Romans were not amused. Paul, to give him credit, realized that the messiah couldn’t fight the Romans, and he placed his messiah in the firmament, not on earth. The gospels go one step further, and place their messiah in the past and far away.)
Alas, I was not raised in any religious tradition, which means I was old enough to think before I started reading about different religions around the world, all of which strike me as anywhere from silly to arbitrary to insightful. I speculate that ONLY someone raised within any specific religious tradition from an early age is really capable of internalizing that religion, and actually believing it.
What you are doing is not “looking at the case”, you are instead rationalizing a faith you couldn’t discard if Shiva Himself came to you personally. You would find some way to explain Him away, and you’d believe your “explanation” wholeheartedly. This is the basic problem with people infected with religion – it inoculates them against seeing reality with 100% effectiveness.
Bill’s apologetics has not improved (or changed at all) since we covered this ground in the early days of the pandemic.
Plus ça change, …
Once you cross over the atheist indoctrination chasm you do start to see that the universe itself is evidence of a creator down to the basic particles that it is built on.
It’s a conspiracy theory as you need extreme denial of evidence, as atheists are famous for, to deny the existence of Jesus as an historical figure. You are arguing for an opinion held by atheist historians :-).
I was raised about the same way you were. I initially came to the conviction of a created universe through looking at both sides of the debate and realizing the evolutionary theory and origin of life were “just so” stories that ignored reality. Do you really believe there is a complete natural explanation to the diversity of life on earth?
You’re projecting here. You are the one who made the claim of a brute fact to defend your position. Religion is not the issue at hand. Is there intelligence behind the universe or not. You have been unable to defend your position. Maybe its time to rethink it.
I came to this post somewhat late and commend vjtorley’s analysis. I wanted to add a few thoughts on this endlessly fascinating debate.
One thing that apologists tend to ignore in offering their “proofs” for the resurrection is the quality of the evidence presented over and above the source. A cursory look, for example, at the major source of evidence for the resurrection, Paul’s 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, shows significant problems:
There is a threefold problem with this “proof.” First, Paul relates no details of how, when or by whom he acquired the information from the subject witnesses (Cephas, the Twelve, etc.) Second, he doesn’t relate how the witnesses themselves acquired this information. In legal parlance, there is no foundation for these claims.
Third, with the exception of Paul’s direct claim to have seen Christ postmortem, the evidence is all hearsay, and, in most instances, double hearsay. For example, did James communicate directly to Paul that he saw Christ postmortem (hearsay) or did Paul hear from another source that James claims to have seen Christ (double hearsay)? James appears in no other passages related to claims of the resurrection. In Acts, James and Paul apparently first met three years after the resurrection, but no mention during these meetings about Christ’s alleged postmortem appearance to James.
The same applies to any of these reports.
This ignores problems with the gospel accounts of the resurrection, except for one glaring problem. The most egregious problem, at least to me, is the later addendum to Mark after 16:8 which had previously been silent as to the resurrection. Most NT scholars acknowledge that the addition to Mark is not part of the original.
Finally, I have been endlessly perplexed that not a single one of 500 claimed witnesses is identified by name. Not a single “testimony” has been generated from this group. Just that “Jesus appeared” to them. Common sense would suggest that Paul would have exploited this treasure trove of evidence given his zealotry. I just think it is a glaring problem for those that claim that the resurrection actually happened….
In two different places in the NT, Paul insists that he learned everything he knows about Jesus from revelation (that is, straight to the brain) and existing scripture, and that he relies on no man or direct human testimony for any of it. I don’t think any of Paul’s authentic letters (there are multiple forgeries attributed to Paul) mention any apostles, any ministry, or any witnesses except Cephus (Peter), who ALSO learned everything by direct revelation.
Yes, absolutely. And if your mind is open to real evidence, you could learn this and understand it yourself. You would see that life’s diversity is an inevitable result of a simple process. Indeed, denial of evolution is peculiar to one particular brand of Christianity. Most Christians, and all other worldwide faiths, accept the fact of evolution as stone obvious. I have no idea why you elected to join the anti-evolution cult rather than learn basic biology, but in practice your cult has become irrelevant. You are so obviously wrong that for you, in the words of Richard Dawkins, “no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference.” But if you’re comfortable with that, enjoy!
Flint,
I did believe in evolutionary theory (universal common descent) 8 years ago and it was evidence that changed my mind. The initial evidence that changed my mind was that DNA and Proteins are functional sequences. Functional sequences resist change as change moves them to non function.
The next piece of of evidence was reading about how genetic changes occur in populations and that populations are resistant of change.
There are other pieces of evidence if you are interested in discussing this openly.
Evolutionary theory is fine to explain changes to existing populations what it does not explain is the origin of those populations. So I accept evolutionary theory also as it pertains the changes within existing populations.
With all due respect Flint I think your materialistic mind set has prevented you from looking at the evidence objectively. You force yourself to think of only material explanations as you label non material explanations as magic.
I don’t know what you mean by a non-material explanation. Could you explain, maybe illustrate with an example.
This is a bit incoherent. Some DNA sequences have functions in living organisms, notably as genes, some protein sequences result in molecules that have functions in living organisms, notably as enzymes. Natural selection (drift, not so much) is a process of discovery that results in the incorporation of improved and new functions. Change may produce poorer or lost function but that is eliminated by selection.
It hardly matters that Bill rejects evolution but maybe he could do a better job of attacking the real concept rather than his own misunderstanding.
Flint,
Good point about Peter and Paul’s “sources.” If I recall correctly, only 7 of Paul’s 14 letters are agreed to be authentic.
Apropos your observation regarding “special revelation,” I think Paul exhibited strong symptomology of bi-polar disorder (along with Augustine and Luther). Their exaggerated mood swings, from despondency to ecstasy, fit the pattern. Agustine’s completely disproportional reactions to petty, venial “sins” (like stealing pears) is telling, as is Luther’s compulsive need to spend countless hours in the confessional confessing the most trivial of transgressions.
I think Paul may have been on the far spectrum of bi-polar mania that bordered, at times, on psychosis. His experience and immediate conversion while on the road to Damascus, evidences potential symptomology.
What has astounded as long as I can remember is the flippancy and utter lack of challenge to the resurrection over the centuries. People talk about Jesus rising from the dead like it’s a trip to the store or the gas station. I don’t think the vast majority of Christians have really faced up to what an incredibly outlandish story they are endorsing….
Alan Fox,
Sure and this prevents variation of existing genes. In the case of duplicated genes these according to theory can vary neutrally.
The sequence problem has never been competently addressed and that is a reason I reject Universal Common Descent.
From Chat GBT 3.5
I think it has. In fact I don’t think it’s really a problem. Why do you think it is?
(Aware this is off topic from the very interesting op! Perhaps a topic for an other?)
You are entirely correct that changes are difficult. The closer to optimally an organism fits its environment, the less likely any change is to be beneficial. My understanding is that nearly every change is either neutral or harmful. Selection preserves the good ones, but these are few. And similarly, when parts of an existing population begin to explore new lifestyles, mutations are far more likely to be beneficial, and far more likely to be preserved,.
You need to be clear about what you mean by an “existing population.” Consider ring species, for example. Which of the many species in the ring is the “existing population” and which are not? Evolution theory says that existing species have branching events, defined as the division of some existing population into two or more groups which (eventually) do not share genetic changes. In fact, there are numerous populations worldwide which appear to be in the process of diverging into two groups, because the rate of interbreeding between them is small and diminishing. Soon enough, in evolutionary time scales, these will become two different “existing populations.”
My understanding of how evolution works is broadly the same as virtually every working evolutionary biologist alive today. They of course know extensive details I do not, about every aspect of this. But if everyone’s “materialistic mind” agrees except the minds of the members of your cult, perhaps you might like to do a bit of rethinking yourself. Most real biologists don’t even bother addressing your god-based blinkers – why bother? As I said, your delusons are irrelevant today, not worth addressing. Aspects of evolution that you can’t accept have been well understood for over a century. The field has moved on, leaving you with your prayer beads. Dismissing me won’t change that at all.
Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to do a modern medical diagnosis of people in the distant past. (In fact, there is a good deal of speculation as to what condition Darwin suffered, despite some decent descriptions of his symptoms). One of the more comprehensive diagnoses of Paul that I’ve seen speculated that he had some form of epilepsy, but I don’t know the various forms myself.
I have known very well, someone who genuinely heard voices. Who could identify who was speaking, even. And the voices could be brought on by eating certain foods, or by lack of sleep. There was no way to convince her the voices were imaginary – she HEARD them, and if we couldn’t, we must not be listening very well or have some other motive for denying what was so obvious.
So I have come to the conclusion that some people really DO hear voices, and are generally unwilling to admit to any personal malfunction. I have come to realize that people who converse with their god are having real conversations as far as they are concerned. The fact their gods never seem to correct their opinions only shows how correct and well informed their opinions must be! Even GOD agrees with them!
The human brain is confoundingly complex, and the things that can go wrong with it are scary to think about.
Good grief, Bill. You cannot be serious.
Elizabeth,
Hi Elizebeth
This problem has many layers to it but first issue is when we randomly change a sequence it rapidly moves to non function.
With the first four words and a single letter mutation to every word meaning is destroyed. This is because of the size of the sequence space being so much larger then an arrangement of letters with meaning.
Since most amino acid substitutions are deleterious the current theory suggests that new genes are made through gene duplication and then neutral divergence. There has been attempts to model this process with populations of prokaryotic cells with fast generation times There has not been an attempt I am aware of to model this with vertebrates. The most aggressive model by Michael Lynch still required millions of generations for a 2 AA functional adaption becoming fixed in the population
Since we now have Venn diagrams showing different vertebrates have different sets of genes with only 50% common among fish, chickens, mice and humans the sequence problem and the waiting time problem is a show stopper at this point for the theory of gene duplication and divergence IMO.
Figure 3 in this paper shows the distribution of genes between Zebra fish, Chicken, Mice, and Humans. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12111
Depends what you mean by “randomly”. Genetic changes aren’t “random” in the sense of being equiprobable. Viable variants are much more probable than non-viable ones. “Sequence space” doesn’t have a flat probability distribution.
Language is a very poor analogy for genetic sequences. Every possible “three-letter” triplet has a “meaning” in the genetic code and there’s a lot of redundancy. Not only that, but “nearby” sequences that don’t code for the same amino acid often code for a viable substitute, depending on the protein.
In any case, point mutations probably aren’t the major source of viable novelties – mixing and matching entire chunks is probably a bigger driver of “step-changes” in fitness, as happens in sexually reproducing species, but also by other means e.g. bacteriophages.
I think it’s all too easy to forget that analogies aren’t the-thing-itself. You can end up really believing that bumble-bees fly by magic because they can’t possibly fly the way birds or airplanes do.
Which of course they don’t. They do it a different way.
It is the analogy that Richard Dawkins used in the blind watchmaker. While I agree it is limited language, proteins, and DNA are all mathematical sequences.
I think you are talking about genetic recombination. I agree that this is the likely cause of most the variation we observe in populations. It is however very unlikely the cause of all the unique sequences we observe because the process mostly makes changes to genes positions in chromosomes and not changes to genes themselves.
Not sure the point you are trying to make here :-).The thing we are facing is a mathematical structure called a sequence. Whether it is letters numbers or chemicals the math does not change.
Even this much is wrong. They can be modelled as mathematical sequences, but this does not mean they are mathematical sequences. You can paint a photo-realistic picture of a dog, but it will never be the case that a dog is a photo-realistic picture. Even a picture-perfect photo is not a dog.
As long as I assumed that programming languages are languages, I could never for the life of me figure them out. I could figure them out as soon as it dawned to me that they are software, not languages.
It really matters to understand the essence or nature of things. There is a serious difference between information and data, as big as between interpretation and facts. The ID theory never got off the ground due to fundamental misunderstanding of what information is, what math is good for, how biology works, and many other similarly fundamental failures. Quite a groundbreaking theory in that sense.
This is not even false. It’s just nonsense.
Flint,
Temporal lobe epilepsy has been suggested for Paul’s experience, except it doesn’t explain his three subsequent days of blindness. That would almost always be the result of “hysteria” which now classified as a functional neurological disorder which would be consistent with a psychotic episode.
In any event, and as you point out, it is difficult to establish psychological classifications for folks from antiquity. However, I think we need to explore rational materialist explanations for these types of experience before embarking on untestable supernatural “explanations.”
There is a great (and controversial) book on this topic by Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes titled The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Jaynes’ theory has held up remarkably well since it was first published in the 70s with a couple periodic updates. The theory, very roughly, is that visions, ecstatic experiences, voices, etc. resulted from the pre-conscious brain before the two hemispheres (thus “bicameral”) of the brain became fully integrated, a process that started about 3000 years ago and continues.