...but I'm not putting it all in this post. I recently joined the Society of Secular Students at the university I attend. Yesterday, we invited a professor from the Southern Baptist Seminary to speak to our group (and to invite any seminary students he thought would be interested). First, I'd like to say that the secular students were incredibly respectful and asked several thoughtful questions of the professor, which he talked around, but didn't really answer. In stark contrast to the respectfulness of the secular students, I read an article today about an atheist billboard in NYC where, in the comment section, Christians were anything but respectful. That's not really the point of this post, but it irritates me in general.
The professor, Timothy Paul Jones, approached the history and documentation as a true believer, not a historian. He held the belief and then found evidence to support it; he claims that the evidence made him a believer. In fact, he even claims to have been an atheist, which has to be a lie, unless of course he doesn't know what an atheist is. I say this because no atheist would have provided the evidence he did the way he did nor would an atheist be convinced that Christ existed by the evidence that Jones provided. The claim that he is a reformed atheist is disingenuous at best.
I am assuming that he chose the method and arguments that he did because he was speaking to secularists, not because he really buys it. I think he saw it as a chance to prove that Christ existed to a bunch of atheists and picked historical "evidence" because he thought we would buy into it more. To be honest, I would have had much more respect for his arguments if he had just said, "I believe in Christ and this is why," citing personal/emotional reasoning and acknowledging why we might not believe than I had for his attempt to play the evidence game with us.
His entire argument centered on the resurrection having been witnessed by people who died for the belief that, according to him, they had seen Jesus resurrected. Call me crazy, but no one was crucified because they said they saw Jesus after he came back from the dead. That was a very misleading statement on his part and I was quite disappointed at the end of his talk. First, these people claimed to be eyewitnesses. We have no idea if they were or not. Secondly, he seemed to be trying to convince us of their sincerity, which none of us doubt for a second. We know that they were true believers and that they died believing Jesus was the Messiah.
Acknowledging their sincerity, at least within myself, I asked him how much of the prophecy was fulfilled by Jesus or if he thought it was possible that details had been fitted to his life because he was believed to be the Messiah. He essentially did not answer my question (or perhaps he did not realize what I was asking) and said that it's hard to use a truth to prove a truth, but that he does believe that prophecy was fulfilled. His friend (I'm guessing a seminary student), said that I should start with the resurrection and then work back to the prophecy. I asked him afterword if the resurrection was a part of the prophecy and he said that while it was not clearly stated in prophecy, it was hinted at and that it was certainly a part of Jewish tradition that there would be a resurrection.
Now, if there was a tradition that the Messiah would be resurrected, that invalidates the argument that Jesus was resurrected precisely because they believed he was the Messiah. If the authors of these accounts wanted to make sure that people believe Jesus was the Messiah, it is likely that they would have made Jesus' life fit the prophecy to ensure that. He also claimed that because the Gospels agree that Jesus rose on the third day and that Mary Magdalene was the first witness, then they must be correct, especially because Mary Magdalene was a woman and women were not credible at that time (completely disregarding that the authors would have been familiar with the same story precisely because they were in the same group). He said, "why would they make that up? If it weren't true, it would have been more credible to have Simon Peter (or any man, really) be the first witness." That's an awfully weak argument. I should believe it because it's unlikely that they would have made that particular fact up? He said the same thing about the census that caused Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem. Why make up a census that could be (potentially) refuted through records? It would be a lot less difficult to make up a different reason. So we should believe because it is unlikely that something was made up. He also cited "other things" that we believe, even though we only have documents written by eyewitnesses, but he never actually named any event. It seems that he was unwilling to understand (or perhaps acknowledge) that it is easy to believe a war happened, but not so easy to believe that a man was born from a virgin or that he was raised from the dead.
Jones also said that we shouldn't throw out miracles just because they are improbable. Again, that is an incredibly weak argument. Do I honestly believe that there was a guy named Achilles whose only weakness was his ankle? Of course not, but I don't need to believe that to know that the Trojan War has some historical basis (although greatly exaggerated in the Homeric tales). I don't really have a problem with there being some historical basis for Jesus. I can easily accept that there was a person or group of people that the Biblical Jesus is based on, but that doesn't mean that I believe he was brought back from the dead or walked on water. If I want to believe that Jesus turned water into wine, I'd have to believe in alchemy.
Anyway, I'm not against Christianity, I just have issues with some Christians.
The professor, Timothy Paul Jones, approached the history and documentation as a true believer, not a historian. He held the belief and then found evidence to support it; he claims that the evidence made him a believer. In fact, he even claims to have been an atheist, which has to be a lie, unless of course he doesn't know what an atheist is. I say this because no atheist would have provided the evidence he did the way he did nor would an atheist be convinced that Christ existed by the evidence that Jones provided. The claim that he is a reformed atheist is disingenuous at best.
I am assuming that he chose the method and arguments that he did because he was speaking to secularists, not because he really buys it. I think he saw it as a chance to prove that Christ existed to a bunch of atheists and picked historical "evidence" because he thought we would buy into it more. To be honest, I would have had much more respect for his arguments if he had just said, "I believe in Christ and this is why," citing personal/emotional reasoning and acknowledging why we might not believe than I had for his attempt to play the evidence game with us.
His entire argument centered on the resurrection having been witnessed by people who died for the belief that, according to him, they had seen Jesus resurrected. Call me crazy, but no one was crucified because they said they saw Jesus after he came back from the dead. That was a very misleading statement on his part and I was quite disappointed at the end of his talk. First, these people claimed to be eyewitnesses. We have no idea if they were or not. Secondly, he seemed to be trying to convince us of their sincerity, which none of us doubt for a second. We know that they were true believers and that they died believing Jesus was the Messiah.
Acknowledging their sincerity, at least within myself, I asked him how much of the prophecy was fulfilled by Jesus or if he thought it was possible that details had been fitted to his life because he was believed to be the Messiah. He essentially did not answer my question (or perhaps he did not realize what I was asking) and said that it's hard to use a truth to prove a truth, but that he does believe that prophecy was fulfilled. His friend (I'm guessing a seminary student), said that I should start with the resurrection and then work back to the prophecy. I asked him afterword if the resurrection was a part of the prophecy and he said that while it was not clearly stated in prophecy, it was hinted at and that it was certainly a part of Jewish tradition that there would be a resurrection.
Now, if there was a tradition that the Messiah would be resurrected, that invalidates the argument that Jesus was resurrected precisely because they believed he was the Messiah. If the authors of these accounts wanted to make sure that people believe Jesus was the Messiah, it is likely that they would have made Jesus' life fit the prophecy to ensure that. He also claimed that because the Gospels agree that Jesus rose on the third day and that Mary Magdalene was the first witness, then they must be correct, especially because Mary Magdalene was a woman and women were not credible at that time (completely disregarding that the authors would have been familiar with the same story precisely because they were in the same group). He said, "why would they make that up? If it weren't true, it would have been more credible to have Simon Peter (or any man, really) be the first witness." That's an awfully weak argument. I should believe it because it's unlikely that they would have made that particular fact up? He said the same thing about the census that caused Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem. Why make up a census that could be (potentially) refuted through records? It would be a lot less difficult to make up a different reason. So we should believe because it is unlikely that something was made up. He also cited "other things" that we believe, even though we only have documents written by eyewitnesses, but he never actually named any event. It seems that he was unwilling to understand (or perhaps acknowledge) that it is easy to believe a war happened, but not so easy to believe that a man was born from a virgin or that he was raised from the dead.
Jones also said that we shouldn't throw out miracles just because they are improbable. Again, that is an incredibly weak argument. Do I honestly believe that there was a guy named Achilles whose only weakness was his ankle? Of course not, but I don't need to believe that to know that the Trojan War has some historical basis (although greatly exaggerated in the Homeric tales). I don't really have a problem with there being some historical basis for Jesus. I can easily accept that there was a person or group of people that the Biblical Jesus is based on, but that doesn't mean that I believe he was brought back from the dead or walked on water. If I want to believe that Jesus turned water into wine, I'd have to believe in alchemy.
Anyway, I'm not against Christianity, I just have issues with some Christians.
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