Holding rebutted on Trilemma
Brian Holtz
http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_03_01.html, James Holding defends the
"liar, lunatic, or lord" Trilemma of Christian apologetics. He makes the
basic mistake of classifying any proposed explanation of sincere but
deluded misbelief as "lunacy" and "Candida[cy] for Psychiatric Medication".
This is a strawman argument that ignores the sort of nuanced hypotheses of
delusion that can be found in e.g. discussions of the Trilemma by Jim Perry
and Richard Carrier. Holding writes:
If one takes oneself to be messiah, and/or divine, then
eventually one must ACT like a messiah
Yes, and Jesus did. He preached, prophesied imminent apocalypse, attracted
devoted followers, performed faith healings and exorcisms, and even had a
vision of the devil after fasting 40 days in the desert. All of these
actions are consistent with Jesus being neither liar nor lunatic, but
rather a preacher, faith-healer, and apocalyptic prophet who in the months
leading up to his anticipated execution came to the deluded belief that he
was the Jewish Messiah and even the divine savior of mankind.
If one fails in said attempts, then eventually the rug is pulled
out from underneath.
Right -- about a year into his ministry, Jesus was executed.
if Jesus went about doing the things that He did, He would have
been VERY lucky to get as far as the Crucifixion;
The gospels say that Jesus tended to consciously avoid dangerous places to
preach because it wasn't "his time". When it *was* "his time", his "luck"
didn't take last very long at all.
"and then we have the Resurrection appearances and the work of
the Apostles to explain!"
This of course is a separate issue, logically unrelated to the Trilemma.
"Bottom line: The character and nature of the claims of Jesus are
such that proof of being mistaken would all too easily come to
pass!"
And indeed it did when he was executed, and his predictions [Mt 16:28, Lk
9:27, Mk 13:30, Lk 21:32, Mt 24:34] of an imminent Second Coming failed.
I have seen no indication that ANY Messianic pretender of the
time made the same type of claims.
Richard Carrier writes in "Why I Don't Buy The Resurrection Story" 4b: "we
know for a fact that many individuals were claiming to be, or were
proclaimed to be, messiahs of one form or another in Jesus' day (Josephus
recounts several), and everyone in Judaea was looking for just this sort of
thing: God made manifest to liberate Israel--physically or spiritually.
The Danielic prophecy was likely on everyone's mind, and Josephus and
Seuetonius report that the Jews were expecting a messiah to appear in these
very decades."
How could one be mistaken about being God incarnate? [..] A
normal, healthy human psyche cannot sincerely hold the sincere
conviction of its own Godhood!
Since Jesus left no known writings, we only have the second-hand word of
evangelical Christian authors that Jesus fully held this conviction. Note
that in the earliest gospel (Mark), Jesus never calls himself
Christ/Messiah, is reluctant for his special nature to be known, and (as he
does in Matthew) despairs on the cross. It is possible that Jesus held a
growing delusion of his own importance that became a belief in his divinity
only after (or shortly before) the time of his (well-anticipated)
execution.
They had only a few hundred followers, at most; Christianity
gained thousands in just a few months!
First, we only have Christian sources for this claim. Second, gaining a few
thousand followers in an age of superstition and ignorance can hardly be
considered a guarantee of non-delusion. Indeed, delusion and charismatic
religious leadership tend to correlate with each other.
--
br...@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net
Brian Holtz
http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_03_01.html#resp1
The relevant part is included below, and my rebuttal will be posted
as a reply to this article.
--------------------- by James Holding --------------------------
The section above recently (10/2001) was the subject of a response issued
by a skeptic. As we will see the response consists mainly of vague
generalization and "hurling the elephant" (a process whereby the critic
throws summary arguments concerning complex issues, merely assuming the
large complex of ideas behind their argument to be true without
consideration of contrary data, usually because they have merely accepted
the arguments uncritically from favored sources). Let's have a look at
their responses:
I said: "If one takes oneself to be messiah, and/or divine, then eventually
one must ACT like a messiah..." The critic replied:
Yes, and Jesus did. He preached, prophesied imminent apocalypse,
attracted devoted followers, performed faith healings and
exorcisms, and even had a vision of the devil after fasting 40
days in the desert. All of these actions are consistent with
Jesus being neither liar nor lunatic, but rather a preacher,
faith-healer, and apocalyptic prophet who in the months leading
up to his anticipated execution came to the deluded belief that
he was the Jewish Messiah and even the divine savior of mankind.
The response here is superfluous, since my point is not developed here, but
later on. However, I rather wonder about the equation of "faith healings"
-- the healings described in the Gospels are of conditions that, for the
most part, were quite visible and obvious -- we are not talking about AIDS
being "cured" or legs being "lengthened" out of pant legs that are too
long; we are talking about withered arms, men born blind, lepers, and so
on. These "faith healings" would all to obviously have been able to be
recognized as failures, which is more or less the point I am making.
However, I go on to say, "If one fails in said attempts, then eventually
the rug is pulled out from underneath." The critic replies:
Right -- about a year into his ministry, Jesus was executed.
The term of Jesus' ministry was three years, not one -- the critic is here
"hurling an elephant," the uncritically accepted argument that the
Synoptics report the whole of Jesus' ministry within a year's time frame,
when in fact they give no chronological markers at all to justify this
conclusion. John's gospel gives markers that suggest a ministry of at least
three years -- and the critic will need to deal with these arguments before
he can just hum-drumly accept them for his purposes here. That said -- if
we want to speak of rugs in this context, I would reply, after the same
"sound bite" fashion: "Right indeed! And three days after the execution,
Jesus was resurrected and his divine status vindicated." But indeed, as I
say, "if Jesus went about doing the things that He did, He would have been
VERY lucky to get as far as the Crucifixion..." The critic replies with
this undocumented sound bite:
The gospels say that Jesus tended to consciously avoid dangerous
places to preach because it wasn't "his time". When it *was* "his
time", his "luck" didn't take last very long at all.
Note well: The critic provides no citations here -- this is typical
skeptical scholarship at work -- but is clearly only vaguely familiar with
the NT text and that at some point Jesus did have a "time". But the
documentation isn't on their side. I find only one reference to Jesus
hiding himself (John 8:59) and passages that refer to "the time was come
that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to
Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). No connection is made indicating that Jesus was
hiding out until it was "his time"! The critic needs to actually do some
work and document his arguments before spitting them out.
I say: "The character and nature of the claims of Jesus are such that proof
of being mistaken would all too easily come to pass!" The critic replies:
And indeed it did when he was executed, and his predictions [Mt
16:28, Lk 9:27, Mk 13:30, Lk 21:32, Mt 24:34] of an imminent
Second Coming failed.
Hear that trumpeting sound? It isn't the Second Coming; it's the sound of
an elephant flying by ater being hurled. The critic is clearly still in the
Dark Ages of critical analysis -- the passages referred to were fulfilled
in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. Let them now follow my
elephant! (We'll be doing a larger article on this subject very soon.)
Here's the most amusing portion. I wrote: "I have seen no indication that
ANY Messianic pretender of the time made the same type of claims." The
critic answers:
Richard Carrier writes in "Why I Don't Buy The Resurrection
Story" 4b: "we know for a fact that many individuals were
claiming to be, or were proclaimed to be, messiahs of one form or
another in Jesus' day (Josephus recounts several), and everyone
in Judaea was looking for just this sort of thing: God made
manifest to liberate Israel--physically or spiritually. The
Danielic prophecy was likely on everyone's mind, and Josephus and
Seuetonius report that the Jews were expecting a messiah to
appear in these very decades."
Ha ha! There's someone else quoting Carrier to not answer again! Carrier
doesn't show that anyone made the same sort of claims that Jesus did. We
don't "know for a fact" at all that anyone came up saying, "I am the
Messiah" or "I am the Son of Man" or any of that. None of the people
recorded by Josephus are recorded as saying any of this. We have people who
took some putative military action against Rome, and failed miserably, but
no claimants or claims at all -- one suggests that they might well have
made a claim had their little schemes succeeded, but it remains that
Carrier's response offers no response at all. When one must appeal to what
was "likely on everyone's mind" rather than to specifics that are
documented, one is engaging a counsel of despair indeed!
I say:" How could one be mistaken about being God incarnate? [..] A normal,
healthy human psyche cannot sincerely hold the sincere conviction of its
own Godhood!" The critic replies with a few more elephants:
Since Jesus left no known writings, we only have the second-hand
word of evangelical Christian authors that Jesus fully held this
conviction. Note that in the earliest gospel (Mark), Jesus never
calls himself Christ/Messiah, is reluctant for his special nature
to be known, and (as he does in Matthew) despairs on the cross.
It is possible that Jesus held a growing delusion of his own
importance that became a belief in his divinity only after (or
shortly before) the time of his (well-anticipated) execution.
It's easy enough to throw the implication of fabrication around, of course;
actually proving it out is something I think is quite beyond this critic's
capability. The average skeptical reader, already convinced that
malfeasance is afoot, certainly wouldn't argue and would find such
hand-waving adequate; but there are many issues to be resolved before this
can be accepted: What proof is there that these second-hand claims are not
accurate? (Merely, "bceause I don't think they are" is not adequate.) What
is it about their "second-handedness" that makes them suspect, and how does
this apply to secular works of history consistently (since they offer so
much "second hand" info themselves)? What proof indeed is there that
Matthew and John at least are not "first hand" (the critic merely assumes
the standard lines anout Gospel authorship)? If these claims were invented,
why would they be invented, and what about the historical and social
repreecussions of such invention, which are not at all in evidence?
Scholarship by sound bite may sound brilliant to the agreeable, but for
those who critically think through and sift the arguments, they are
woefully inadequate.
In terms of Mark's Gospel, there are quite a few little elephants running
around here. The idea that Mark is earliest is itself an elephant of some
assumption; see here for our growing response, which I doubt of the critic
has the ability to deal with, since it involves legwork rather than sound
bites. The idea that "Jesus never calls himself Christ/Messiah" flounders
on a few considerations: there are plenty of places where Jesus takes a
prerogative indicating such a position, even prior to the triumphal entry,
which is clearly a messianic act -- claming to forgive sins (2:5); enacting
the role of divine Wisdom by eating with sinners (2:15), claiming to be the
Son of Man (2:28, 8:31, 9:9, etc.), walking on water, which the OT says
that only God can do (4:35ff; cf. Job 9:8, Ps. 77:19); implicitly
acknowldging Peter's identification by not rebuking it (8:29ff), saying
that one's soul is dependent on one's reaction to him (8:35) and that God
us his Father, and that he will come with God's angels (8:38), a
self-reference to the Messiah (9:41), again saying belief in him is
paramount to eternal life (9:42). Even in Mark's "action" gospel wher Jesus
says comparatively little about anything, let alone about himself, there
are ample indications that he knew and proclaimed his own position. As for
"is reluctant for his special nature to be known," the critic forgets, even
as Price did, that in spite of this, the special nature did get known, and
also isn't cognizant of the social reasons for circumspection in such
claims. The critic is simply wrong about despair on the cross.
I said: "They had only a few hundred followers, at most; Christianity
gained thousands in just a few months!" Our critic replies with the same
reasoning about "Christian sources" as above and plays the bigot about
"gaining a few thousand followers in an age of superstition and ignorance"
-- playing on the pride of skeptics who think they have the intellectual
goods on the rest of the world as it is, is certainly an effective debate
tactic, but it's hard to keep that pride from being swallowed when someone
like our critic has shown this much ignorance of the background data and
has spewed forth little more than uncritically-accepted sound bites!
Brian Holtz
but he manages to quote the heart of my rebuttal without directly answering
it:
[The gospels] are consistent with Jesus being neither
liar nor lunatic, but rather a preacher, faith-healer,
and apocalyptic prophet who in the months leading up to
his anticipated execution came to the deluded belief
that he was the Jewish Messiah and even the divine
savior of mankind.
The response here is superfluous, since my point is not developed
here, but later on.
Holding's article in fact never discusses the possibility of Jesus' mental
state evolving over the course of his brief ministry, but instead goes on
at length about whether Jesus was as crazy as "Leon, Clyde, and Joseph",
three mental patients in Michigan with "severe behavioral problems" related
to their respective belief that each is Christ. ("Clyde" is even quoted as
claiming the other two were machines!) In ruling out this strawman
possibility that Jesus was "mentally deranged", "insane", "crazy", and a
"candidate for psychiatric medication", Holding fails to consider the more
plausible case of a faith healer and apocalyptic prophet with a growing
delusion that his impending death will be as a divine messianic savior.
Instead, Holding dives into a defense of Jesus' healing miracles:
the healings described in the Gospels are of conditions that, for
the most part, were quite visible and obvious -- [..] we are
talking about withered arms, men born blind, lepers, and so on.
These "faith healings" would all to obviously have been able to
be recognized as failures
Most of the afflictions Jesus is said to have cured are potentially
psychological or psychosomatic (possession, hysterical blindness or
paralysis) and thus subject to non-miraculous faith-healing. Others (fever,
chronic bleeding) are subject to natural remission. The three people Jesus
reanimates (Luke 7:15, Mark 5:39, John 11) in the gospels were only
recently deceased (if even dead at all), and pronouncement of death was not
an exact science in ancient times. Never in the gospels does Jesus raise
anyone long since dead. Never does Jesus restore a missing eye or severed
limb. Richard Carrier notes: "the closest the accounts come is: Jesus heals
the severed ear of a man who came to arrest him (Lk. 22:51), but in all the
other accounts Jesus does not heal the ear (Mt. 26:51, Mk. 14:47; and the
most detailed account, Jn. 18:10), which any historian regards as
sufficient grounds to reject a story as an embellishment."
At http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4a.html
Carrier gives a detailed survey of Jesus's healing miracles, which I
excerpt at the end of this article.
The term of Jesus' ministry was three years, not one -- the
critic is here [..] uncritically accept[ing the] argument that
the Synoptics report the whole of Jesus' ministry within a year's
time frame [..]
My understanding is that secular scholarship prefers the Synoptic timeline,
even though inerrantist Christian apologists (understandably) prefer
John's. John is the latest of the four gospels, and Encyclopedia Britannica
notes: "Scholars offer several good reasons, however, to support the
assumption that the Synoptic outline still deserves to be preferred to the
widely differing one in John. [..] It is doubtful that John is based on an
independent tradition, because the indications of time referred to serve
the Evangelist as a means of changing the scene of Jesus' ministry between
Jerusalem and Galilee."
But indeed, as I say, "if Jesus went about doing the things that
He did, He would have been VERY lucky to get as far as the
Crucifixion..." The critic replies with this undocumented sound
bite:
The gospels say that Jesus tended to consciously avoid
dangerous places to preach because it wasn't "his
time". When it *was* "his time", his "luck" didn't take
last very long at all.
Note well: The critic provides no citations here -- this is
typical skeptical scholarship at work -- but is clearly only
vaguely familiar with the NT text and that at some point Jesus
did have a "time". But the documentation isn't on their side. I
find only one reference to Jesus hiding himself (John 8:59) and
passages that refer to "the time was come that he should be
received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke
9:51). No connection is made indicating that Jesus was hiding out
until it was "his time"! The critic needs to actually do some
work and document his arguments before spitting them out.
Holding, who delights in insulting skeptics for their insufficient
scholarship concerning Holding's own holy book, can "find only one
reference to Jesus hiding himself". In thirty minutes' search I was able to
raise that total to five:
Jn 7:1 "After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely
staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to
take his life."
Jn 8:59 "At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus
hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds."
Mt 12:14-15 "But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they
might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place"
Mk 3:6-7 "Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the
Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Jesus withdrew with his
disciples to the lake"
Luke 13:31,33 "some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him,
'Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill
you.' He replied, '[..] In any case, I must keep going today and
tomorrow and the next day--for surely no prophet can die outside
Jerusalem!'
So the fact remains that in the gospels Jesus tended to consciously avoid
danger.
"If one fails in said attempts, then eventually the rug is pulled
out from underneath." The critic replies:
Right -- about a year into his ministry, Jesus was
executed.
[..] I would reply, after the same "sound bite" fashion: "Right
indeed! And three days after the execution, Jesus was resurrected
and his divine status vindicated."
My "sound bite" reports the consensus of professional secular scholarship.
Holding's "sound bite" simply assumes the gospels are completely true. My
point remains: Jesus's ministry was relatively short, the reports of his
feats have plausible naturalistic explanations, he often avoided danger, he
"could not do any miracles" in his hometown (Mk 6:5, Lk 4:24), and he at
times was considered mad by his family (Mk 3:21) and other Jews (Jn 10:20).
So even by the gospels' presumptively biased accounts, Jesus' brief term of
"divinity" was fragile at best, and "the rug" was indeed "pulled out from
underneath" at Golgotha.
I say: "The character and nature of the claims of Jesus are such
that proof of being mistaken would all too easily come to pass!"
The critic replies:
And indeed it did when he was executed, and his
predictions [Mt 16:28, Lk 9:27, Mk 13:30, Lk 21:32, Mt
24:34] of an imminent Second Coming failed.
The critic is clearly still in the Dark Ages of critical analysis
-- the passages referred to were fulfilled in 70 AD with the
destruction of Jerusalem.
This can be rebutted simply by quoting the passages:
Mt 16:28 Some who are standing here will not taste death before
they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
Lk 9:27 Some who are standing here will not taste death before
they see the kingdom of God.
Mk 13:30, Lk 21:32, Mt 24:34 ["At that time men will see the Son
of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory."] This
generation will certainly not pass away until all these things
have happened.
Holding notes that he'll "be doing a larger article on this subject very
soon". It's not clear how an article of *any* size can equate the
destruction of Jerusalem with seeing the Son of Man in clouds coming in his
kingdom.
Richard Carrier writes "we know for a fact that many
individuals were claiming to be, or were proclaimed to
be, messiahs of one form or another in Jesus' day
(Josephus recounts several) [..]
[..] saying, "I am the Messiah" or "I am the Son of Man" or any
of that. None of the people recorded by Josephus are recorded as
saying any of this [..] We have [..] no claimants or claims at
all [..]
So we have Holding's word against Carrier's. Given Holding's inability
(above) to find and report all the relevant passages in his own sacred
gospels, I'm not inclined to take his word for it that no passages in
Josephus can substantiate Carrier's statement.
I say:" How could one be mistaken about being God incarnate? [..]
A normal, healthy human psyche cannot sincerely hold the sincere
conviction of its own Godhood!" The critic replies with a few
more elephants:
Since Jesus left no known writings, we only have the
second-hand word of evangelical Christian authors that
Jesus fully held this conviction. Note that in the
earliest gospel (Mark), Jesus never calls himself
Christ/Messiah, is reluctant for his special nature to
be known, and (as he does in Matthew) despairs on the
cross. It is possible that Jesus held a growing
delusion of his own importance that became a belief in
his divinity only after (or shortly before) the time of
his (well-anticipated) execution.
It's easy enough to throw the implication of fabrication around,
of course; actually proving it out is something I think is quite
beyond this critic's capability.
Here Holding attacks a strawman (1) with an ad hominem and an unreasonable
burden of proof (2):
1. Belief in "fabrication" by the authors of the gospels is not strictly
necessary to doubt their accuracy. The gospels are probably the result of
some combination of misinterpretation, exaggeration, rationalization,
delusion, deception (of, if not by, the authors' sources) -- i.e., the
processes that typically drive the development of myths.
2. The near-impossible task of "proving" fabrication is not necessary to
consider it (along with these other processes) to be the most likely
explanation for the gospel story.
What proof is there that these second-hand claims are not
accurate?
Holding seems to think that inconsistent second-hand religious
proselytizations are to be taken as accurate merely because there is no
"proof" they are not.
What is it about their "second-handedness" that makes them
suspect, and how does this apply to secular works of history
consistently (since they offer so much "second hand" info
themselves)?
Secular works of history typically are not "written that you may believe"
that somebody is divine "and that by believing you may have life in his
name" [Jn 20:31].
What proof indeed is there that Matthew and John at least are not
"first hand" (the critic merely assumes the standard lines anout
Gospel authorship)?
Is any acceptance of professional secular scholarly consensus a "mere
assum[ption]"? Does Holding "merely assume the standard line" that America
declared independence in 1776?
If these claims were invented, why would they be invented, and
what about the historical and social repreecussions of such
invention, which are not at all in evidence?
I never said that Jesus' belief in his own divinity was an "invention" by
the gospel authors or their sources. On the contrary, Jesus probably held a
growing delusion of his own importance that led to a belief in his outright
divinity only after (or shortly before) the time of his (well-anticipated)
execution. It also seems likely that after the crucifixion, everything the
disciples could remember Jesus saying was interpreted as supporting his
divinity. Such misinterpretation and exaggeration are not the same thing as
"invention".
The idea that "Jesus never calls himself Christ/Messiah"
flounders on a few considerations [..]
Of course, none of these considerations are statements by Jesus like "I am
God", "I am divine", "I am Yahweh", "I am the Son of God", "I am the
Christ/Messiah", because no such statement exists in Mark. Instead, Holding
says "Jesus takes a prerogative indicating such a position", and cites his
forgiving sins, eating with sinners, and "walking on water, which the OT
says that only God can do". Does Holding really think that the Mark's
reciting of such a fantastic claim should convince a skeptic that the
historical Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, believed at any point in his
life that he was divine?
Holding cites Jesus' use of the mysterious title "Son of Man", and refers
to an entire essay of his on the issue of whether Jesus was using the title
to claim divinity. The fact that there is so much debate over how firmly
Jesus claimed divinity makes it at least plausible that a) Jesus was not
always convinced of his divinity, and b) some of his stronger claims of
divinity in the gospels are later misinterpretations and interpolations.
As for "is reluctant for his special nature to be known," the
critic forgets, even as Price did, that in spite of this, the
special nature did get known, and also isn't cognizant of the
social reasons for circumspection in such claims.
Holding thus acknowledges Jesus' said reluctance, but seems unable to
consider the possibility that it was due to his lack of conviction in his
divinity. Holding's linked essay says there are "at least three social
reasons why Jesus had to be circumspect in His proclamations of divinity",
but only gives two.
First, the term "Messiah" was a loaded one. As shown in the
Gospels, some who concluded that Jesus was the Messiah wanted to
make Him a king by force. This would have been contrary to Jesus'
salvific mission [..]
Since Jesus' salvific mission required revealing his divinity, it's not
plausible that his omnipotence did not allow him any way to overcome such a
meager obstacle. While it's not logically impossible that this is how a
deity would bring salvation, it's more plausible that this is how a
faith-healing ex-carpenter-turned-prophet would put off making claims that
he knew he couldn't live up to.
Second, [..] only God could declare who the Messiah was. By this
line of thinking, "Any self-designation only proves that the
proclaimer cannot be the Messiah". Thus, Jesus' relative silence
on the issue "may well be an implicit indication that he thought
of himself as the Messiah."
It's more likely an explicit indication that Jesus was not convinced he was
God. If Jesus were in fact God, he would by Holding's reasoning be eligible
to declare who the Messiah was: himself.
The critic is simply wrong about despair on the cross:
http://www.tektonics.org/crosscry.html
In the linked article Holding pre-emptively excuses any despair on the
cross as due to Jesus's nature as "fully God and fully man", akin to his
eating and bleeding. Of course, eating and bleeding are not cognitive acts,
and so the analogy fails -- unless Holding is going to claim that Jesus had
not only two natures but two minds. Holding also compares Jesus's despair
to his weeping for Lazarus. Holding has apparently not considered the
possibility that the historical Jesus really thought Lazarus was dead until
it was later discovered that the historical Lazarus was in fact not dead.
Then, oddly enough, Holding discards this argument and instead claims
Jesus's cry of apparent despair is actually an "eschatological sign"
referring to Psalm 22, which begins with the same cry but ends in triumph.
Apparently for Holding, the crucified Jesus is somehow unable to use in its
literal sense any phrase that begins a Psalm (or perhaps any phrase from
the entire Old Testament!). It's more plausible that the crucified Jesus
was a mortal ex-carpenter whose shattered delusion of divine favor led him
to despair.
The idea that Mark is earliest is itself an elephant of some
assumption; see here for our growing response, which I doubt of
the critic has the ability to deal with
Regardless of my "ability" (or ad hominem assertions of lack thereof), I
do indeed lack the inclination to rehash what appears to be a settled
conclusion of secular scholarly consensus -- especially since it has so
little to do with the validity of the Trilemma.
I said: "They had only a few hundred followers, at most;
Christianity gained thousands in just a few months!" Our critic
replies with the same reasoning about "Christian sources" as
above and plays the bigot about "gaining a few thousand followers
in an age of superstition and ignorance" -- playing on the pride
of skeptics who think they have the intellectual goods on the
rest of the world
Holding gives no counter-argument here, just an ad hominem complaint. He
seeks to rule out of bounds any characterization of ancient times as more
superstitious and ignorant than our own -- without daring to deny the
characterization.
it's hard to keep that pride from being swallowed when someone
like our critic has shown this much ignorance of the background
data and has spewed forth little more than uncritically-accepted
sound bites!
Holding closes with yet another insult. I instead will turn the other cheek
and recite all his other insults without reply:
The critic needs to actually do some work and document his
arguments before spitting them out.
The critic is clearly still in the Dark Ages of critical analysis
[..] proving it out is something I think is quite beyond this
critic's capability
[..] response, which I doubt of the critic has the ability to
deal with
Our critic [..] plays the bigot
Brian Holtz
http://humanknowledge.net
-------------------------------------------------------
At http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4a.html
Carrier gives a detailed survey of Jesus's healing miracles:
[A]ncient "leprosy" [was] a term which was not limited to the modern
ailment, but included all cases of scaly, scabby, or rough skin--symptoms
which are likely to accompany a depressed immune system or a depressed
person who is not taking care of himself. A rise in spirits can lead to
healing or better care. This is of great interest because of the unusual
multitude of lepers that appear in the gospels, indicating that this was
seen by that culture as a legitimate illness, making it a certain target
for the subconscious to mimic.
All those healed by Jesus show classic psychosomatic symptoms: severe
"pain," "pseudoepilepsy" (the "demon-possessed" and some of those having
seizures), and "paralysis" (which would also include some of those
suffering seizures, since permanently seized limbs would be placed in this
category). Not only do the illnesses cured fit psychosomatic conditions,
but we have reason to believe that Jesus was a placebo, since faith in his
ability was necessary for successful healing, e.g. "he did not do many
miracles there because of their lack of faith" (Mt. 13:58, Mk. 6:5), and
Jesus healed with statements which prime patients for a placebo response:
"daughter, your faith has healed you" (Mk. 5:34), "don't be afraid, just
believe" (Mk. 5:36), "everything is possible for him who believes" (Mk.
9:23). It follows that, given what little we know, we are quite justified
in regarding these healings as unmiraculous.
Consider the evidence: none of the illnesses cured possessed any clearly
organic ailments, e.g. no severed limbs, no bloody wounds, no visible
sores, etc. The closest the accounts come is: Jesus heals the severed ear
of a man who came to arrest him (Lk. 22:51), but in all the other accounts
Jesus does not heal the ear (Mt. 26:51, Mk. 14:47; and the most detailed
account, Jn. 18:10), which any historian regards as sufficient grounds to
reject a story as an embellishment; "a man with leprosy" who was "cleaned"
by Jesus (Mt. 8:2-3, Mk. 1:40, Lk. 5:12; cf. also the ten lepers 17:12ff.),
but as I've already noted "leprosy" tells us little about what the actual
symptoms were, and the use of the terminology of "cleaning" fits with a
psychosomatic skin ailment; "a woman subject to bleeding for twelve years"
(Mt. 9:20, Mk. 5:25, Lk. 8:43), although a symptom like this which persists
for so long yet does not kill the patient is suspiciously like a
psychosomatic condition (the term can also be used to refer to hemorrhoids
or a chronic period, both of which can have a psychogenic origin), and we
have no record of whether the bleeding was genuine beforehand, or whether
it continued again later, or even whether it was an organic ailment that
healed naturally, responding to placebo treatment. Similar problems stand
for the "man blind from birth" (Jn. 9:1) since we have no way of knowing
whether that is a true description of his symptom--indeed, it seems we have
the account from the blind man and his family (9:20), and since he was
making a living as a beggar (9:8), they might all be inclined to exaggerate
or invent his condition. Moreover, the Jews who investigate (9:13ff.) never
even touch upon issues of evidence or diagnosis, but are just as
superstitious as the believers (9:34), so we know there was no useful
critical examination of the claim.
Even despite these cases, all the other "illnesses" healed fall solidly
within the camp of psychogenesis: a "paralyzed" servant "in terrible pain"
(Mt. 8:6; note how these symptoms are thought to entail that he was "about
to die," Lk. 7:2), a "fever" (Mt. 8:14, Mk. 1:30, Lk. 4:39; for another
case, cf. Jn. 4:52), "demon-possessed men" (Mt. 8:28, Mk. 1:23-26, 1:32,
5:2-10, Lk. 4:33, 4:41, 8:27ff., ), "a paralytic" (Mt. 9:2, Mk. 2:3, Lk.
5:18), a girl in a coma ("sleeping" Mt. 9:24, Mk. 5:39, Lk. 8:52), "blind
men" (Mt. 9:27, 20:30, Mk. 8:22-5, 10:46ff., Lk. 18:35ff.), a man who was
"demon possessed and could not talk" (Mt. 9:32), another whose symptoms are
all classically pseudoepileptic (Mk. 9:17-8, Lk. 9:39), a boy who "has
seizures and is suffering greatly" (Mt. 17:15), "a man who was deaf and
could hardly talk" (Mk. 7:32), a man "whose right hand was shriveled"
(which is a perfect description of a psychogenically "seized" limb, Lk.
6:6), and a woman who was "bent over and could not straighten up" (Lk.
13:11). Jesus even goes to a regular "placebo" healing center (a magic
"pool") where "the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed" go to be healed, and
there he cured an "invalid" (Jn. 5:1ff.). There were also "dead men"
brought to life (Lk. 7:15; and Lazarus, Jn. 11:44), but we are not told how
they died or what condition they were in and thus cannot count on the
diagnosis of death. It was fairly easy to be mistaken for dead (Shorter
describes psychosomatic cases of apparent death, pp. 130-4), and the scene
described in Luke 7:15 is actually identical to various stories told about
famous doctors to justify their renowned skill (Pliny Natural History
7.124, Apuleius Metamorphoses 2.28, 3.24, 10.12 and Florida 19). In the
case of Lazarus, the witnesses anticipate a rotting smell (Jn. 11:39), but
there is no evidence that such a smell was confirmed after the tomb was
unsealed. Thus, we can reasonably conclude that these accounts have ample
natural explanation. We would only be able to prove it if we had a time
machine, but that does not prevent us from adopting what amounts to a ready
and reasonable explanation (see also my discussion of the Lazarus example
as used by Corduan). Certainly, there is insufficient evidence here to
justify calling these events "miracles." And this shows how scientific and
historical analysis, not philosophical arguments, can lead someone to
conclude that natural explanations are better than supernatural ones.
-------------------------------------------------------
JeffMo
>James Holding has posted a reply to my critique at
>http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_03_01.html#resp1
>The relevant part is included below, and my rebuttal will be posted
>as a reply to this article.
>
>--------------------- by James Holding --------------------------
>
>The section above recently (10/2001) was the subject of a response issued
>by a skeptic. As we will see the response consists mainly of vague
>generalization and "hurling the elephant" (a process whereby the critic
>throws summary arguments concerning complex issues, merely assuming the
>large complex of ideas behind their argument to be true without
>consideration of contrary data, usually because they have merely accepted
>the arguments uncritically from favored sources).
I enjoyed reading your article, Brian. And I also enjoyed your
explanation about "hurling the elephant." To be completely fair, I
noted many claims in your own writing which might be considered just
as "elephantine" as your unnamed skeptic.
I won't profess to know all the ins and outs of the arcane world of
Biblical scholarship, but I still believe that you should take a step
back and realize that you are talking about very old writings with a
heaping helping of mythic content and ex post facto editing. Each and
every statement of yours that depends on "knowledge" gleaned from the
Bible about what Jesus may or may not have done in the real world
suffers from the same need to consider the contrary data. Any given
passage in the Bible can only constitute extremely weak evidence in
favor of any particular event which you would like to advocate, at
least without corroboration from other sources.
JeffMo
Brian Holtz
"JeffMo" <jef...@dipstick.cfw.com> wrote
> "Brian Holtz" wrote:
>
> >James Holding has posted a reply to my critique at
> >http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_03_01.html#resp1
> >The relevant part is included below, and my rebuttal will be posted
> >as a reply to this article.
> >
> >--------------------- by James Holding --------------------------
> >
> >[..] the response consists mainly of vague
> >generalization and "hurling the elephant" [..]
>
> I enjoyed reading your article, Brian.
As I tried to indicate, the article you read was a response by Holding
to me, and not by me at all. I posted my rebuttal to it yesterday.
> I also enjoyed your
> explanation about "hurling the elephant."
Yes, when a skeptic accepts or cites the secular scholarly consensus on a
given issue, Holding tends to insult him for being "uncritical" and not
doing original scholarship. I don't think Holding is merely employing a
rhetorical tactic in demanding a re-examination of every aspect of
the secular scholarly consensus. Holding actually has no choice but to
do just this, because his inerrantist view of the Bible requires a
near-total replacement of secular historical scholarship with the
rickety and creaking interpretive scaffolding of fundamentalist
Christian apologetics. I think the implicit goal in this apologetic
exercise is not to convert skeptics or even change the scholarly
consensus, but rather to establish a bible-based worldview that is
relatively free of self-contradiction, even if it is hopelessly
disconnected from the normal standards of historical and scientific
scholarship. Only with such an elaborate and necessarily disconnected
worldview can Holding reconcile his cherished biblical inerrancy with
his need to feel intellectually rigorous.
Of course, the price he pays for this approach is the inescapable
cognitive dissonance caused by seeing the secular scholarly consensus
remain diametrically opposed to his views on precisely those issues
on which he takes guidance from the Bible. I've ask him the following
questions about this, but all he's said is that he might get around
to writing an article on this for his web site some day.
If you believe that the evidence for your god is compelling, how
do you explain that it is not accepted by so many otherwise reasonable
people? Why do so many people claim that the evidence for some other
(incompatible) god is compelling? What other thesis so important and
compelling (e.g. heliocentrism, evolution) defied general consensus
for this long? In how many years do you expect there will be a
consensus for your position as widespread as that supporting (say)
heliocentrism? (Your answer must include either include the word
'never' or a numerical year plus-or-minus a confidence range.)
Do you think there will ever be any compelling new evidence for
your god, such as new miracles or physical corroboration of your
holy text?
> every statement of yours that depends on "knowledge" gleaned from the
> Bible about what Jesus may or may not have done in the real world
> suffers from the same need to consider the contrary data.
Remember, inerrantists claim that inerrancy is a *conclusion*, not a
premise. In their minds, they think they've skeptically examined all
the evidence, and say that the only possible explanation is that the
Old and New Testaments are inspired and literally truths from
Yahweh, who created the universe and then 15 billion years later decided
to help Abraham slay the Canaanites and take their lands.
--
br...@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net
JeffMo
>
>As I tried to indicate, the article you read was a response by Holding
>to me, and not by me at all. I posted my rebuttal to it yesterday.
Damn. Sorry. My mistake. I wholeheartedly apologize.
JeffMo
Brian Holtz
http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_03_01.html#resp1 to respond to my
previous rebuttal. Here (again) I post in full Holding's additions to his
article. I will reply in a subsequent posting.
------------- The following text is by James Holding -------------
[I]n a second response, our critic argues that this article "never
discusses the possibility of Jesus' mental state evolving over the course
of his brief ministry." Of course it doesn't -- there is no evidence that a
condition as serious as the "Christ complex" is an evolving condition.
Moreover, if it were, one would expect an increase in mental derangement
resulting in a sliding scale of claims; yet this is not what we see at all
-- the claims of Jesus are the same, and just as clear, from the beginning
of his minstry to the end. The idea of a "growing delusion" is a fantasy
that is unsupported by any of the data in the Gospels, and is also not
supported by our critic in terms of providing a parallel in psychology.
[Jesus's] "faith healings" would all to obviously have been able to be
recognized as failures, which is more or less the point I am making. In
response to this the critic now leans again on Carrier, and says:
Most of the afflictions Jesus is said to have cured are
potentially psychological or psychosomatic (possession,
hysterical blindness or paralysis) and thus subject to
non-miraculous faith-healing. Others (fever, chronic bleeding)
are subject to natural remission. The three people Jesus
reanimates (Luke 7:15, Mark 5:39, John 11) in the gospels were
only recently deceased (if even dead at all), and pronouncement
of death was not an exact science in ancient times. Never in the
gospels does Jesus raise anyone long since dead. Never does Jesus
restore a missing eye or severed limb. Richard Carrier notes:
"the closest the accounts come is: Jesus heals the severed ear of
a man who came to arrest him (Lk. 22:51), but in all the other
accounts Jesus does not heal the ear (Mt. 26:51, Mk. 14:47; and
the most detailed account, Jn. 18:10), which any historian
regards as sufficient grounds to reject a story as an
embellishment."
Obviously the issue of "possession" is one that is a matter of faith either
way; but what's this nonsense about "hysterical" blindness or paralysis?
None of the subjects said to be blind or paralyzed show any evidence in the
texts of having been "hysterical" -- this is strictly a supposition of the
critic. In other words, they must yet again postulate additional data to
make their thesis work; they must also denigrate ancient people and insult
their intelligence (re the reanimations) and call a writer a liar outright.
(Again, if reportage in just one source of any detail -- no matter how
"spectacular" a critic thinks it is, based on their own subjective
judgments -- is "sufficient grounds to reject" an element as an
embellishment, then reams of material in parallel accounts across the board
must likewise be "rejected." In my parallels of Lincoln biographies, one in
particular contains much more detail that the other three bios do not
report; some of this material left unreported, even concerning the same
event, while not on the scale of a miracle, is of such "importance" that
one could easily construct plausible arguments accusing the single writer
of "embellishment." If this argument is going to be used, it needs to be
applied and proven, not merely thrown in the air to the cheers of those who
happen to like it!)
A few words are needed on some commentary from Carrier offered. It
addresses leprosy and refers to the "unusual multitude of lepers that
appear in the gospels," but this seems a mathematical miracle; the only
lepers in the gospels are the group of ten in Luke 12:17 (living on a
social group for the sake of survival as we might expect); the one man
healed of leprosy (Luke 5:13 and parallels), and Simon the leper (Matthew
26), who wasn't even healed. That's only 12 lepers, which doesn't seem like
much of an "unusual multitude"; Carrier's following comment about the
disease being "a certain target for the subconscious to mimic" not only is
not supported by the numerical data, but also seems to suggest that the
ancients desired to be in this condition!
We have already agreed that certain healing miracles could fit a
"psychosomatic" explanation, and yet, one is constrained to ask if it isn't
rather too convenient to psychologize persons not personally known and
removed from us by such a distance. At any rate I would not exclude the
psychologically ill from Jesus' care, and there is still a real problem to
be cared for, one which only the best-trained psychologists doing close
experiments have dealt with today. Was Jesus trained to the level of these
modern psychologists?
Carrier offers more "skeptical paradigm" solutions to other healings,
mainly interpreting or explaining away as many of them as psychosomatic as
possible, but also suspecting that the man born blind wasn't really that
bad off, and that maybe his family was exaggerating his condition to make
some dough. When you can't refute the evidence, character assassination is
a handy tool, and easiest when the assassinated are already dead. We are
told that the story in Luke 7 "is actually identical to various stories
told about famous doctors to justify their renowned skill," which is very
nice and what we would expect from a physician writing an account, but what
does literary style have to do with historicity? In the case of Lazarus,
Carrier is desperate enough to suggest: "...the witnesses anticipate a
rotting smell (Jn. 11:39), but there is no evidence that such a smell was
confirmed after the tomb was unsealed." Sure -- it was just the touch John
needed to record everyone yelling, "PAYEEEEEE-UUUUUU!"
The gospels say that Jesus tended to consciously avoid dangerous
places to preach because it wasn't "his time". When it *was* "his
time", his "luck" didn't take last very long at all.
Note well: The critic (in the first response) provides no citations here --
this is typical skeptical scholarship at work -- but is clearly only
vaguely familiar with the NT text and that at some point Jesus did have a
"time". But the documentation isn't on their side. I find only one
reference to Jesus hiding himself (John 8:59) and passages that refer to
"the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his
face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). No connection is made indicating that
Jesus was hiding out until it was "his time"! The critic needs to actually
do some work and document his arguments before spitting them out; and he
sure tried -- he comes up with four other cites, not one of them referring
to "hiding":
Jn 7:1 "After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely
staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to
take his life."
Mt 12:14-15 "But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they
might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place"
Mk 3:6-7 "Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the
Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Jesus withdrew with his
disciples to the lake"
Luke 13:31,33 "some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him,
'Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill
you.' He replied, '[..] In any case, I must keep going today and
tomorrow and the next day--for surely no prophet can die outside
Jerusalem!'
Oopsy! Our critic is either playing games here or still hasn't learned how
to read! The cites from Matthew and Mark describe the same event, right
after the healing of a withered arm in the synagogue. Do we have a major
"skeedaddle" here? Hardly! Where did Jesus go? He left "that place" -- what
place? Most likely the synagogue; he went, where? Mark says to the lake,
the Sea of Galilee, which is what Capernaum (where the synagogue) is right
on the shore of. Matthew doesn't get this specific, but he does have Jesus
rapping with Pharisees in the very next set of pericopes! If this is
"hiding out" then it wasn't done very well!
The cite from Luke is rather silly: After saying this, Jesus doesn't leave
for Jerusalem until much later (17:11)! Either Jesus wasn't running, or the
threat wasn't real! That leaves John 7:1, but then in the very next few
verses, Jesus does go to Jerusalem! So, zero for four on the new guesses,
folks, and still no concrete pattern of avoidance -- to the contrary, an
overall tendency to defy the danger -- and still no connection to a "time"
when things would be right! (And let's keep in mind, when I say, "if Jesus
went about doing the things that He did, He would have been VERY lucky to
get as far as the Crucifixion...", I'm not just talking about him being
killed! The prospective actions of a would-be Messiah would involve a VERY
high "attempt to failure ratio" if the claimant didn't actually have the
goods! Enough failed healings, enough teachings offending the local
Pharisees, enough of any risk, and you're Messianic campaign is doomed to
mass failure of the sort that doesn't satisfy the problem of Christian
origins! For more on this, see my reply to Robert Price here and the
comparison to Sabbatai Sevi.)
Concerning the "sound bite" above, our critic shows his mettle by appealing
yet again to "consensus of professional secular scholarship." Oh well, no
critical analysis yet again...
I say: "The character and nature of the claims of Jesus are such that proof
of being mistaken would all too easily come to pass!" The critic replies:
And indeed it did when he was executed, and his predictions [Mt
16:28, Lk 9:27, Mk 13:30, Lk 21:32, Mt 24:34] of an imminent
Second Coming failed.
Hear that trumpeting sound? It isn't the Second Coming; it's the sound of
an elephant flying by after being hurled. The critic is clearly still in
the Dark Ages of critical analysis -- the passages referred to were
fulfilled in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. Let them now follow
my elephant! (We're developing a larger set of articles on this subject at
this time. Our critic says: "It's not clear how an article of *any* size
can equate the destruction of Jerusalem with seeing the Son of Man in
clouds coming in his kingdom." Hey, that's the problem with people who
don't do their homework!)
Richard Carrier writes "we know for a fact that many\par
individuals were claiming to be, or were proclaimed to be,
messiahs of one form or another in Jesus' day (Josephus recounts
several) [..]
Our critic doesn't provide examples in reply, but makes light of my alleged
"lack of knowledge" above on Jesus "hiding," then says he's "not inclined
to take [my] word for it that no passages in Josephus can substantiate
Carrier's statement." That's it, don't do your own research -- but it's not
Carrier vs. Holding, it's Carrier vs. J. C. O'Neill, author of Who Did
Jesus Think He Was?, my source for the information. Let is be stressed here
that there is no doubt that there were those who tried to instigate some
eschatological sign, and may well have claimed divine power was in the
offing from them, but the key words "I am Messiah!" are never recorded, and
given the broad conceptions of the Messiah as one who was a political or
religious leader, but not necessarily divine, we are talking about more
than just "I am Messiah" here -- I am also referring to Jesus' other divine
claims, such as those we list in Mark above, and the claim to be God's
Wisdom. Does Carrier have any candidates who made that claim?)
[O]ur critic throws out a skeptical faith-spiel to bring tears to the eyes
of Farrell Tills worldwide. I am said to be asking "an unreasonable burden
of proof" because:
1. "Belief in 'fabrication' by the authors of the gospels is not strictly
necessary to doubt their accuracy. The gospels are probably the result
of some combination of misinterpretation, exaggeration,
rationalization, delusion, deception (of, if not by, the authors'
sources) -- i.e., the processes that typically drive the development
of myths." In other words, let's throw another elephant in the ring,
since the first one slipped and landed on top of us! Never mind
proving any of these individually, or making critical comparisons;
just throw out enough uncertainties to make the skeptical audience
happy and be done with it! The same goes for this one:
2. "The near-impossible task of 'proving' fabrication is not necessary to
consider it (along with these other processes) to be the most likely
explanation for the gospel story." The scent of vague generalization
hangs heaily here, intermixed heavily with elephant! We are told:
"Holding seems to think that inconsistent second-hand religious
proselytizations are to be taken as accurate merely because there is
no 'proof' they are not." Inconsistent? By cracky, where's that study
of variations among oral tradition, comparisons to other parallel
accounts of the same event by ancient historians, the study of the
principles of redaction criticism? Here's my little elephant: the
Lincoln bios. Explain to me why these works, inconsisent, second- and
third-hand, attempts to make Lincoln look like a great guy, should be
taken as accurate, or not, on that basis! (Our critic naively says,
"Secular works of history typically are not 'written that you may
believe' that somebody is divine 'and that by believing you may have
life in his name' [Jn 20:31]." No, but they are always written with
some sort of point of view to pose; John at least is straightforward
in his intent! And may we ask, if indeed there was good news such as
this to report, how would our critic expect John or others to report
it without being accused of having an agenda to the point of
fabrication?!? I smell the circular reasoning of a skeptic behind this
complaint!)
3. Regarding Matthew and John above, we are told: "Is any acceptance of
professional secular scholarly consensus a 'mere assum[ption]'? Does
Holding 'merely assume the standard line' that America declared
independence in 1776?" I wouldn't, if I had investigated the arguments
for independence in 1776 and found them full of holes. Our
enterprising critic shows little propensity for engaging specifics
(for he ignores completely the link in the paragraph below) but here's
another. I would be especially interested in any commentary on how the
Gospels would have to be dated late, and attributed to other than
their stated authors, in light of the criteria applied to secular
documents of the same period like Tacitus' Annals.
4. Regarding my comment about clainms being invented, our critic
responds: "I never said that Jesus' belief in his own divinity was an
'invention' by the gospel authors or their sources." Then what is the
point of specifying that we only have second-hand word, and Jesus left
no writings of his own? Our critic backpedals mightily to avoid a
collision with specifics: "On the contrary, Jesus probably held a
growing delusion of his own importance that led to a belief in his
outright divinity only after (or shortly before) the time of his
(well-anticipated) execution." This is a fanciful interpretation, but
it finds no evidence in the consistent portrait across the board in
the Gospels, much less is any relevant evidence given from the
psychological field. I have my Rokeach; where is the reply? "It also
seems likely that after the crucifixion, everything the disciples
could remember Jesus saying was interpreted as supporting his
divinity. Such misinterpretation and exaggeration are not the same
thing as 'invention'." If that is the case, then our critic needs to
do a systematic study of all of the claims of Jesus (as I analyze them
here), and explain their "non-divinity" interpretation plausibly
within the proper socio-religious context, and then explain how the
misunderstandings came about. Of course our critic cannot and will not
do this; see below.
In response to [his claim that in the earliest Gospel Mark "Jesus never
calls himself Christ/Messiah"], our critic offers little substantive as
usual. Instead, for the cites in Mark, he takes the path of least
resistance, denial: "Does Holding really think that the Mark's reciting of
such a fantastic claim should convince a skeptic that the historical Jesus,
the carpenter from Nazareth, believed at any point in his life that he was
divine?" So the critic is indeed claiming bald fabrication, and as before,
begging the very question at issue. (Indeed, this is rather odd in light of
complaints that Jesus nowehere says something like, "I am God/Messiah"!
What's to stop our critic saying in such cases, "Does Holding really think
that the Mark's reciting of such a fantastic statement should convince a
skeptic that the historical Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, believed at
any point in his life that he was divine?" In other words, what kind of
proof would be acceptable, not shrugged off as fabrication and not taken as
too miraculous to be believed?!?) Regarding my essay on the Son of Man
title, our critic offers this crust of bread: "The fact that there is so
much debate over how firmly Jesus claimed divinity makes it at least
plausible that a) Jesus was not always convinced of his divinity, and b)
some of his stronger claims of divinity in the gospels are later
misinterpretations and interpolations." Ha ha! No, let's not study that
data and weigh the arguments; let's just argue that the controversy and
discussion equates with uncertainty! Does our critic really think that his
reciting of such generalizations should convince a surveyor of the relevant
literature that he deserves any attention? Are we expected to listen to
someone who says that they " lack the inclination to rehash what appears to
be a settled conclusion of secular scholarly consensus"? And to think that
all this time skeptics have been telling me, "Don't let others do your
thinking for you!"
Regarding the comment about Price, our critic states: "Holding thus
acknowledges Jesus' said reluctance, but seems unable to consider the
possibility that it was due to his lack of conviction in his divinity.
Holding's linked essay says there are 'at least three social reasons why
Jesus had to be circumspect in His proclamations of divinity', but only
gives two." The latter is an editing issue which I have now corrected; as
for "acknowledging" it, yes I did, but as I showed, it made no difference!
And again, our critic appeals to is as yet not even proven to be a
psychological possibility: How could one "lack conviction" in one's
divinity? If one "lacks conviction" of this, then one (if still sane) does
not keep doing things to suggest one's divinity (within the Jewish
context), or make claims about one's divinity; one gives up and gets on
with life. If one is not sane, then it is not possible to have the
cognitive ability to "lack conviction" in the first place! (I will respond
to our critic's issue re the two reasons for circumspection, and the cry
from the cross, within the respective essays, other than this point:
"[Perhaps] Jesus really thought Lazarus was dead until it was later
discovered that the historical Lazarus was in fact not dead." This is no
more than that skeptical circular reasoning at work again, explaining
things within the assumed paradigm without bothering with the details or
issues that come as a result.)
I said: "They had only a few hundred followers, at
most;\par Christianity gained thousands in just a few
months!" Our critic [..] plays the bigot about "gaining
a few thousand followers in an age of superstition and
ignorance" [..]
Holding seeks to rule out of bounds any characterization of
ancient times as more superstitious and ignorant than our own --
without daring to deny the characterization.
Our critic makes much of my not "denying the characterization" of the
ancients -- to which I say, there is no more need to deny it than there is
to deny the characterization of Jews as usurers or the characterization of
African-Americans as lazy and slothful!
----------- The preceding text is by James Holding -----------