Why David Madison’s Slam Dunk Isn’t One

David Madison is a minister-turned-atheist, who has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. Madison was raised a liberal Protestant, but he gradually lost his faith while serving as the pastor of two Methodist parishes in Massachusetts. He went on to pursue a business career, but he’s recently written a book titled, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: A Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (see here for one critic’s review and here for a more favorable review).

However, what put me off Madison’s book is what he’s written on his own Web page. His recommended reading list of 200 books, put together for people who want to “find out how Jesus, Christianity and theism have all been so convincingly slam dunked,” includes dozens of books by authors defending the kooky view that Jesus never even existed (a view not shared by any reputable historian – and no, Dr. Richard Carrier doesn’t count as one; nor does Dr. Robert Price, who got trounced when he debated Dr. Bart Ehrman last year on the historicity of Jesus, as Carrier himself admits), and only a handful of books addressing the traditional philosophical arguments for the existence of God, of which Raymond Bradley’s God’s Gravediggers: Why No Deity Exists (Ockham Publishing, 2016) and Michael Martin’s The Cambridge Companion to Atheism appear to be the most substantive. (There are other books attacking Intelligent Design on Madison’s list, but these are beside the point, as ID proponents don’t maintain that their arguments, taken by themselves, prove the existence of any Deity.) And believe it or not, H. L. Mencken, whose credibility on religious and moral issues I have demolished here, here, here and here, makes the list, too. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is on the list (has Madison ever read John Lennox’s response, I wonder?), as well as Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian, which has been refuted ably by David Snoke.

For the benefit of his readers, Madison has also kindly provided chapter summaries for his book, which (I am sorry to say) do not inspire confidence. A few excerpts:

God has given his perfect message for humanity in book form, but he had to keep adding installments, first the Hebrew Bible, then the New Testament, followed by the Quran and finally the Book of Mormon.
[Comment: LOL. I don’t know anyone who believes in all four – VJT.]

…[H]ow can it be than a supremely good, all-powerful, all-knowing God has to hear prayers to find out what’s going on and determine what to do?
[St. Thomas Aquinas answered this question back in the 13th century. See also this article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – VJT.]

Christians cannot retreat to the safe-haven of the superior Christian option, because there are now more than 31,000 different brands of Christianity: no one agrees on who’s right about God.
[See here, here and here for why that figure is a myth – VJT.]

Resurrection is a concept borrowed from pagan antiquity…
[An old canard: see here – VJT.]

One of the constant themes of New Testament theology is that God required the sacrifice of his son to enable forgiveness of sins… As Richard Dawkins has said, if an infinitely powerful and good God wants to forgive people, why not just forgive them?
[Has Madison never heard of the theologian John Duns Scotus, who taught that God would still have become incarnate as Jesus Christ, even if Adam had not sinned? – VJT.]

In this chapter I cover ten categories of Jesus negatives, starting with his alarming pronouncement that hatred of one’s parents and family was a requirement for being one of his followers.
[Madison should read the comprehensive response by Jews for Jesus on this point: Did Jesus teach his disciples to hate their parents? – VJT.]

The purpose of this chapter is to show that Paul can fairly be called a delusional cult fanatic… He never met Jesus and had no interest whatever in what the Galilean preacher had said and done.
[Madison evidently hasn’t read New Testament scholar David Wenham’s book, Did St Paul Get Jesus Right?: The Gospel According to Paul. And even if St. Paul were wrong in his beliefs about marriage, government and the Second Coming, as Madison alleges, that would not make him delusional – VJT.]

…[T]housands of gods have been imagined by humans — concocted by our mammalian brains — and worshipped with unaccountable fervor… Humans have bungled religion so badly. Aliens would stay away.
[A majority of human beings now believe in one God, Who created the cosmos, Who maintains it in being, Who is both merciful and just, and Who answers the prayers of those who call on His name. Humanity is moving, albeit slowly, towards a consensus on the question of God – VJT.]

So I have to ask: if this is a representative sample of Dr. Madison’s writing, then why should I trust the factual assertions he makes in his latest book? Would any reader like to step up to the plate and defend Dr. Madison?

One last point I’d like to make is that if Dr. Madison really wants to dissuade people of the truth of Christianity, he should encourage people to read books in which the best Christian apologists debate atheists. If the atheists have really done their homework, as Madison says they have during the past twenty years, then that should be enough to convince any fair-minded reader that there is no good case either for Christianity or for theism.

What do readers think? Over to you.

108 thoughts on “Why David Madison’s Slam Dunk Isn’t One

  1. Fair is fair.

    When keiths has started a topic that supposedly debunks Christianity, I have said that it was pointless, and wouldn’t persuade anyone.

    Now that you have started a topic that supposedly defends Christianity, I’ll say the same thing. It is pointless and won’t persuade anybody.

  2. Unfortunately it’s the most extreme and least nuanced views that are most easily marketable. There’s no money to be made in publishing moderate positions that are defended with scholarship and argument and that take opposing views seriously.

  3. Neil,

    When keiths has started a topic that supposedly debunks Christianity, I have said that it was pointless, and wouldn’t persuade anyone.

    Now that you have started a topic that supposedly defends Christianity, I’ll say the same thing. It is pointless and won’t persuade anybody.

    As if on-the-spot conversions — whatever the topic — were the only goal of our discussions here at TSZ.

    You seem baffled by this whole “Skeptical Zone” concept.

  4. Christians cannot retreat to the safe-haven of the superior Christian option, because there are now more than 31,000 different brands of Christianity: no one agrees on who’s right about God.
    [See here and here for why that figure is a myth – VJT.

    One of those links didn’t work, the author of the other one seems happier with a number of about 1,000 (again, only referring to Christian denominations).

    Does that number also make you happier?

  5. (There are other books attacking Intelligent Design on Madison’s list, but these are beside the point, as ID proponents don’t maintain that their arguments, taken by themselves, prove the existence of any Deity.)

    They make a lot of rubbish claims, few, if any, based on good evidence and thought. If ID’s not about “proving” the existence of God, what could its point possibly be? Explaining anything about biology as well as evolutionary theory does is clearly not the point.

    As for the listed excerpts, they sound like internet atheist talking points, some good, many at least not very good. Not that one should expect some new and great anti-theist arguments, but it seems like using a web search engine for a few hours would get every argument in it and more.

    Glen Davidson

  6. Hi walto,

    Thank you for your post. I’ve fixed the links on Protestant denominations. From what I can tell, there seem to be ten major ones in the U.S., and no more than seventy overall, by a very generous estimate.

  7. Mung:
    My prediction is that no one will step up to the plate and defend Madison.

    Certainly not I. His claims do not strike me as defensible.

  8. vjtorley:
    Hi walto,
    Thank you for your post. I’ve fixed the links on Protestant denominations. From what I can tell, there seem to be ten major ones in the U.S., and no more than seventy overall, by a very generous estimate.

    LOL there are that many kinds of Presbyterians.

  9. vjtorley:
    Hi walto,

    Thank you for your post. I’ve fixed the links on Protestant denominations. From what I can tell, there seem to be ten major ones in the U.S., and no more than seventy overall, by a very generous estimate.

    Well, one of your links put it at about 1000. But never mind. Suppose there were just, say, six different xtian versions of the TRVTH. They can’t all be right, can they?

    And who says an xtian version must be right?

  10. Well, now, whether Jesus existed or not, the actual evidence regarding his existence is mighty thin, and thinner still is the evidence of what he might have done or said.

    Nor do I find Aquinas’ defense of prayer, or Duns Scotus’ defense of the Incarnation, compelling or even sensible. Would you care to discuss that?

  11. However, what put me off Madison’s book is what he’s written on his own Web page. His recommended reading list of 200 books, put together for people who want to “find out how Jesus, Christianity and theism have all been so convincingly slam dunked,” includes dozens of books by authors defending the kooky view that Jesus never even existed (a view not shared by any reputable historian – and no, Dr. Richard Carrier doesn’t count as one

    I don’t have a dog in the Jesus existence fight, it bores me to death and doesn’t even matter in the end to whether christian theism can be rationally rejected.

    Just wanted to comment on this because you can only push this “outsider” narrative so far. What should matter are the arguments and the evidence, not whether it’s part of the consensus at any particular point it time. I’d think ID proponents would understand that point.

    Additionally, all conensus historical views were at one point, pretty much believed by no-one. Someone had to argue their case and analyze the evidence, and then a debate had to flesh out over decades until a view was formed. Some times the matter was easily settled and it took little to convince people. Other times the evidence is ambigous and so the subject was or remains contentious.

    It might be entirely plausible that contemporary Jesus-mythicism will remain a fringe view and fail to persuade historians even many decades from now. But it goes without saying that christian apologists and evangelizers have a dog in the fight, in trying to make sure it stays a fringe view. The hope is of course that they can discourage people from even giving the mythicist position a fair hearing.

    Matt Dillahunty (who says he leans towards historicity) has done an interesting post-debate talk on skepticism, Jesus and the Price-Ehrman debate (where he was the moderator): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gPlZviMHvc&

  12. I find it amusing when Christians resort to insults like “kooky view” and argumentum ad verecundiam (“a view not shared by any reputable historian”, where reputable means “agrees with the Christian”) because there is literally no even remotely contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus.

  13. ““a view not shared by any reputable historian”, where reputable means “agrees with the Christian””

    No, where reputable means “holding a teaching or research position at an accredited university and taking part in the scholarly dialogue in relevant fields of study, with a suitably high participation at conferences and ranking in monographs, journal articles and citations”. The non-Christian scholars agree that a historical Jesus most likely existed, despite the fact that they don’t “agree with the Christian” on much else. They also “agree with the Christian” that grass is green and the sky is blue. Newsflash: Christians aren’t necessarily wrong about absolutely everything.

    “there is literally no even remotely contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus.”

    Gosh. Second newsflash: there is ” literally no even remotely contemporary evidence” for … about 95% of ancient figures. Welcome to ancient history. And there is ” literally no even remotely contemporary evidence” for 100% of early first century Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants. So, your point would be?

  14. TimONeill:
    ““a view not shared by any reputable historian”, where reputable means “agrees with the Christian””

    No, where reputable means “holding a teaching or research position at an accredited university and taking part in the scholarly dialogue in relevant fields of study, with a suitably high participation at conferences and ranking in monographs, journal articles and citations”.The non-Christian scholars agree that a historical Jesus most likely existed, despite the fact that they don’t “agree with the Christian” on much else.

    What is the proportion of non-Christian scholars to Christians? How likely are mythicists to be allowed to participate in “scholarly dialogue” by the Christians?

    “there is literally no even remotely contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus.”

    Gosh.Second newsflash: there is ” literally no even remotely contemporary evidence” for … about 95% of ancient figures.Welcome to ancient history.And there is ” literally no even remotely contemporary evidence” for 100% of early first century Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants.So, your point would be?

    My point is simply that it is logically possible that no individual recognizable as the Jesus of the Christian bible actually existed.

    Welcome to The Skeptical Zone.

  15. Patrick,

    Haha. “Logically possible.”

    Fwiw, Patrick it’s logically possible that there’s a ferret up your butt right now. {You need to look up complicated sounding terms before you use them! Maybe stick to Webster?}

  16. John Harshman:
    Well, now, whether Jesus existed or not, the actual evidence regarding his existence is mighty thin, and thinner still is the evidence of what he might have done or said.

    How does this mighty thin evidence that Christ exited compares to the evidence on the origins of life? Can you throw in a few pieces of evidence for abiogenesis, so that we can compare and see what mighty thin evidence atheists are willing to accept for reasons only known to them?

    BTW: Harshman, if you have a hard time finding even one piece of evidence for your scientific belief in abiogenesis, you might want ask keiths, who recently has been looking for one but has been able to reveal them for reasons only known to him… Him just like you is mighty certain that random, natural processes created life ….unfortunately his evidence is not even thin…

  17. What is the proportion of non-Christian scholars to Christians?

    What does that matter? If the only people who accepted a historical Jesus were Christian believers, then this would clearly indicate a strong confirmation bias on their part. But the consensus is across the board. So clearly bias is not informing all the scholars who accept a historical Jesus – the non-Christian scholars (and they include some of the most prominent and respected in the field) don’t have an ideological dog in the fight. And this is more than we can say for vehement anti-theistic polemicists like Carrier and most of the rest of the Mythicist fringe.

    How likely are mythicists to be allowed to participate in “scholarly dialogue” by the Christians?

    Who cares? The point is that the current crop of Mythicists are simply recycling arguments that were considered and rejected by everyone, Christian or otherwise, a century ago. And the current crop’s arguments have been considered and rejected as the same old junk by modern scholars as well.

    My point is simply that it is logically possible that no individual recognizable as the Jesus of the Christian bible actually existed.

    Then it’s a “point” barely worth making. Thousands of things are merely “logically possible”. Historians work by assessing which of those things are most likely to have actually happened. The overwhelming consensus is that it is most likely that a historical Jesus existed because that is the most parsimonious way of reading the evidence. The Mythicist fringe has to work furiously to make some of that evidence go away and then even more frantically to reinterpret the rest of it to come up with contrived readings that, somehow, explain how the stories about a recent historical preacher arose despite the fact there was no recent historical preacher. These convoluted ad hoc contrivances don’t stand up to Occam’s Razor and only appeal to those with an emotional desire for a bigger stick with which to hit Christianity. This is why these arguments appeal mainly to historically illiterate online anti-Christian zealots and leave actual scholars cold.

    And what you actually tried to do was make an argument from silence – “no contemporary evidence means he didn’t exist at all”. That argument is a non sequitur.

  18. TimONeill: And what you actually tried to do was make an argument from silence – “no contemporary evidence means he didn’t exist at all”. That argument is a non sequitur.

    Hannibal, Buddha, Socrates.

    But who could believe that there was an itinerant preacher in Palestine in the first century? Too strange to believe. Ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence in the mythicist world.

    Glen Davidson

  19. GlenDavidson: TimONeill: And what you actually tried to do was make an argument from silence – “no contemporary evidence means he didn’t exist at all”. That argument is a non sequitur.

    Hannibal, Buddha, Socrates.

    But who could believe that there was an itinerant preacher in Palestine in the first century? Too strange to believe. Ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence in the mythicist world.

    Well, to be fair, non sequiturs (along with insults and Oho! ‘witticisms’) are Patrick’s fortes. Wouldn’t be nice to deprive him of their use.

  20. GlenDavidson: Hannibal, Buddha, Socrates.

    But who could believe that there was an itinerant preacher in Palestine in the first century?Too strange to believe.Ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence in the mythicist world.

    Glen Davidson

    Interestingly, there in fact IS considerable historical record of a fairly large number of such people, preserved in the Jewish literature BCE. It was not infrequent for the many Jewish cults of the time to expect the messiah around that period, based on prophecies and interpretations of Jewish scripture, some of which also remains.

    Some sects expected a military messiah, and those claiming to be one were no match for the Roman army, after Rome annexed Judea in about 6 BCE. Others (like Paul) envisioned a celestial messiah, being killed and rising in the “real” firmament, thought to lie above the highest clouds but below the moon. Paul’s version never actually came down to earth, which this cosmology regarded as a poor copy of the “real thing”, the lowest layer of heaven where Paul’s messiah descended, died, got resurrected, and return to the top heavenly level.

    But more to the point you make, oddly enough there is NO preserved written material by ANYONE about the sect(s) that evolved into the early Christian church. Even Jewish and Greek and Roman historians who covered that locale and period had their histories carefully redacted, so that the periods during which the (much) later gospels had Jesus being born, doing his ministry, or dying, became mysterious “holes” by the time many-times-recopied versions reached the renaissance.

    What’s remarkable about this is, there were plenty of people writing about everything around them all the time, then as now. The Jews, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and others were all actively writing. And a good many of those writings were preserved, that were NOT talking about Jesus or the early church. But about Jesus’ life and exploits, there is contemporary silence. The odd thing is, according to the gospels, Jesus did astounding things witnessed by many. Why the silence? Again, note that when talking about anything else, that silence doesn’t exist.

  21. Flint: What’s remarkable about this is, there were plenty of people writing about everything around them all the time, then as now. The Jews, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and others were all actively writing. And a good many of those writings were preserved,

    A rather meager amount. There was a host of versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, and we’ve got one now. There are bits and pieces here and there of other versions, in Plato, and in a number of student writings found in dumps, but that’s all that we have of them. Roman religion is known best via Ovid’s Fasti, which unfortunately only covers six months of festivals and observances, meaning that even Roman religion isn’t especially well understood (other sources exist, but more in passing). Only fragments of Sappho’s poetry remain. What did anyone know of the Essenes before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found (and what of those would have persisted in wetter areas?)? What did the pre-Socratics write? The loss of writings from the ancient world was immense, hence the silly laments over the Library at Alexandria that are heard (well, it was bad, but of course it would and did burn, apparently both by accident and on purpose).

    that were NOT talking about Jesus or the early church. But about Jesus’ life and exploits, there is contemporary silence.

    And what contemporary writings exist regarding, say, the high priest Caiaphas? Well, none that I know of. Josephus brings him up, but his writings aren’t contemporary with Caiaphas’s priesthood. Is it any inherent problem that Josephus is working off of good historic evidence, rather than writing contemporaneously with his priesthood? Is there any contemporary evidence for Alexander the Great?

    The odd thing is, according to the gospels, Jesus did astounding things witnessed by many. Why the silence?

    Probably because he didn’t do such astonishing things. You have no business mixing up the miracle accounts with historic evidence when the issue is merely the existence of Jesus, as it is with mythicists.

    Again, note that when talking about anything else, that silence doesn’t exist.

    That’s complete nonsense. Athenaeus happens to be the single source of a whole lot of knowledge of the ancient world, and his Deipnosophists happens to be incomplete, with only summary writings covering the missing parts. He mentions 700 writers, 500 of whom are mentioned in no other extant writings. Playwrights especially. We still know next to nothing about almost all of those 500, because about all he did was mention them and quote a couple of lines. He’s thought to have worked off of the catalog of the Library at Alexandria, revealing tantalizing glimpses of the massive loss of information between then and now.

    Your faith in the relative completeness of the record is pathetic.

    Glen Davidson

  22. J-Mac:
    BTW: Harshman, if you have a hard time finding even one piece of evidence for your scientific belief in abiogenesis

    The origin of life is an unavoidable necessity. Life could not have always existed, so it had to originate somehow. So one is prima facie justified in believing that life did once upon a time, actually originate.

    Now HOW that life originated is another matter. One could simply say “I don’t know”, just as if one was not convinced by the supposed evidence for Jesus “I don’t know whether Jesus existed”. See how that works? It is actually totally okay to be honest and say we don’t know. Some times we are in a situation where the evidence we have isn’t good enough for us to come down hard on a particular conclusion. The existence of Jesus might be such a case (I don’t know, I haven’t checked).

    There is in fact evidence (not unassailable proof, but evidence nonetheless) that the origin of life was a process governed by the laws of physics and chemistry, as opposed to some sort of intelligent design. The inferred (by multiple independent methods) amino acid frequencies in the ancestors of the oldest known proteins strongly correlate with the distribution of amino acids produced in abiotic chemical reactions, and predicted to result from them by thermodynamics. As one would expect if life originated by a blind, unguided physical and chemical process.

    Higgs PG, Pudritz RE. A thermodynamic basis for prebiotic amino acid synthesis and the nature of the first genetic code. Astrobiology. 2009 Jun;9(5):483-90. [DOI: 10.1089/ast.2008.0280]

    Trifonov EN. Consensus temporal order of amino acids and evolution of the triplet code. Gene. 2000 Dec 30;261(1):139-51. [PMID: 11164045]

    Brooks DJ, Fresco JR, Lesk AM, Singh M. Evolution of amino acid frequencies in proteins over deep time: inferred order of introduction of amino acids into the genetic code. Mol Biol Evol. 2002 Oct;19(10):1645-55. [PMID: 12270892]

  23. TimONeill: And what you actually tried to do was make an argument from silence – “no contemporary evidence means he didn’t exist at all”.

    Just commenting here on a mistake I see in your response.

    One does not have to conclude by arguments from silence, that the entity in question doesn’t exist. One can conclude though, that due to that silence, one should not believe that the entity in question does exist.

    There’s an important difference there. The difference is between what should we actually believe? and what is truly the case?

    Some times, the evidence we have available does not allow us to infer with any appreciable certainty what actually is the case, but in such a situation we can still decide what we should believe.
    If the evidence isn’t sufficient to reasonably substantiate the existence of X, then the existence of X should not be believed (and if someone believes despite this, they do so unreasonably). That doesn’t mean we believe the negation of X, that X does not exist, it just means X failed to meet it’s burden of proof.

    That argument is a non sequitur.

    If it is a deductive, rather than inductive argument from silence, then yes it is a non-sequitur. But inductive arguments from silence can be valid and sound.

    For example, if the existence of X makes it highly probable that there should be evidence for the existence of X, then absense of that evidence is evidence that “X exists” is probably false. A probabilistic argument. Some times, absense of evidence is evidence of absense.

  24. The existence of a preacher who inspired a following is a reasonable belief. Since such followings and the derived religions are commonplace, one might say it is both justified and sensible.

    The existence of a living, embodied deity would be an extraordinary thing. That there are dozens of religions based on claims of living, embodied gods does not render such an entity usual or ordinary. It merely renders the claim usual and ordinary. It does not reduce the burden of proof to demonstrate that such an extraordinary entity existed.

  25. TimONeill:
    What is the proportion of non-Christian scholars to Christians?

    What does that matter?

    It goes to bias.

    If the only people who accepted a historical Jesus were Christian believers, then this would clearly indicate a strong confirmation bias on their part. But the consensus is across the board.

    If the board consists of 99 Christians and 1 non-Christian, that suggests that bias is a clear possibility.

    And this is more than we can say for vehement anti-theistic polemicists like Carrier and most of the rest of the Mythicist fringe.

    You seem to be falling back into the fallacy of defining the serious historians as only those that support the historicity of Jesus.

    How likely are mythicists to be allowed to participate in “scholarly dialogue” by the Christians?

    Who cares?

    Anyone interested in determining if there is bias among those you consider to be part of the “scholarly dialogue”.

    The point is that the current crop of Mythicists are simply recycling arguments that were considered and rejected by everyone, Christian or otherwise, a century ago.And the current crop’s arguments have been considered and rejected as the same old junk by modern scholars as well.

    More argument from authority.

    My point is simply that it is logically possible that no individual recognizable as the Jesus of the Christian bible actually existed.

    Then it’s a “point” barely worth making.

    Not at all. At the very least it makes some Christians apoplectic.

    The overwhelming consensus is that it is most likely that a historical Jesus existed because that is the most parsimonious way of reading the evidence.

    What do you consider the best evidence or lines of reasoning supporting the idea that an historical Jesus existed?

    The Mythicist fringe has to work furiously to make some of that evidence go away and then even more frantically to reinterpret the rest of it to come up with contrived readings that, somehow, explain how the stories about a recent historical preacher arose despite the fact there was no recent historical preacher.These convoluted ad hoc contrivances don’t stand up to Occam’s Razor and only appeal to those with an emotional desire for a bigger stick with which to hit Christianity.This is why these arguments appeal mainly to historically illiterate online anti-Christian zealots and leave actual scholars cold.

    See, winding up Christians can be amusing!

    And what you actually tried to do was make an argument fromsilence – “no contemporary evidence means he didn’t exist at all”.That argument is a non sequitur.

    That’s not my argument. My argument is that the lack of contemporary evidence makes it reasonable to conclude that Jesus was not an historical figure. It certainly puts the burden of proof on those who want to claim he was.

    The bottom line is I don’t know and neither do you.

  26. Flint:
    Others (like Paul) envisioned a celestial messiah, being killed and rising in the “real” firmament, thought to lie above the highest clouds but below the moon. Paul’s version never actually came down to earth, which this cosmology regarded as a poor copy of the “real thing”, the lowest layer of heaven where Paul’s messiah descended, died, got resurrected, and return to the top heavenly level.

    A remarkable number of Christians don’t realize this. Given that Paul’s writings were the closest in time to Jesus’ alleged lifetime, that’s further evidence supporting mythicism.

  27. GlenDavidson:
    Is there any contemporary evidence for Alexander the Great?

    A quick Google turns up a Babylonian royal diary documenting his death.

    Probably because he didn’t do such astonishing things. You have no business mixing up the miracle accounts with historic evidence when the issue is merely the existence of Jesus, as it is with mythicists.

    That raises another interesting question, though. Without the miracles, what does it mean for Jesus to be an historical figure? If there was someone who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, would that be sufficient? Is the story of the the money changers at the temple essential? What if the stories were just an amalgamation of the actions of several different itinerant preachers combined with some old myths?

  28. Patrick: My argument is that the lack of contemporary evidence makes it reasonable to conclude that Jesus was not an historical figure.

    That’s not actually what you wrote (you can go back and read it–it includes a funny misunderstanding of what logical possibility is). But this NEW argument is OK, just so long as you are willing to use the same standard for knowledge everywhere as you want imposed here. It will mean that all of us know almost nothing that we all believe we know. Which is fine with me, if you were to stick with it.

    But you use such a stringent standard only when it suits you–here, to attack the view, apparently held by most experts in the field (a field which includes neither you nor me, incidentally) because, well, you think it harms theism claims. Obviously, it’s simple bias to hold opponents to a standard you don’t accept for yourself. But, well, this is you we’re talking about.

  29. I think we all (mostly) hold extraordinary claims to higher standards than we do ordinary claims.

    Jesus the preacher or prophet, no problem.

  30. What’s extraordinary about the claim that some particular nuts carpenter lived back then?

  31. walto:
    What’s extraordinary about the claim that some particular nuts carpenter lived back then?

    http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/why-david-madisons-slam-dunk-isnt-one/comment-page-1/#comment-171697

    The existence of a preacher who inspired a following is a reasonable belief. Since such followings and the derived religions are commonplace, one might say it is both justified and sensible.

    The existence of a living, embodied deity would be an extraordinary thing. That there are dozens of religions based on claims of living, embodied gods does not render such an entity usual or ordinary. It merely renders the claim usual and ordinary. It does not reduce the burden of proof to demonstrate that such an extraordinary entity existed.

  32. Well of course, the stuff in the second paragraph has nothing whatever to do with the question of whether the guy existed. That was all patiently explained by Tim O’Neill above. Patrick (and maybe you too?) are simply conflating those two questions.

    ETA: I’d written “Flint” instead of “Tim O’Neill”. Sorry.

  33. Patrick: What if the stories were just an amalgamation of the actions of several different itinerant preachers combined with some old myths?

    How does a movement coalesce around an amalgamation of the actions of several different itinerant preachers?

    What motivates people to go out and proclaim “the gospel,” meeting opposition and risking death? As with Islam, it seems that the reasonable answer is that a charismatic figure amasses some disciples who become devoted to the leader and continue the movement after the leader’s death. Or doesn’t Islam count either, since there seems to be no contemporary account of Mohammed either (revise the year of death and maybe there is a contemporary mention of no especial value–sort of raising the question of, you know, who cares if it’s exactly contemporary?)? Well anyway, we know how cult figures give rise to movements, even if Islam falls to unreasonable standards, too, and we still haven’t seen a case where a movement arose around amalgamations of actions of several figures of any kind.

    You get people like KF making absurd arguments that only disciples who know that Jesus arose from the dead could have gone on to produce Christianity. The typical rejoinder is, what about Islam? Yes, good example–but you still need the rather fanatic followers for a good explanation of how the movement grows, although one hardly needs any sort of truth (unless it’s “their truth”) motivating them (or you’re back to conflicting truths “proven” by martyrs).

    If one is really interested in reasonable explanations, one really don’t get to just make up anything that satisfies one’s own flimsy standards. Cult figures explain religions arising, amalgamations of stories don’t work nearly so well. But atheism deserves its own little myths, doesn’t it?

    Glen Davidson

  34. GlenDavidson:

    What if the stories were just an amalgamation of the actions of several different itinerant preachers combined with some old myths?

    How does a movement coalesce around an amalgamation of the actions of several different itinerant preachers?

    What motivates people to go out and proclaim “the gospel,” meeting opposition and risking death?As with Islam, it seems that the reasonable answer is that a charismatic figure amasses some disciples who become devoted to the leader and continue the movement after the leader’s death.

    That leader in the case of Christianity could have been Paul, taking advantage of existing stories.

  35. Patrick: That leader in the case of Christianity could have been Paul, taking advantage of existing stories.

    Right. I mean, it’s “logically possible” anyhow. I suppose with no expertise or educational background considered important in this area, one opinion is as good as any other.

    Hey maybe it was a simulation–like the moon landing! No doubt something cooked up by leftists–or worse! Government employees. Maybe FDR did it!!!

  36. walto: Right.I mean, it’s “logically possible” anyhow.I suppose with no expertise or educational background considered important in this area, one opinion is as good as any other.

    Hey maybe it was a simulation–like the moon landing!No doubt something cooked up by leftists–or worse!Government employees.Maybe FDR did it!!!

    Well yeah, he commissioned Acts and had it written so that Xianity existed before him, that he opposed it, and then was converted on the freeway to Damascus. Then he wrote things in his letters that went along with that.

    No one would know otherwise, or check. You can’t discover anything without the internet, you know, and I’m pretty sure it was pre-internet, or very near the beginning, at latest.

    Glen Davidson

  37. Funny how people are willing to defer to experts–except on matters they care about.

  38. walto:
    Funny how people are willing to defer to experts–except on matters they care about.

    Yep, humans are weird like that.

  39. I find the question of Jesus’s existence the least interesting of the OP’s points. Was there an itinerant preacher in Palestine to whom a great many legends became attached? Maybe.

    But the theological questions are more interesting. Would anyone care to explicate and/or defend Aquinas’s justification of prayer or Duns Scotus’s defense of the Incarnation?

  40. Patrick: That’s not my argument. My argument is that the lack of contemporary evidence makes it reasonable to conclude that Jesus was not an historical figure. It certainly puts the burden of proof on those who want to claim he was.

    Contemporary evidence is not the only kind of evidence in historiography. And it’s also not the most important kind. The most important kind is consistent reporting.

  41. Erik: Contemporary evidence is not the only kind of evidence in historiography. And it’s also not the most important kind. The most important kind is consistent reporting.

    Care to elaborate on why consistency of reporting is the most important?

  42. newton: Care to elaborate on why consistency of reporting is the most important?

    Multiple independent witnesses saying the same thing doesn’t sound important to you?

  43. Erik: Multiple independent witnesses saying the same thing doesn’t sound important to you?

    It does .Perhaps I am confused, wouldn’t that be contemporary evidence to the occurrence ?

  44. newton: It does .Perhaps I am confused, wouldn’t that be contemporary evidence to the occurrence ?

    Hopefully at first yes, but the surviving evidence may date from centuries later. If there are multiple independent accounts, the date of what has survived matters less.

    This is pretty much the case with the gospels. No contemporary documents survive, but the surviving copies of the text tell a fairly consistent story of the same characters and events. Inconsistencies are attributable to independent witnessing, also bolstered by the fact that Mark and Luke were not among the apostles, while Matthew and John were. Either there is true independent witnessing going on or you have to build a conspiracy theory where religious fanatics cook up stories and write them down. And they do it amazingly ingeniously in that they don’t settle on a single version of the events, but on several with minor inconsistencies across a number of books so as to leave a strong impression of somewhat independent reporting, forcing historians to conclude that despite the occasionally fantastic content of the stories, the main characters must be actual.

    But it doesn’t have to be based on original eyewitnesses at all. For example spy information is often second-hand (somebody pays someone to be present someplace and then recount about events and things and this gets reported via a few intermediaries in order to make the true destination of the message harder to follow) but due to its nature, the fact that it’s meant to be reliable, it is normally trusted. Other official documents get treated the same way. Then there are documents that are meant to deceive. When this purpose has been found out, the document gets treated accordingly, despite contemporariness or eyewitnessing.

  45. Patrick,

    “It goes to bias.”

    I understand that’s what you were trying to argue, but I’ve already explained why that doesn’t work as an objection to the consensus. You decided that all the Christian scholars are biased and ignore them totally. But the fact remains that the consensus continues across all the non-Christian scholars as well. Which means your objection fails.

    “If the board consists of 99 Christians and 1 non-Christian, that suggests that bias is a clear possibility.”

    See above.

    “You seem to be falling back into the fallacy of defining the serious historians as only those that support the historicity of Jesus.

    Ummm, no. That comment wasn’t “defining” who is or isn’t a “serious historian” at all (though you’ve drifted from what I did define earlier, which was a “reputablehistorian” – spot the difference). My observation was simply that if you want to, quite reasonably, object to the likely bias of Christian scholars, you have to be consistent. To pretend that polemicists like Carrier are objective arbiters is pretty ridiculous. I like to give little regard to the biased ideologues at both extreme ends of the spectrum and pay attention to the professionals in the middle who don’t have an ideological dog in the fight. And they accept a historical Jesus as the most likely conclusion.

    “Anyone interested in determining if there is bias among those you consider to be part of the “scholarly dialogue”.”

    See above. The Mythicist arguments have been considered and rejected. This happened when they first arose a century ago and they haven’t gotten any more convincing with age. And your “bias” excuse for this fails for the reasons I’ve detailed above.

    “More argument from authority.”

    No, please try to focus. You were trying to argue that that the Mythicist arguments weren’t even considered and so Mythicists were not even part of the “scholarly dialogue” and that they were “excluded” by “Christians”. This is both confused and wrong. Firstly, the scholarly dialogue is not purely and exclusively “Christian”, given that many leading figures in the relevant fields are non-Christians, including many Jewish scholars. Secondly, as I noted, the Mythicist arguments have been considered in the “scholarly dialogue” for over a century now. And found wanting. This is merely noting a fact, not making any “argument from authority”.

    “Not at all. At the very least it makes some Christians apoplectic.”

    It would be nice if you stopped snipping single sentences out of their context. The point that is hardly worth making is your observation that it’s merely “logically possible” that no Jesus existed, because millions of things are merely “logically possible”. And the fact that this makes “some Christians apoplectic” isn’t even slightly relevant here, given that you’re talking to an atheist.


    What do you consider the best evidence or lines of reasoning supporting the idea that an historical Jesus existed?”

    Answered in detail here: – “Did Jesus Exist? – The Jesus Myth Theory, Again”

    “See, winding up Christians can be amusing!”

    Pardon? I’m an atheist.

    “My argument is that the lack of contemporary evidence makes it reasonable to conclude that Jesus was not an historical figure.”

    No, it doesn’t. We don’t have contemporary evidence for most ancient figures so it doesn’t make that conclusion “reasonable” at all. It merely makes it possible, which doesn’t get you very far in historical analysis.

    “The bottom line is I don’t know and neither do you.”

    “Know”? People who like to definitively “know” things should avoid pre-modern history completely. We don’t “know” a vast number of things about the past – welcome to ancient history, enjoy your stay. If you need to “know” things then I suggest maths or physics might be more your style.

  46. Patrick: A remarkable number of Christians don’t realize this.Given that Paul’s writings were the closest in time to Jesus’ alleged lifetime, that’s further evidence supporting mythicism.

    It’s not just a “remarkable number of Christians” who don’t “realise” this – no scholar on the planet, Christian or otherwise, “realises” this apart from the fringe nobodies of Mythicism. And they don’t “realise” this because it’s total crap. Paul repeatedly refers to a recent, earthly, human and non-celestial Jesus who had a previous celestial pre-existence and has gone back to the celestial realm. He says Jesus was born as a human, of a human mother and born a Jew (Galatians 4:4). He repeats that he had a “human nature” and that he was a human descendant of King David (Romans 1:3) of of Abraham (Gal 3:16), of Israelites (Romans 9:4-5) and of Jesse (Romans 15:12). He refers to teachings Jesus made during his earthly ministry on divorce (1Cor. 7:10), on preachers (1Cor. 9:14) and on the coming apocalypse (1Thess. 4:15). He mentions how he was executed by earthly rulers (1Cor. 2:8) that he was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, 2:2, 2:8, 2 Cor 13:4) and that he died and was buried (1Cor 15:3-4).And he says he had an earthly, physical brother called James who Paul himself had met (Galatians1:19). None of these references make any sense as referring to a purely celestial being.

  47. What does it take for an intelligent, reasonable human being (one would hope) to throw away ALL logic, evidence, and facts to enter the world of delusion and fairy-tail?

  48. TimONeill: Answered in detail here: – “Did Jesus Exist? – The Jesus Myth Theory, Again”

    I found that quite impressive.

Leave a Reply