my challenge to isjesusalive.com

Today I sent the following challenge to the person or persons who post to the isjesusalive.com website:

my challenge to Timothy and Lydia McGrew

 I posted the following in the comment section to a YouTube video wherein Dr. McClatchie interviews Dr. Lydia McGrew and Dr. Timothy McGrew, here.

Barry Jones

if Lydia McGrew denies that her ceaseless loquaciousness constitutes the sin of word-wrangling which Paul prohibited in 2nd Timothy 2:14, will Lydia provide a few examples of fictional dialogue which she thinks DO constitute the sin of word-wrangling?  The Greek term merely means to fight over words, and since Paul left this unqualified in the context, I'm not seeing an academic basis to object to the interpretation which says it was precisely what we routinely see in modern scholarly Christian apologetics, that Paul was calling "word-wrangling.  That might be a fatal blow to Christianity, but so what?  There are arguments that are fatal to Mormonism, does that justify the Mormon to insist those arguments are false?

How does Lydia McGrew reconcile her undeniably mouthy nature, with those Proverbs that leave no logically possible room for mouthy people to be free of foolishness?

Proverbs10:19When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.

Proverbs 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Will Lydia argue that in the social context of the Proverbs author, speaking thousands of words literally every day was normal, therefore, because Lydia doesn't speak thousands of words everyday, she's under the limit?

What would you do if you found out that reasonableness can sometimes exist even where accurate belief doesn't (e.g., you think other Christians are wrong in their eschatology, but you refuse to call them unreasonable)?  Would you become open to the possibility that resurrection skeptics might be reasonable even if their basis for skepticism is inaccurate belief?

How long does god want me to study the differences between Christian and non-Christian scholars on the resurrection of Jesus (e.g., McGrew v. Licona;  Ehrman v. W.L. Craig) before God will demand that I start drawing ultimate conclusions?  If you don't know, don't you forfeit the right to balk if I answer those questions for myself in a way you don't like?  

What rule of historiography requires those investigating ancient truth claims to believe the declarations first and not assume fraud or error until the declaration can be proven to contradict other known realities.  Don't say "Aristotle's Dictum", Josh McDowell was lying about that, it never existed, and it is never even mentioned by non-Christian historians.  And since when do Christian apologists recommend unbelievers follow the advice of pagan idolater?  But if there is no such rule of historiography, then it must be reasonable to conclude that skeptics are not violating any rule of historiography if they choose to completely disregard any and all forms of bible study.

Suppose God wanted me to study 1st Corinthians 15 starting tomorrow at noon my time zone.  What can I reasonably expect him to do to alert me to this aspect of his will?  A stranger bringing up that chapter in conversation?  A bible hits my windshield and it is opened to 1st Cor. 15?  What exactly, and how do you know God would act that way to get my attention?  How do you know when my failure to notice God's attempts to get my attention become unreasonableness on my part?  Will god alert me to this part of his will with the same obvious undeniability that the neighbor does when he says "hello"?

If it be true that not even spiritually alive people can correctly figure out biblical matters, wouldn't you have to be a scorching stupid fool to pretend that you expect spiritually dead atheists to do better at discerning biblical truth?  Or did I forget that Lydia McGrew violates 1st Cor. 2:15 by objecting like an atheist and saying "Being spiritually alive has zilch to do with it."   http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2017/10/on_some_examples_in_plutarch.html

Posted by Lydia | November 14, 2017 5:15 PM

What is unreasonable about my demand that if God wants my attention, he stop being silent and start doing miracles?  I've already contacted the apologists like Craig Keener who hawk modern day miracles the most, with an offer to give me the one modern miracle they think is most impervious to falsification, and I'm getting no answers.  https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-questions-to-dr-craig-keener.html

Lydia will say I would deny God even if he did a miracle, but that's not true.  I've disagreed with my bosses in the last 20 years, and personally hated some of them, but I still performed whatever lawful task they asked of me because I respected the fact that they were rightfully in a position of power over me.  So it wouldn't matter if I 'hated god', that does not justify you to dogmatically conclude that surely God would be wasting his time doing a miracle for me.  You actually don't know that, and there's plenty of evidence in your bible to the contrary.  Paul was more antagonistic toward Christianity than most modern atheist bible skeptic trolls, but Lydia must confess that God's miracle convinced Paul to change his mind.  Have fun pretending that you "know" that God views the conversion of Paul as a "special exception" which "doesn't normally apply".  You don't know that.  It could just as easily be that we never see  confirmation of conversions similar to Paul's because Paul's conversion story is fiction in the first place.

If it is reasonable to require that the more you entrust yourself to somebody else's care, the more strict the tests of authentication their claims to trustworthiness must pass, then what is unreasonable with the skeptical argument that says because my decision to accept Christ will affect where I spend eternity, the proofs for the trustworthiness of the bible must pass the strictest possible tests of authenticity?   My guess is you'd confess to losing that particular debate, since too many Christian  scholars deny the apostolic authorship of the gospels to pretend that they have any reasonable chance of passing the "strictest possible" authentication tests.  When I demand that Matthew appear to me and confess to his authorship of Matthew, is that stupid because I'm asking for a miracle of the sort the bible says happened (Matthew 17:3, Acts 16:9), or is it stupid because Lydia McGrew agrees with skeptics that we all know miracles are too unlikely to justify asking god to do them? 

Would a skeptic be stupid to make sure his book was historically reliable, while doing nothing about the fact that thousands of people disagree on how to correctly interpret it?  Then what shall we say of a god who makes sure his bible is demonstrably historically reliable, but does nothing to provide them a demonstrably correct interpretive key?  All Christian scholars admit the relevance of grammar, immediate context, larger context, social context and genre, yet apparently, when you employee these just as much as the next Christian scholar, you cannot avoid arriving at interpretations they disagree with.  What's wrong with the skeptical theory that God wants people to believe the bible is historically reliable, but doesn't want Christians to obey 1st Cor. 1:10?  It doesn't matter if it contradicts the bible, it sure does look like it is supported by obvious reality...unless you  insist that the only reason other Christians disagree with your interpretations of the bible is because they are not sincere in asking God to guide them.

If "god's ways are mysterious" doesn't sound convincing to you when a Calvinist or a Sabellian uses it to get away from a problem created by their theology, why should I find that excuse compelling when YOU use it to get away from a problem created by YOUR theology?  Is it written in the stars that sacramentalism is the right form of Christianity?

Is it reasonable to infer from the fact that Lydia McGrew and Mike Licona disagree on how to argue the resurrection, that one of these people is not as receptive to the Holy Spirit as the bible says they should be?  Or does Lydia deny that the Holy Spirit enlightens those who walk in the light of Christ?  If God has his reasons for refusing to enlighten some of his sincere followers, then how could you ever pretend that a skeptic's false understanding of the bible is unreasonable?  

Can it be reasonable for a skeptic to agree with the Christian scholarly majority that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels to be published?  Can it be reasonable for the skeptic to agree with the Christian scholarly majority that authentic Markan text ends at 16:8.  If so, then how could it possibly be unreasonable for the skeptic to draw the inference that the earliest gospel never said anybody actually saw the risen Christ?  How could the skeptic be unreasonable to draw the further inference that the stories of resurrection eyewitnesses in the later 3 gospels are the result of fictional embellishment with the passing of time?

 

Demolishing Triablogue: Jason Engwer fails to show that Jesus' brother James ever became a Christian in the first place

 This is my reply to Jason Engwer's attempt to bolster the notion Jesus' brother James believed Jesus rose from the dead. 

The Gospels' Agreement About James And Corroboration Of Other Sources In a post yesterday, I discussed agreements among the early sources regarding the apostles. Some evidence that's often neglected in that context is what the gospels tell us about Jesus' brother James. I've discussed their material on him elsewhere. Something I don't believe I've discussed here before, though, and it's something that doesn't seem to get much attention in general, is James' position in the lists of Jesus' siblings in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. Notice that the two lists are different, and there are some differences in the surrounding context, so it's not just a matter of Matthew's copying Mark, Mark's copying Matthew, or both's copying some other source. What I want to focus on here, though is how they list the names of Jesus' brothers in a different order, yet agree in putting James first. As I've mentioned before, the order in which names appear in a list can be determined by a wide variety of factors. James could be listed first because he was the oldest brother of Jesus. Or it could be because he was the most prominent for whatever other reasons. Or it could be both. Maybe James was the most prominent, which was partly because he was the oldest and partly because of one or more other factors. Whatever the cause of his being listed first in both documents, that's consistent with his prominence elsewhere.

"consistent with"?  Gee, what lawyer can't show that his lying client's testimony is "consistent with" other facts?  You need to show that your theory has greater probability than the theory you disagree with.   

He's prominent in Acts, much more prominent than the other siblings listed with him in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

No, the only "James" who is "prominent" in Acts is the James of Acts 15 and Acts 21, neither of which express or imply he is the brother of Jesus...while two of the original 12 disciples of Jesus were named "James" and thus make better candidates.  Especially given that you can't even show that Jesus' brother James ever even became a Christian in the first place.  Inerrantist Christian scholar T. George is far less impressed with Galatians 1:19 than you are:

George, T. (2001, c1994). New American Commentary, Vol. 30: Galatians. On p. 74 he says: 

1:19 Paul claimed that he saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of Jesus. The expression is ambiguous in Greek, so we cannot be sure whether Paul meant to include James among the other apostles. Did he mean: “The only other apostle I saw was James,” or “I saw no other apostle, although I did see James”? Probably he meant something like this: “During my sojourn with Peter, I saw none of the other apostles, unless you count James, the Lord’s brother.”

Engwer continues:

He's the only sibling of Jesus mentioned by name in the resurrection appearances discussed in 1 Corinthians 15.

What makes you think the unqualified "James" in 1st Corinthians 15 is specifically the brother of Jesus, when in fact there were two different Jameses among the original 12 apostles, who would be better candidates, especially given that you cannot even show James ever became a Christian to begin with? 

He's the only brother of Jesus mentioned in Galatians 1-2

No, the James of 1:19 is not clearly equated with the apostles, as inerrantist Christian scholars admit, supra, and the "James" of Galatians 2 is unqualified in context, and the mere fact that the brother James was mentioned in the prior chapter by no means "requires" that the unqualified James mentioned in ch. 2 is the same person. 

and the only one named anywhere in Paul's letters. Jude identifies himself in connection with James (Jude 1),

Brother to which James?  He doesn't say, and the most we can reasonably infer is that he was probably talking about a James who was some type of church leader.  And the two Jameses among the original 12 apostles certainly qualify for that position far more than Jesus' brother of the same name.

but James sees no need to appeal to a relationship with any of his brothers in his letter.

And you don't know which James wrote that letter, so your theories and why he doesn't state any biological relation to Jesus are nothing that could possibly threaten the reasonableness of the skeptical position that says the James who wrote that book is too obscure to justify dogmatic pronouncements about his identity. 

This sort of greater prominence James had, in comparison to his brothers, is corroborated by the passages in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

No, they merely mention James first, and you admitted that could just as easily be due to his being older, but now, you shove all that aside and blindly insist his being mentioned first can only imply he was a Christian leader. 

Several years ago, I wrote an article addressing why the gospels don't include any reference to the resurrection appearance to James. I said that the best explanation for their not including the appearance to James is a desire to be consistent with their previous focus on Jesus' earliest followers and a desire to honor those earliest disciples.

A better theory for that silence is that Jesus' brother James never saw a risen Christ, a theory you could prove wrong from the bible or Josephus, which means the theory must remain reasonable. 

You can read the article just linked for a further discussion of that subject and others that are related. I want to note here, though, that since one of the gospels that doesn't include the appearance to James is Luke, there's an implication that Luke wanted to honor Jesus' earliest disciples above individuals like James in the manner I just described. That's significant in light of the fact that some people deny that Luke viewed James as an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry. I've argued that Luke 8:19-21 probably alludes to his unbelieving status.

I prefer, as do most conservative apologists, John 7:5 and Mark 3:21 to document Jesus' brother James thinking Jesus' miracles were fake. And let's not forget the bizarre Mark 6, where the people of his own hometown are angry for his doing a miracle, and he admits even those of his own household were his "enemies".  Your 'explanation' for why his family members didn't believe in him before the crucifixion, is utterly laughable...they were too blinded by their hope in a military messiah to appreciate the obvious ramifications of Jesus' miracles! LOL. 

But even if we didn't have that passage, or even if my view of it is wrong, I think the absence of any reference to the resurrection appearance to him is best explained if he was an unbeliever in the relevant timeframe.

Agreed.  Now you need to explain what's so unreasonable about the skeptical theory that says the reason James was an unbeliever during Jesus' pre-cross ministry, is because he didn't think Jesus' miracles were genuinely supernatural.  That theory is obviously reasonable, and similarly explains why lots of Christians stop following "faith-healers".  It's not like you know enough about this brother of Jesus to "prove" that he held any "military messiah" hope, or that if he did, held it so strongly that he blinded himself to obvious reality.

And if he did blind himself to obvious reality, that constitutes a legitimate impeachment of his general credibility, which cannot be erased merely by screaming that he became a believer.  Peter was stupid during his time with Jesus and even afterward, apparently.

Even if I'm wrong about both of these matters, the meaning of the Luke 8 passage and the absence of the appearance to James, there has to be some reason why all of the gospels don't mention that appearance. And that's further common ground they have about James.

In light of inerrantist Christian scholar's unlikely admissions about the ambiguity of Galatians 1:19, I say Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 not only tell us THAT this James was an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry, but they support the inference that he probably didn't find Jesus' miracles' to be genuinely supernatural.

James Patrick Holding: Libelous according to his own website domain provider InMotion Hosting

Recently i sent the following email to the company hosting the website that Holding had used to libel me, InMotion Hosting, the website that forms a large part of the current libel lawsuit:
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request for removal of a libelous website you are hosting
Barry Jones <barryjoneswhat@gmail.com>
Thu, Jul 16, 3:43 PM
to quality, abuse, legal

Hello,

Your Acceptable Use Policy prohibits your customers from posting libelous information to the websites you host:

from https://www.inmotionhosting.com/acceptable-use-policy

4. Prohibited Uses

---c. Utilize the Services in connection with any tortious or actionable activity. Without limiting the general application of this rule, Customers and Users may not:
Utilize the Services to publish or disseminate information that (A) constitutes slander, libel or defamation, (B) publicizes the personal information or likeness of a person without that person’s consent or (C) otherwise violates the privacy rights of any person. Utilize the Services to threaten persons with bodily harm, to make harassing or abusive statements or messages, or to solicit the performance of acts or services that are illegal under applicable law.

Before that, you said:

The Acceptable Use Policy below defines the actions which IMH considers to be abusive, and thus, strictly prohibited. The examples named in this list are non-exclusive, and are provided solely for guidance to IMH customers. If you are unsure whether any contemplated use or action is permitted, please send mail to abuse@InMotionHosting.com and we will assist you. Please note that the actions listed below are also not permitted from other Internet Service Providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by IMH, or connected via the IMH network. Furthermore, such services may not be advertised via deceptive marketing policies, as defined by the Federal Trade Commission Deception Policy Statement.

So one reasonable interpretation of this would be that you will remove any content from any website you host, if you feel that content to be libelous. What else is implied by the phrase "strictly prohibited"?

My name is Christian Doscher. I am suing James Patrick Holding for libel.
Doscher v. Holding, Florida Middle District, 6:19-cv-01322

My prior lawsuit against him proceeded upon many of the same facts published at the same website:
Doscher v. Apologetics Afield, et al, 6:19-cv-00076

That suit is currently being appealed. 11th Circuit: Doscher v. Apologetics Afield, et al, Case No. 20-10736-

The vast bulk of Mr. Holding's libelous statements are found on a website you host:

http://www.lawsuitagainstjamespatrickholding.com/

I initiated the latest lawsuit with a 170-page complaint, see attached. All of the statements about me on that website are libelous either in direct fashion, or by juxtaposition, or by failure to disclose relevant facts thus giving a defamatory impression. You can tell from reading the site that Mr. Holding has perused Court records to gratify his insatiable appetite for spite. While I have not yet sought the sealing of my prior court records, Holding's use of these judicial records is contrary to the Courts' intent:

from Giuffre v. Maxwell, 325 F. Supp. 3d 428, 440 (Dist. Court, SD New York 2018):

Every court has supervisory power over its own records and files, and access has been denied where court files might have become a vehicle for improper purposes" such as using records "to gratify spite or promote scandals" or where files might serve "as reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption." Nixon v. Warner Commc'ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 598, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978); see also Amodeo II, 71 F.3d at 1051 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) ("Courts have long declined to allow public access simply to cater to a morbid craving for that which is sensational and impure.").

It appears from your own articles that your company tends to be "Christian" or to view Christianity favorably:

https://www.inmotionhosting.com/employment/latest-news/imh-gives-back

Jesus said slander is a sin that comes from the heart:

19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 "These are the things which defile the man; (Matt. 15:19-20 NAU)

The apostle Paul required you to disassociate yourself from any so-called Christian 'brother' who engages in the sin of "reviling":

11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:11-13 NAU)

This is a request that you remove the website http://www.lawsuitagainstjamespatrickholding.com/ from public access until this suit is resolved.

I strongly suggest you read the attached Complaint in full before you respond. All of the trifles you might have about ways to spin the website's statements so that they are not necessarily libelous, are false. Holding has no immunity, he cannot use the "opinion" defense, he cannot prove the "truth" of the libels, the libelous statements actually are false in every way that case law says statements can be libelous, and the suit was filed within Florida's two-year statute of limitations. The only reason my prior identical libel lawsuit against Holding didn't go to trial was because the judge falsely accused me of failing to follow the rules, an order that is currently being appealed (but the order of dismissal was "without prejudice" thus allowing me to file the same case again). So not even the prior dismissal can possibly suggest the current suit lacks merit.

Rest assured, Mr. Holding's website contains properly actionable libel, and no trifle of law is going to save him this time. You could not possibly do anything bad, and you could only do good, by removing that website from public access until this case is resolved.

I will be happy to answer any question you might have about the possible truth of the statements. You can become better informed of the best arguments thereto by contacting Mr. Holding's lawyer Scott A. Livingston at:

slivingston@cplspa.com
201 East Pine Street Suite 445 Orlando, Florida 32801
Phone: 407-647-7887

Thank you for your understanding.

Christian Doscher
barryjoneswhat@gmail.com
Attachments area





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This was InMotion Hosting's reply:

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[IMH Legal] #3187: Update to 'request for removal of a libelous website you are hosting'

Inbox

x

InMotion Hosting Legal Admin Team <legal-trac@inmotionhosting.com>

Tue, Jul 21, 4:32 AM

to

[External] Hello, We have reviewed the account and have confirmed that the material or materials listed in the complaint were still present.  

The account has now been suspended. 

At this time we have closed this complaint. 

Our office hours are from 9 AM to 9 PM, Monday through Friday, Eastern time. If you have additional questions or concerns you may respond to this message and we will address those matters. Your correspondence will be responded to in the order that it was received so please allow 1-2 business days to receive your response. Best Regards,InMotion Hosting Legal Admin Team

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The "Complaint" with which I've started the new libel lawsuit against Holding (the one which convinced InMotion Hosting that Holding had violated their terms of service, is 170 pages long, and conclusively proves that Holding has committed perjury in Court at least 10 times, as well as shows that all comments about me which Holding uploaded to that website and elsewhere, were indeed libelous "per se".  Download Complaint here.

Maybe the world's smartest Christian apologist can now "explain" why InMotion Hosting's law firm are "dumbasses" or "idiots" or "morons" for finding his excuses unpersuasive, you know, the epithets that he hurls against anybody else who dare to disagree with his stupid pretentious trifling bullshit.

Or maybe you should ask him whether he plans to make good on his previous threat to simply move the content on the website to another domain, should the first domain remove the material in question.

Or maybe you should ask him how you can be sure your donations to him aren't being used to pay his lawyer to fight this lawsuit.  But read the downloaded Complaint, supra, first, as Holding appears to the be type that will lie about his finances when he thinks he won't get caught.

you can contact Holding at tektonics.org, or his email jphold@att.net

Why Triablogue's endlessly trifling bullshit cannot possibly matter

Triablogue's Jason Engwer puts a shitload of effort into trying to prove that the Enfield Poltergeist was real.

He does this so that he can then prove atheism wrong.

But as I've noted before, my skepticism of Jesus' resurrection renders the alleged wrongness of atheism irrelevant.

Even supposing atheism is wrong, that doesn't mean "atheist is in trouble with the Christian god".

All it means is that a god exists.

Since 

a) the apostle Paul said Jesus' failure to rise from the dead would turn Christians into false witnesses who are still in their sins (1st Cor. 15:15), and

b) I continue beating down the way Engwer, Hays, Licona, Habermas and W.L. Craig interpret the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, 

it really doesn't matter if a god exists, the fact that I am reasonable to deduce this god is not the Christian god creates the stark possibility that the Christians are in just as much trouble with this god for misrepresenting him, as they think atheists are for denying his basic existence.

Before you can leap from "you are wrong" to "you are unreasonable", you have to show that the being wrong is more likely to lead to some type of disaster.  But if the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is as unpersuasive and weak as I claim, the best the apologists could possibly be left with is that there is some "god" out there, so that atheists remain wrong even if it be reasonable to deny Jesus rose from the dead.

At that point, whether that god even cares whether anybody misrepresents him or denies him, would be forever open to blind speculation, except for trifling Christians who would automatically default to the OT god upon discovery that the NT is bullshit.

But according to Deut. 13, even when the prophet does a real miracle, he STILL might be leading people into error, and therefore, such miracle-worker would STILL suffer the wrath of this god.  

That is, according to the OT principle, Jesus' miracle of rising from the dead does NOT end the discussion of whether the OT god approves of him.  But I have yet to see any Christian argument that the OT YHWH approves of Jesus, they rather think his resurrection miracle is the end of the debate.

They also blindly insist that because Jesus uses the divine title, he IS YHWH, a contention that has kept the church divided since even before the Council of Nicaea.

Therefore, the Christians are getting precisely nowhere by wasting such enormous amounts of time trying to prove atheism wrong, or that a spiritual dimension exists, or that physicalism is false.  Atheists don't start becoming unreasonable unless their being in the wrong can be proven to have likely disastrous consequences.  Sure, I might be wrong to say Japan is located in Australia, but unless you could show that this wrongness will likely lead to harmful effects on myself, you are never going to "prove" that I "should" care about being wrong.  

I'm pretty sure that Bigfoot is a hoax and was never anything more than a fairy tale and a man in a monkey suit...but why should I care if that is wrong and the creature is a genuine cryptid?    Does Bigfoot denial have a history of causing skeptics to get the flu more often than the average person?

Because the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is poor, and because the NT doctrine of eternal conscious torment in the afterworld contradicts the OT concept of god's justice, the atheist has no reason to 'worry' about atheism being 'wrong', at worst they will experience nothing more than permanent extinction of consciousness, a fate they already accept.  Pissing off god is about as fearful as pissing off a puppy.

Therefore, trying to prove atheism is wrong is a fruitlessly and purely academic waste of time (i.e., has no serious application to anybody's actual life beyond mere idle intellectual curiosity, and is equal to trying to prove somebody else wrong about whether the Trojan War ever happened).

There's a possibility that angry space aliens will zap you...but how much effort should an atheist put into protecting herself from such disaster?  Maybe always wear a radar-deflecting hat?

There's a possibility that a wild animal will kill the atheist after they walk in the front door of their house, but how much effort should the atheist put into protecting herself from such possible disaster?  Maybe peek in every window before going in the house, or installing motion detectors?  FUCK YOU.

There's a possibility some "god" will roast atheists alive in hell forever, but how much effort should the atheist put into protecting herself from such disaster?  Maybe spend the next 50 years trying to figure out which view of God is correct so they don't end up joining the wrong cult and end up making things worse for themselves by adding the sin of heresy to their existing sin of unbelief?  FUCK YOU.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  in light of god's hiddenness on the one hand, and the Christian apologist's mouthiness on the other, it appears Christian apologists love atheists more than their own god does.  Irony never sucked quite as much as that.

My YouTube reply to Gary Habermas and Jesus' Resurrection

I posted the following comment in reply to Gary Habermas' video summarizing his "minimal facts" argument (See video here). The comments are preserved here since there is a chance that comment will be deleted from the YouTube channel:

-----------------------------


If Habermas were being prosecuted for murder on the basis of documents authored within the last couple of years that contain the same types of ambiguities of authorship and unknown levels of hearsay present in the gospels and Paul's 1st Cor. 15 "creed", he would be screaming for the charges to be dropped for lack of evidence.


in Galatians 1:1, 11-12, Paul specifies that when he received the gospel, it was by telepathic communication from god, and he specifies this did not involve input from any other human being. So since Paul doesn't qualify the sense of "what I received" in 1st Cor. 15:3, it is perfectly reasonable to interpret 1st Cor. 15:3 in the light of Paul's more specific comments in Galtians, and thereore interpret his phrase in Corinthians to mean "For I passed on you to that which I received apart from any human being..." If that is reasonable, then this "creed" has nothing to do with other human beings, and loses its historical value accordingly.


Since most Christian scholars deny the authenticity of Mark's long ending, the skeptic is reasonable to conclude that authentic Mark stops at 16:8, and therefore the author did not see any apologetic value in telling the reader that the risen Christ actually appeared to anybody. The mere fact that Mark has Jesus sometimes predict his resurrection appearances, doesn't count as resurrection appearances.


Since most Christian scholars say Mark was the earliest gospel, the skeptic is reasonable to conclude that the earliest form of the gospel did not allege that the risen Christ was actually seen by anybody.


Matthew with his being the longest gospel of the canonnical 4 was extremely interested in recording reams of data on what Jesus said and did, obviously. So a skeptic would be reasonable to conclude that the reason this Matthew provides for the reader no words from the resurrected Christ beyond 15-second speech from the risen Christ (28:18-20), Matthew wasn't "compressing" anything, Matthew wished to give the impression this is ALL the risen Christ said. But Acts 1:3 necessarily implies, by saying Jesus appeared to the apostles over a period of 40 days speaking things concerning the kingdom of god, that Jesus had more to say to the apostles than merely a 15 second speech. And since this was allegedly "things concerning the kingdom of God", a theme Matthew is obviously interested in, it is highly unlikely Matthew is merely "choosing to exclude" from his gospel speeches that the risen Christ made. If the risen Christ taught "things concerning the kingdom of God", a person interested in that specific topic, like Matthew, would more than likely, in light of his willingness to quote Jesus extensively elsewhere, gave the reader those speeches, had he thought Jesus spoke such things. So the skeptic is quite reasonable, even if not infallibly so, to conclude that the later version we get in Acts 1:3 is an embellishment.


Matthew's brevity suggests his account is earlier, and therefore, the story from Luke's later account that has Jesus say more than what could be said in a 15 second "Great Commission", is the embellished account.


Generously assuming obviously false presuppositions of apostolic authorship of the gospels, there are only 3 resurrection accounts in the bible that come down to us today in first-hand form; Matthew, John and Paul. Every other biblical resurrection testimony is either hearsay or vision. You won't find too many legitimately credentialed historians who will say you are under some type of intellectual compulsion to give a shit about ancient hearsay. I'd go further and say Christianity's need to tromp through ancient histority and implicate the rules of historiography, might be a fun mind game, but does not place an intellectual compulsion on anybody to believe or provide a naturalistic explanation. Juries today often deliberate for weeks after being given evidence in Court of a crime that occurred within the last year. What fool is going to say that 2,000 year old evidence of questionable authorship and origin is "clear"?


Conservative Trinitarian evangelical scholars often admit that Matthew and Luke "toned down" the text that they copied from Mark. The only reasonable interpretation of such viewpoint is that Matthew and Luke did not believe Mark's gospel was inerrant. While the inerrantists who adopt markan priority might deny this interpretation, that's exactly where their logic leads. If the math professor says 2+2=5, i don't humbly ask him to explain himself, I call him a fool and presume my own knowledge to justify giving a definitive adjudication.


If Habermas were on trial for murder, and the only witness against him was some guy who claimed he was physical flying into the sky solely by divine power when he looked down and saw Habermas pull the trigger, Habermas would not be asking the Court for a jury instruction telling them they can consider the viability of supernatural explanations, he would be screaming his head off that such a witness is entirely lacking in credibility, and the murder charge should be dropped for lack of evidence. While that makes good common sense, Paul himself, 14 years after the fact, still didn't know whether his flying into the sky was physical or spiritual. See 2nd Corinthians 12:1-4. Yet Habermas wants people to think Paul should be taken seriously (!?). Yeah, maybe I'll also take Gnosticism seriously!


Skeptics are also reasonable to simply ignore Christianity even if they believe it true, since the case for eternal conscious torment (the fundamentalist interpretation of biblical "hell") is exceptionally weak, and therefore, skeptics have no reason to expect that God's wrath against them will involve any more danger to them than the permanent extinction of consciousness that they already expect at physical death. This is especially supportive of apathy toward Christianity when we remember that god gets extremely pissed off at people who join the wrong form of Christianity (Galatians 1:8-9). If the skeptic is already in some type of "trouble" with god, might make more sense to play it safe and not make a "decision for Christ" that could very well cause that skeptic to suffer the divine curse even more.


Let's just say Haberas's "minimal facts" are closer to laughable than convincing, for skeptics like me who actually know what we are talking about.


Find your freedom from the shackles of religious "grace" at my blog, where I steamroll Christian apologetics arguments like a brick through a plate glass window. https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/

My new warning to another follower of James Patrick Holding

Hello, Mr. Holding and his attorney Mr. Livingston:  As you can tell, I'm frightened of the prospect of litigating a defamation lawsuit against Holding.  So much that I even asked the Court to stop delaying its ruling on your pending motion to dismiss.  Here's another one of my recent messages to somebody who recently betrayed their ignorance of Holding's true nature.

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At Holding's YouTube channel and in reply to one of his starstruck followers, I posted the following

I noticed your flattering words to James Patrick Holding lately.  I'd like to therefore inform you of something you apparently didn't know about.

1st Corinthians 5:9-11 requires the Christian to disassociate themselves from any so-called 'brother' who is immoral, and one example of immorality Paul cites there is "reviler".  To "revile" means to slander, or hurl abusive speech toward. 

 11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:11-13 NAU) 

Did you notice that last verse?  Yeah, apparently Paul thinks Christian 'brothers' who go around reviling others, are "wicked".  Paul there was quoting or paraphrasing from Deu 13:5; Deu 17:7, Deu 17:12; Deu 21:21; Deu 22:21, all of which require the "wicked" person to be killed.  I'm not saying Holding should be killed, I'm only informing you that under your own Christian logic, God views the 'brother' who goes around reviling others, as steeped in sin and having serious issues that attention-deficit YouTube cartoons likely aren't going to fix.

Ephesians 5:4 prohibits filthiness, silly talk, coarse jesting, and since you appear to know Holding' s history, you hardly need to be told that most of it consists of filthiness, silly talk, coarse jesting, etc.

Colossians 3:8 forbids anger, wrath, malice, slander, and more, and since you appear to know Holding's history, you hardly need to be told that most of it consists of anger, wrath, malice and slander.

Holding's obvious love of "exposing" those who criticize him would also constitute the sin of "gossip", and this would be yet another reason you'd be required, as a Christian, to disassociate yourself from him: 

 19 He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, Therefore do not associate with a gossip. (Prov. 20:19 NAU) 

Paul includes "gossip" among the list of other sins he "fears" he will find when he visits the church in Corinth.

 20 For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; (2 Cor. 12:20 NAU)

Gee, Holding's ministry over the last 20 years could never be fairly characterized as "strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances..." could it?

My blog reveals communications from Habermas, Blomberg and other legitimate Christian scholars who formerly publicly endorsed Holding, who did not know Holding was such a foul-mouthed  asshole.  They have withdrawn their public endorsement of him.  They also told me that they see no biblical justification, whatsoever, for today's Christian engaging in insults against their critics.   That is, not even Holding's few spiritual mentors think he correctly understands basic NT ethics.  How sad is that?

Just how much of a "reviler" is Mr. Holding?  That brings up the subject of my having sued him multiple times for libel/slander:

In 2015, I sued Mr. Holding for libel.  He escaped on a technicality, but only after paying more than $20,000 in legal fees...and only after I forced him to disclose numerous private emails and messages he engaged in with others, wherein he slandered me even more...messages which for obvious reasons he would never have disclosed unless I had forced his nose to the legal grindstone.  That is, I am reasonable to believe Holding's slanders aren't limited to what he says publicly, and its nothing but blind luck if I manage to uncover otherwise unknown instances of defamation.

In 2016, I sued him a second time for libel, again, he escaped on a technicality.  Both times he successfully avoided having to answer the charges on the merits.  That's what "escape on a technicality" means.

You might figure that even rabid pit bulls become dissuaded to continue biting after they are jack-hammered to hell and back.  Not so.  After paying $20,000 to escape the first lawsuit, and luckily escaping the second, both due to technicalities, Holding, like a mentally deranged pit bull, continued slandering me anew.

And that's not the worst part.  Holding continued slandering me despite drawing his own firm conviction in 2015 that I was "dangerously mentally unstable". 

Do you know anybody who intentionally provoke dangerously mentally ill people in the hopes that they will fly into a rage and end up in jail?  If you know Holding, then you'll unfortunately have to answer "yes".

So In 2018, I sued him for libel a third time, the court refused to dismiss the case finding that if my claims were true, they would justify jury trial for damages.  The Court expected us to begin the expensive process of exchanging discovery and evidence without ruling on Holding's pending motion to dismiss.   He was forced to hire a lawyer, the suit is not going to be dismissed, and he will end up paying probably another $20,000, at the very least, just to defend himself.   That is, Holding's obstinate nature is so extreme, he will not change his illegal ways even if they end up forcing him to give up most of his retirement nest egg.  one can only wonder how his wife, who is otherwise a good person and unrelated to this mess, feels about her own savings being wasted on lawyers because of her husbands utterly unstoppable mouth.

Try thinking that one over for a while before you donate money to his "ministry".  Perhaps you should ask Holding to setup a paypal donation link for his wife's bank account, she really doesn't want her hard earned money going to pay for stupid sins that she had nothing to do with.

It might behoove you to engage in a bit of critical thinking and research before you extol Holding's virtues too much more:  The bible does not support the stupid juvenile delinquent premise that a Christian "teacher" is qualified to be a teacher merely because they've memorized a lot of information about apologetics.  In light of the bible verses cited above, it's clear that the Christian "teacher" also needs to be walking in the light of Christ (i.e., not living in sin, such as adultery, or in this case, the sin of 'reviling' that Paul puts on equal footing with other sins that the OT required the death penalty for).  Such slanderers cannot be morally qualified for the office of teacher if they are going around committing the sin of "reviling".

Perhaps the saddest part is that Holding is so obstinate, he has never apologized for any of his slanders, including the most recent ones which justified the third lawsuit that is currently in litigation.  Which tells us that he has also never repented of those sins, likely because he is too thick-headed to realize they are indeed "sinful" acts.  Jesus said something about how, if the light that is in you is darkness, the depth of that darkness would be unfathomable.

Gee, how hard would it be to show that a Christian teacher, who refuses to repent of obvious sin, is thus disqualified from being a Christian teacher?

You can find at my blog the original 97-page Complaint that started the latest lawsuit

https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/01/james-patrick-holding-unconscionable.html

I will email you the Amended version if you wish.

If you take exception to my accusation that Holding is a biblically disqualified foul-mouthed idiot, I will also email to you, if you wish,  the Complaint from the 2015 lawsuit, and the Complaint from the 2016 lawsuit.  These extensively document my  claim that Holding engages in the repeated sin of filthiness, reviling, slander, libel, defamation, coarse jesting, silly talk, etc, etc, and often doing so in a manner that sounds like a demended 5-year old who has found it funny and exciting to repeatedly refer to people using disgusting sexual metaphors and defecation.

Those Complaints also document my claim that Holding is in fact a closet-homosexual.  For an introduction to such evidence, see

https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017_05_13_archive.html

I have made numerous attempts to get other Christians to initiate the Matthew 18 process (a brother must admit their sin, and if several attempts fail, you are to view them the way 1st century Jews viewed Gentiles and tax-collectors), and nobody seems to care, despite how obvious it is that Holding loves certain sins, has no plans to repent of them and plans to continue committing them with impunity into the foreseeable future.  I have to wonder, as a skeptic, when "conservative" evangelical leaders like Licona, Blomberg, Habermas, express such apathy toward one of their own brothers engaging in persistent sin, whether this would count as a legitimate argument against Christianity.  After all, if I should become a Christian, I could become as smart as those men, maybe even as smart as Holding himself, yet I would STILL foolishly ignore certain biblical mandates that apply to modern-day Christians...perhaps proving that "getting saved" or "confessing Christ" involves no  greater degree of 'transformation' than does confessing Mormonism.

Finally, Holding  quoted the Context Group for years to help justify his stupid contention that it is biblically "good" or "moral" to slander those who criticize his beliefs, but the Context Group has disowned him three times, saying he gives Christianity a bad name, nobody should listen to him, and that he "perverts" their scholarship.

see    https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/05/blog-post.html

While I take something of a risk in revealing the gory details to Holding's followers, I'm hoping that instead of spreading his libels further, you will use these materials to research Holding, make the obviously correct decision to confront him about these obvious sins, and admonish him that until he repents of his reviling slanderous acts, other Christians are very reasonable to view him as the wicked immoral 'brother' whose reviling slanderous mouth requires you to disassociate yourself from him.  1st Corinthians 5:11-15, supra.

Sincerely,

Christian Doscher

barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

My challenge to Brian Chilton on the "creed" of 1st Corinthians 15:3-8

Brian Chilton wrote an article in which he extolls the reliability of the "creed" most scholars see in 1st Corinthians 15:3-4.

I replied to him, (see here)and we so far had a few exchanges that seem to indicate Brian doesn't wish to get into a discussion about the people who are the alleged source of this creed.  Here's what we've said so far as of June 19, 2019.  Some others also posted:
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UPDATE:  June 20, 2019
Look for the update at the end, Mr. Chilton seems to think that the cause of truth is served better if he deletes my citation to scholarly sources, shuts down the dialogue and restricts his replies to his own "podcast" where he can safely pontificate about why I'm wrong in my absence.
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Pofarmer • 19 hours agoYou realize what you did was give yourself a huge dose of confirmation bias, right? Why not read Remsburg, or Randall Helms, or say, Richard Carriers “Not the Impossible Faith” which contains a lot of scholarship in the early church. These bozos are just telling you what you wanted to hear. •Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  Pofarmer • 18 hours agoThe sword cuts both ways. Carrier is not a respected scholar. Ehrman, a man who is not a Christian, holds the Creeds to be 35 AD. Dunn is a giant in the field and he holds the Creeds to be at least 35 AD, but probably much earlier. Larry Hurtado would also agree. They are far from being "bozos." •Reply•Share ›Pofarmer  Brian Chilton • 17 hours agoIf you’re going to list Lee Strobel, and McDowell, and Habermas, you certainly don’t get to complain about Carrier, who actually has relevant credentials in the field. I’ll not that Ehrman has a problem relying on non existant sources, as does Dunn in this instance, as noted by Raphael Lataster. I’ll also note that an early Christian Creed, even if they did exist, don’t point to an historical Jesus any more than the creeds of the Mithras Cult or that of Dionysus. In fact, there are many early creeds And writings, such as the Didiche, which are clearly problematic for this view, you’d do much better to look at some contrary scholarship and not let yourself be led around by this questionable group you’ve chosen. •Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  Pofarmer • 10 hours agoSeriously? So, you're going to dismiss material that is less than 2 years after the person in question and then elevate Carrier over Dunn and Ehrman? I think you would do well to listen to your own advice. •Reply•Share ›This comment was deleted.barry • a day agothis is weird...you promise to deal with my comments in a later podcast...but somebody removed my comment and marked it as "spam". Ok. •Edit•Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  barry • 21 hours agoIt shows up as approved on my end. I'm not sure what's going on. •Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  barry • 21 hours agoThat's weird because I approved your message. •Reply•Share ›barry • a day agoI never understood why Habermas' tries to make such a big deal out of the the "creed" of 1st Cor. 15:3-4.First, Paul goes on to point out that some in the Corinthian church he founded denied the possibility of resurrection from the dead (v. 12). Makes you wonder what gospel Paul was preaching years prior. Can you imagine somebody joining the Jehovah's Witnesses, and still believing the whole time that the Trinity doctrine is biblical?Second, doesn't matter if the church was claiming, as soon as the Acts 2 Pentecost, that Jesus rose from the dead. That "early" doesn't necessarily imply "true" is clear from the fact that false rumors about the apostles could and did spread like wildfire within the original Christian church. See Acts 21:18-24. Of course, you have the option of disagreeing with James and saying this rumor about Paul was true. I personally think it was.Third, Paul obviously disagreed with the Judaizers...which means the Judaizer gospel was sufficiently early as to impress his own churches enough to motivate them to abandon Paul's gospel and go the more legalistic route. Galatians 1:6-9. Does Habermas argue that the early preaching of the Judaizer gospel argues that it was the "true" gospel?Fourth, Paul said he "received" such creed, but he doesn't say from who, and according to Galatians 1:1, 11-12, he got his revelations by divine telepathy, specifically excluding the possibility of input by any other human beings. If the church was preaching the risen Christ as an "early creed", and if Paul thought that creed reasonable, you'd figure he would admit that it was also by the help of the original apostles and their "creed" that Paul learned such "creed".Fifth, Paul has credibility problems: he admits that, 14 years after the fact, he still doesn't know whether his flying into the sky was physical or spiritual, 2nd Cor. 12:1-4. If you were on trial for a murder you didn't commit, and the prosecution's only witness against you said that it was while he was flying into the sky by divine powers that he noticed you pulling the trigger... exactly what level of voice-volume would you have as you implored the Court to drop the charges for lack of evidence? If the Court didn't drop the charges, how intensely would you use this religious fanatic's claimed experiences to convince the jury he is simply unworthy of any credence? And you want today's skeptics to view as reliable a man from 2,000 years ago who was similarly prone to such literal flights of fancy?Back before Paul converted, he persecuted the Christians violently, by his own admission:13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; (1 Tim. 1:13 NAU)A common sense Christian understanding requires that back when Saul was persecuting those Christians, they would have been truthfully testifying to him based on either their own eyewitness sightings of the risen Christ (reliable reports), or based on the "creed" of the same (which you and Habermas insist must be viewed as reliable by people living 2,000 years after the fact). If this is reasonable, then when Saul was persecuting the Christians, he was rejecting the very best quality testimony possible (i.e., this creed coming to him in real-time from the living voices of those who originated the creed...or eyewitnesses). If God wishes to show mercy to somebody who was guilty of rejecting the very best quality resurrection testimony possible, it is perfectly reasonable and rational to deduce that it is more likely that this god has less contempt for skeptics living 2,000 years after the fact....who are deprived of the very best quality testimony. In short, the god of Paul does not view skepticism of "reliable sources" with the same level of contempt that today's evangelical Christian apologists do, otherwise, Paul would have been himself "without excuse". Now if the very best quality testimony wasn't sufficient to deprive Paul of excuse, how could you rationally argue that the lesser quality evidence available to skeptics living 2,000 years after the fact, is sufficient to deprive them of excuse?Sixth, you have to ask yourself whether the skeptical view of the 1st Cor 15 "creed" can be reasonable. If it can, then you don't win the debate by merely showing that Habermas' viewpoint is reasonable. Surely you realize that you do not prove the other girl's viewpoint unreasonable merely because you can show your own contrary viewpoint to be reasonable. Even courts of law recognize the obvious fact that reasonable people do not always agree on how to weigh and interpret testimony. Habermas' view, if "reasonable" would not automatically render the skeptical view irrational. If you would win the 1st Cor. 15 creed-debate with a skeptic, you'd have to show that Habermas' interpretation has greater explanatory scope and power than the skeptical interpretation. Consider yourself challenged.Looking forward to dialoging with you. •Edit•Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  barry • a day agoBarry, you bring up a lot in your response. I may very well record a podcast on this issue to provide a more robust answer. First, it is important to note that the early NT creedal material is not original to Habermas. Concerning 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, guys like Bart Ehrman, James D. G. Dunn, and multiple others consider the text to be early, no later than 35 AD. Critical scholars accept that this material is early.Second, the creeds themselves are part of a greater body of material that stem from the kerygma, the preaching of the early church. The kerygma stems from a larger body of oral, and possibly written, material that predates Paul and originates with the earliest church. The creedal material posits this larger body of material in accessible information that is easily remembered and makes it identifiable by modern historians. There are many things that go into finding these creeds, much of which deals with the structure and composition of the texts.Third, the creedal material is not only found within Pauline literature, they are also found in the Pastorals and in the sermon summaries of Acts. Many of the sermon summaries are Petrine in origin. Interestingly, the formulations used by Peter are similar to those employed by Paul.Lastly, I will not delve into the areas concerning Paul's possible NDE which he records in 2 Corinthians 12. That is for another topic. But, you are right in the sense that just because this material is early does not necessarily mean that it's true. However, what one must say if one is to be true to the evidence is that this is what the earliest church taught within the first 2-5 years of the church and it must have been what the historical Jesus of Nazareth taught himself.Be looking for a podcast soon that will deal with your comments. I may record one this week on the issue and will give a more thorough treatment there.Have a great day! •Reply•Share ›barry  Brian Chilton • 4 hours agoSo let's deal with a very basic philosophical issue here: Do you believe that the historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so compelling that the theory that he rose from the dead is more reasonable than any naturalistic theory? •Edit•Reply•Share › data-role=children id=post-4507657423 alt=Avatar data-role=user-avatar data-user=60804434 v:shapes="_x0000_i1036">Brian Chilton Mod  barry • 4 hours agoAbsolutely! No naturalistic theory can successfully deal with all the evidence. •Reply•Share ›barry  Brian Chilton • 3 hours agoOk, then you'd be open to a dialogue wherein I state the proper criteria for reasonableness of testimony? •Edit•Reply•Share › data-role=voting data-action=upvote alt=Avatar data-role=user-avatar data-user=60804434 v:shapes="_x0000_i1038">Brian Chilton Mod  barry • 3 hours agoIt depends on what you mean by "proper criteria." If you are going the route of Humeanism, then you have reached a dead end. Humeanism has long been shown to be nothing more than a bias against anything supernatural. It's ironic that those who claim to be "free thinkers" like David Hume are often the most closed minded when it comes to data that does not verify his or her own worldview. I am going to assume that the reasonableness you would provide would most likely address events that are unlike things that are experienced everyday. If so, the problem is not with evidence but with one's presuppositions. •Reply•Share ›barry  Brian Chilton • 2 hours agoNo. Hume has nothing to do with what I was talking about. Let's get started, then you'll see what I was talking about. Habermas' minimal facts approach isn't the only game in town. Applying specific principles of historical criteria to each alleged individual witness is rather the normative historiographical procedure.Let's start at the top of the resurrection witness list, and work downward in systematic fashion:Is the identity of the author of Canonical Greek Matthew sufficiently obscure as to justify striking his resurrection testimony from your list of resurrection witnesses?Please don't say that your case for the resurrection doesn't depend on what Matthew has to say. You would be running the risk of trivializing some evidence for Jesus' resurrection that, under your own beliefs, God intended for people to lean on when evaluating the subject. •Edit•Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  barry • 2 hours agoI think you're missing the concept behind these creeds. These creedal formulations come from multiple witnesses across the board. These creeds come out of historiographic procedures and methodologies that identify early material in any ancient work. For instance, these procedures have identified Aramisms within the material which is indicative of early material. Thus, this material is early, from ground zero (in Jerusalem), and all proclaim the same message of the risen Jesus within 2-5 years of the actual events. Some historians claim that a number of the creeds date to within months of the events themselves. •Reply•Share ›barry  Brian Chilton • an hour ago • editedI think you are missing the point of my attacks on the resurrection witnesses. I'm doing that to justify skepticism of the creeds.You already agreed that earliness doesn't demonstrate truth. I agree. But I maintain that because the actual "eyewitnesses testimony" to Jesus' resurrection, as recorded in the NT, stands on such sandy evidentiary foundation already, whatever "creed" might have emerged from that state of affairs cannot be so historically reliable as to render the gainsayers unreasonable.The historical direction is not
creed ---> alleged eyewitnesses, but
alleged eyewitnesses ---> creed.Therefore, when I attack the resurrection testimony of "Matthew", I am justifying the skeptical choice to ignore the creeds. If similar problems can be demonstrated with the other "eyewitnesses", then complete apathy toward these creeds becomes reasonable.So here's what's going on: You are saying this 1st Cor. 15 creed's factual allegations are historically reliable. And I'm going back to the creed's alleged sources to show that it emerged from less than reliable information. Matthew's problems are just the tip of the ice-box. •Edit•Reply•Share ›Brian Chilton Mod  barry • an hour agoI disagree entirely. Within any historical investigation, the examiner looks for eyewitness testimony. You have testimony coming from multiple areas. There are five independent testimonies within the Four Gospels (M=information only in Matthew, Mark, L=information only in Luke, John, and Q=information in both Matthew and Luke). Not only do you have the five independent sources, you also have early creedal material that Paul received in Jerusalem (c. 35 AD). You have sermon summaries that not only come from Paul but also Petrine sources. So, already you have 7 very early independent witnesses. I could go on. Ehrman counts as many as 11 or more independent witnesses. Your skepticism is built on an anti-supernatural bias. In this case, it's odd because even agnostics like Bart Ehrman accept the data that I have provided.Call it what you will, and take no offense to what I am about to say, but your doubts stem more from a prepackaged presuppositionalism opposed to the supernatural moreso than an evidentiary historical analysis. That, in turn, comes from a Humean outlook on history which is problematic. Humeans will not accept a miraculous claim no matter how much evidence is given to the contrary. From the information you have already provided, you have shown that no matter how many witnesses, no matter how much evidence is given, you will still remain skeptical because dead people don't rise from the dead according to the Humean outlook. That is well and good as such is your prerogative. It was the way I operated for five years so I understand completely. But I do not think it is being honest with the data that is given. The big question all of us must ask is this, what if it IS true? •Reply•Share › data-role=voting alt=Avatar class=user v:shapes="_x0000_i1043">

 barry  Brian Chilton • 14 minutes agoHold on, this is waiting to be approved by BellatorChristi.I already told you that Hume's miracle-rebuttal had nothing to do with my attack on the resurrection witnesses. I also tried to initiate a dialogue wherein we could discuss the individual merits of individual testimonies. You apparently have less interest in this, and more interest in incorrectly broadbrushing me as deluded by Humean presuppositions.I haven't broadbrushed you, so i'd appreciate a bit of objective reciprocity on your part.Are you willing to discuss the creed-sources in systematic one-at-a-time fashion, yes or no?If God wanted Matthew's resurrection testimony to be viewed and considered by the world, how could you possibly argue that considering his own unique testimony is a bad idea? God did not canonize Habermas' minimal facts approach. Paul's "creed" draws from what he "received" and what he "received" came to him via divine telepathy, not from real human beings conveying information to him.Your attempt to ground Paul's 1st Cor. 15 "creed" in actual testimony from real live original Christians overlooks Galatians 1:1, 11-12, where Paul's admission to "receiving" the gospel straight from divine telepathy (i.e., "revelation") came with a specific denial that any other human played a part in his acquisition of such knowledge.That Paul meant this in a literal way is clear from Galatians 2, where he admits that because God is no respecter of persons, Paul cared nothing for the earthly authority that others might see in the Jerusalem Pillar apostles, making clear he does not view the original apostles as highly as other people do, which is consistent with his claim in Gal. 1 that no other human beings were involved in the manner by which he "received" or became knowledgeable of the gospel. Therefore, under your own Christian principle that scripture interprets scripture, it is more likely that Paul was talking about his own solitary revelations, when in 1st Cor. 15 he said he "received" the notion that Jesus died and rose again.You will say he surely didn't get his list of apostolic eyewitnesses in the creed this same way, but on the contrary, since Paul admits to learning facts by flying up into heaven (2nd Cor. 12:1-4) and he admits ability to get information from other humans solely by vision/telepathy (Acts 16:9), and he admits it was by "revelation" that he knew enough about the Judaizer controversy to go to Jerusalem to settle it (Galatians 2:1), and the fact that Paul had an overabundance of "revelations" requiring divine miracle to keep his pride in check (2nd Cor. 12:7 ff), it is perfectly reasonable to conclude Paul's basis for his 1st Cor. 15 list of apostles who saw the risen Christ, was also "revelation" or "vision" no less than his knowledge that Jesus was executed, buried and risen on the third day.Therefore, the creed itself, along with its list of apostolic eyewitnesses of the risen Christ, f is most reasonably viewed as ultimately stemming, NOT from information Paul gained from other real human beings, but from what 'god' was telling him through 'revelation'.I cannot understand why you have such reticence to discuss Matthew and the possible SOURCES of the alleged 1st Cor. 15 "creed". You seem hell-bent on just bowling me over with a smorgasbord of "evidence" and then insisting that no skeptic can explain it away naturalistically. That's neither systematic, nor fair, nor objective.I'm sorry that my attempt to stick solely to the merits of each link in your cumulative chain of resurrection witnesses, did little more than encourage you to start psychoanalyzing my motives. When you are ready to start talking about the issues related to the people whom you think are the source for Paul's "creed" (i.e., the apostles) I'll be happy to discuss that matter with you.

Update June 20, 2019:

After that point the discussion went like this:

Brian Chilton Mod barry • 20 hours agoYou are not reading the text correctly. You are superimposing something on the text that is not there. 2 Corinthians came AFTER 1 Corinthians. Paul is directing them to material that he passed on to them which he received not by special Revelation but by his meeting with Peter and James in Jerusalem in 35 AD. Your interpretation of the data does not stand.

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barry • 20 hours ago • editedI'm not seeing why you automatically assume that Paul's phrase "what I received" means "what I received from the apostles". There's nothing in the immediate context to identify the source he got the information from, so you are pretending that information which is absent from the context, is so clear as to render the skeptic unreasonable for questioning the human nature of said source. If it were somebody other than Paul, the human nature of his sources might be a legitimate inference. But Paul as a mystic who already felt himself as having received the gospel solely by divine telepathy. No, that interpretation isn't infallible, but it doesn't need to be, it only needs to be "reasonable", and interpreting Paul's "what I received" in the same manner he is already known to have said he "receives" gospel-things, is reasonable enough to render the skeptic reasonable, even if it doesn't render you, the apologist, unreasonable.

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Brian Chilton Mod barry • 20 hours agoPaul was constantly defending his apostolicity since he a) was not an original apostle and b) was a persecutor of the church. It would be nonsensical for him to provide a message he had secretly received without the backing of the original apostles. Your interpretation is illogical in light of the data. I know of no serious scholar who holds that view.

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barry  • 20 hours agoIn Galatians 1, Paul claimed he received his gospel straight from divine telepathy (v. 1), then he pronounces a divine curse on anybody who would disagree with that gospel (v. 6-9), then he specifically disclaims that any other human being was involved in the means by which he acquired his gospel (v. 11-12).
He does that before even mentioning any of the original apostles as he does in ch. 2, and even then, he makes clear he is not as impressed with their authority as other people are (2:6).
He specifically disclaims the notion that he was "taught" his gospel by any other man (1:11, esp. v. 12), and he apparently thinks his notifying the Galatians of such secret solitary telepathic revelation is sufficient to make any gainsayer worthy of the divine curse (1:8).
So I'm not seeing a good biblical basis for your comment that it would be nonsensical for him to provide a message he had secretly received without the backing of the original apostles.
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This comment was deleted.
·          Brian Chilton Mod barry • 19 hours agoI'm going to cover this issue on the forthcoming podcast and I'll let this be the final statement on the issue because we're not going anywhere in this conversation. Paul notes that he received the gospel message most likely implying that it was from the risen Jesus. So what? He is making a claim to apostolicity which he had to do for the reasons I previously mentioned. He says that he went to Jerusalem to check his message with Peter and James. There are numerous reasons to believe that Paul received the early Creeds and traditions which he passed along to the churches. Again, scholarship strongly holds to this notion. I will give a further response on the podcast. Good talking with you.


This comment was deleted.

Do you see that last "this comment was deleted"? That was my comment. Therein I was replying to Chilton's expressed concern that he knows of no "serious" scholar who thinks Paul's "receiving" in 1st Cor. 15:3 is the same as his "receiving" in Galatians 1:1, 11-12. While I saved a copy of the page as my comment was showing, for whatever reason, the page will not display the comments unless it is opened while online, which means it reverts to the redacted version still present online, instead of preserving the full discussion as I intended.

To check, I dropped the html page into notepad, then did a search for the terms unique to my deleted comment, and verified that, for unknown reasons, the saving of the page did not preserve the full comment section despite the fact that the comments were present during the saving.  I have no idea why the webpages that show commentary, don't show the commentary if you save them and open them later offline.  This is a new bug that never happened before 2016.

Anyway, while I cannot remember everything I said in the deleted comment, I did provide Chilton therein a few of those "serious" scholars he didn't know about, who deny that Paul is referring to a "creed" in 1st Cor. 15:3, and affirm that there Paul is referring to his telepathic receiving of direct revelation without human assistance, a curious admission Paul makes explicitly in Galatians 1:1, 11-12.  Here is my reconstruction of my comment which Chilton deleted:

From R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians, p. 642-644:

 “There is no indication that in vss. 3–4  Paul is reciting a fixed formula, such as is found in the Apostles’ Creed.”  

“…In Galatians 1:11—2:2  Paul is at pains to prove historically that he did not receive his Gospel from men in any manner whatsoever. We prefer Paul’s own account as to the manner in which he received the Gospel to that of any present-day commentators.”

Other commentators agree that Paul in 1st Cor. 15:3 was referring to his reception of direct revelation without the help of any human being's input.  See F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 349; Leon Morris, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, p. 289;  J. P. Lange, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, p. 309. 

But since these commentators aren't fundamentalists, perhaps you won't think they are "serious"? 

Notably, Chilton's deletion of that rather scholarly comment violates his own professed comment deletion policy.  From  https://bellatorchristi.com/website-rules-regarding-comments-and-replies/

The host reserves the right to add and delete comments at the host’s own discretion with or without warning. We certainly will allow comments and arguments that differ from ours as long as they are presented with class and integrity. Blessings, Pastor Brian Chilton 

So apparently the only way Chilton can justify deleting my scholarly-citation comment is to pretend he seriously thinks it wasn't "presented with class and integrity".  Yeah right.  That comment was more objective and scholarly than my previous comments which Chilton allowed.

I will now respond to the last comment Chilton intended to use to end the discusion:

I'm going to cover this issue on the forthcoming podcast and I'll let this be the final statement on the issue because we're not going anywhere in this conversation.

On the contrary, I was willing to sustain my attack on this Corinthian creed by a) allowing for the sake of argument that the apostolic resurrection preaching took place as early as Acts 2 says, and b) showing the fatal problems that plague those bits of NT information that you think are the sources for the creed.  I say we were getting somewhere, and only quit doing so when you decided saving face before you really got cornered was somehow better than just dealing with the full force of the skeptical argument I was attempting to set forth.

Paul notes that he received the gospel message most likely implying that it was from the risen Jesus. So what?

If he got the message from the risen Christ, then the burden transfers to YOU to explain what additional or different source you think he was drawing from when saying in 1st Cor. 15:3 that he "received" the gospel.  Paul there infamously doesn't specify from where he "received" this, so it makes perfect sense to apply here what he said in Galatians 1, namely that he "received" his gospel by divine telepathy, expressly disclaiming that any other human being was involved in his reception of this:

1 Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead),
 ... 11 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:1, 11-12 NAU)

Paul sure does leave the distinct impression that he didn't get his gospel by learning it from any other human being.

He is making a claim to apostolicity which he had to do for the reasons I previously mentioned.

And the facts he alleges within such claim to apostolicity specifically disclaim any involvement of other human beings while he was in the process of receiving or learning the gospel.  So since Paul is obviously talking about the basic gospel in 1st Cor. 15:3-4, and he doesn't there express or imply the source from which he received it, there is nothing whatever "unreasonable" about using scripture to interpret scripture, or using Paul to intepret Paul here, and infer that he must have meant here, what he meant when discussing the same subject in Galatians 1:  Paul received the gospel directly from heaven and no human being  was involved in his "learning" it either.

The point is that if Paul in 1st Cor. 15:3-4 is referring to what he received without the aid of human teaching, then he isn't referring to something that is created by the aid of human teaching (i.e., a "creed" of the early church).

He says that he went to Jerusalem to check his message with Peter and James.

Which he wouldn't need to do if he had full confidence that what he got by divine telepathy was sufficiently secure as to render the "false brethren" without excuse along with any fools that might accept their lies back in Jerusalem.  No sir, Paul was a big talker, but only inconsistently so.  His visions were NOT sufficient to secure doctrine enough to consider them the final word in any dispute with "false brethren".

But it's nice to know you admit that yes he was "checking with" the Jerusalem church...other inerrantist apologists, not wishing to make Paul sound dependent on the authority of the original disciples, insist that surely Galatians 2:2 means something else, but they are blinded by their own pathologically extreme confirmation-bias.  They still haven't explained why conservatives like J.B. Lightfoot complained that Galatians 2 is a "shipwreck of grammar" and that it contains rambling disconnected bits that sound like Paul is fearful of saying too much and of saying too little.

There are numerous reasons to believe that Paul received the early Creeds and traditions which he passed along to the churches.

But received how.  According to Galatians 1:1, 11-12, if the "creed" is the "gospel", then he didn't receive it through the help of any human being.  You were challenged to produce a statement by Paul that he "received" the gospel with the help of any other human being or apostle.  You failed to show any such thing.  I'm sure you are correct, but that is irrelevant, you cannot merely be correct, you believe Paul was inspired by God, so you are forced to show how your "correct" theory can be reconciled with everything Paul said about the subject under discussion.  You have failed to show that the gospel "creed" Paul "received" in 1st Cor. 15:3-4 is any different than the purely non-human gospel creed he specifies in Galatians 1.  perhaps you didn't know, but Gary Habermas' cute little theories are not canonical.   You need to pay less attention to modern squabbles of philosophy and pay more attention to the express wording of scripture. 

Again, scholarship strongly holds to this notion.

I'm not saying your own position is unreasonable, maybe it's reasonable.  I'm saying the reasonableness of your interpretation cannot be used to argue that my contrary interpretation is thus "unreasonable".  Reasonableness is a very broad thing that doesn't slice and dice the way "accuracy" does.  Unless you think every jury that ever convicted an innocent man, was thus "unreasonable" by the mere fact that they called it wrong, then you are going to have to agree with me that inaccuracy doesn't automatically entail unreasonableness.  You don't need to be told that lots of mature college educated smart adults disagree with each other about historical facts, or how much weight to give a certain person's testimony, up to and including even historians disagreeing on basic historical method (Licona 2010) and this sorry state of affairs also occurs within that furiously divided camp called "evangelicalism".

So until the day you can reconcile the non-human creed in Galatians 1:1, 11-12 with the creed made up by the early apostolic human preaching in 1st Cor. 15:3-4, you must necessarily fail in your quest to prove skeptics to be "unreasonable". 

I will give a further response on the podcast. Good talking with you.

The reader will have to judge for themselves, based on Chilton's unwillingness to discuss the sources of the creed, his putting an arbitrary stop to the discussion right about the time he started running out of ammo, and his deletion of scholarly comments enlightening him about those "serious" scholars who deny 1st Cor. 15:3-4 is reciting any 'creed', why Chilton thinks that hearing the sound of his own uninterrupted voice in a "podcast" as he goeth about "refuting" me in my convenient absence, is somehow "more objective" at getting down to the truth of the matter.  Is Chilton a catholic?

If you were thinking that skeptics sometimes lose sleep at night all worried that maybe, just maybe, the "creed" in 1st Cor. 15 goes back to 34 a.d., think again.