This is a segment of my talk at last weekend's BAHA conference in Sarnia, Canada. The conference was fantastic, by the way, with excellent speakers who were experts in several different areas that contained some great content! What you'll see below is the written content of a few of my PowerPoint slides. As usual, I aim at succinctly arguing the case as best as I can. Using the same number of words, could I have done better?
What could convince reasonable people to accept the miracle stories in the Bible?
We need convincing objective evidence!
1) Not Mere Testimony
Human testimony isn’t all that reliable. Cognitive biases filter all experience. We see what we expect to see. We see what we prefer to see. We have different agendas. As time passes, we don’t remember anything exactly as it happened. Plus, sometimes people lie!
2) Worse Yet is 2nd 3rd or 4th Handed Down Testimony!
Nothing in the Bible was written by verifiable eyewitnesses. At best we have 2nd 3rd 4th handed down testimony, as told by people with their own biases, agendas, faulty memories, and lies.
We would need to cross-examine them for the truth, but we can’t!
3) Especially Not Ancient Testimony!
A) Lessing’s Ugly Broad Ditch:
“Miracles, which I see with my own eyes, and which I have opportunity to verify for myself, are one thing; miracles, of which I know only from history that others say they have seen them and verified them, are another.”
Ugly Broad Ditch (cont.)
“The problem is that reports of miracles are not miracles…they have to work through a medium which takes away all their force.” [i.e., time!] But I live in the 18th century, in which miracles no longer happen.” “This is the ugly broad ditch which I cannot get across, however often and however earnestly I have tried to make the leap.”
The Time Problem
Memories fail with time.
Evidence can be lost, damaged, or destroyed.
Witnesses die. Whole generations can die.
The world as a whole had changed. In the minds of the “wise and learned” of the 18th century, miracles ceased. [David Hume, Charles Darwin, David Frederick Strauss, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and other deists.]
By Contrast The Bible Asks Us To Believe Without Proof!
Doubting Thomas was admonished for not believing 2nd hand reports that Jesus arose from the dead.
Then Jesus “proves” he’s alive.
Then Thomas is told: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
By itself this story provides no evidence, because we were not there!
B) Especially Not Ancient Testimony! (cont.)
Dr. Richard Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history. This is what he concludes in “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire”:
“The age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection. It was an era filled with con-artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety.”
4) Worse Yet, Other Things Don’t Count:
Irrelevant archaeological evidence [i.e, Pool of Siloam]. Nor completed manuscripts three hundred years after the alleged events [Codex Sinaiticus 4th century], which were copied by scribes who added forgeries. Nor do inner voices, nor dreams, nor visions.
“But you’re requiring scientific evidence that couldn’t possibly exist in the ancient world!”
This is your God’s problem, not ours!
If that’s the case, then that’s the case.
God could’ve waited until the 21st century to contact us, where it would be easy to provide the objective evidence needed for miracles.
Just think of cell phones.
Keep in Mind the Point:
We’re not just being asked to accept a golfer’s claim to have consecutively sank 9 holes-in-one on a par 3 course.
We’re asked to believe a miracle, that something more than that took place, something unexplainably by science, like flying from tee to tee!
The only testimonies that can legitimately count for miracles are corroborated/verified testimonies, especially under cross-examination, which require objective evidence.
We Need To Get the Real Scoop
Balaam, did you really hear a donkey talk out of his ass? “Nah,” he laughed. The story was a joke that began with three of us in a bar.
Moses, did God really give you Ten Commandments? “No” he admitted, “I borrowed them. God didn’t give them to me. What’cha going to do about it now?”
Peter, you say Jesus walked on water? “No, that’s fake news! “Jesus tried it but almost drowned. So he had the boys throw me in.”
Biblical scholar Dr. David Madison: “It is worth repeating this blunt reality: we have no way whatever of verifying any deed or saying of Jesus mentioned in the gospels. Their authors never disclose their exact, trustworthy sources, so that scholars could agree that something could be verified. The gospels were written decades after the supposed events described. How would eyewitness accounts or “reliable” oral tradition have been preserved, especially in the wake of the disastrous Jewish-Roman War that destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE?”
End of segment.
What could convince reasonable people to accept the miracle stories in the Bible?
We need convincing objective evidence!
1) Not Mere Testimony
Human testimony isn’t all that reliable. Cognitive biases filter all experience. We see what we expect to see. We see what we prefer to see. We have different agendas. As time passes, we don’t remember anything exactly as it happened. Plus, sometimes people lie!
2) Worse Yet is 2nd 3rd or 4th Handed Down Testimony!
Nothing in the Bible was written by verifiable eyewitnesses. At best we have 2nd 3rd 4th handed down testimony, as told by people with their own biases, agendas, faulty memories, and lies.
We would need to cross-examine them for the truth, but we can’t!
3) Especially Not Ancient Testimony!
A) Lessing’s Ugly Broad Ditch:
“Miracles, which I see with my own eyes, and which I have opportunity to verify for myself, are one thing; miracles, of which I know only from history that others say they have seen them and verified them, are another.”
Ugly Broad Ditch (cont.)
“The problem is that reports of miracles are not miracles…they have to work through a medium which takes away all their force.” [i.e., time!] But I live in the 18th century, in which miracles no longer happen.” “This is the ugly broad ditch which I cannot get across, however often and however earnestly I have tried to make the leap.”
The Time Problem
Memories fail with time.
Evidence can be lost, damaged, or destroyed.
Witnesses die. Whole generations can die.
The world as a whole had changed. In the minds of the “wise and learned” of the 18th century, miracles ceased. [David Hume, Charles Darwin, David Frederick Strauss, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and other deists.]
By Contrast The Bible Asks Us To Believe Without Proof!
Doubting Thomas was admonished for not believing 2nd hand reports that Jesus arose from the dead.
Then Jesus “proves” he’s alive.
Then Thomas is told: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
By itself this story provides no evidence, because we were not there!
B) Especially Not Ancient Testimony! (cont.)
Dr. Richard Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history. This is what he concludes in “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire”:
“The age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection. It was an era filled with con-artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety.”
4) Worse Yet, Other Things Don’t Count:
Irrelevant archaeological evidence [i.e, Pool of Siloam]. Nor completed manuscripts three hundred years after the alleged events [Codex Sinaiticus 4th century], which were copied by scribes who added forgeries. Nor do inner voices, nor dreams, nor visions.
“But you’re requiring scientific evidence that couldn’t possibly exist in the ancient world!”
This is your God’s problem, not ours!
If that’s the case, then that’s the case.
God could’ve waited until the 21st century to contact us, where it would be easy to provide the objective evidence needed for miracles.
Just think of cell phones.
Keep in Mind the Point:
We’re not just being asked to accept a golfer’s claim to have consecutively sank 9 holes-in-one on a par 3 course.
We’re asked to believe a miracle, that something more than that took place, something unexplainably by science, like flying from tee to tee!
The only testimonies that can legitimately count for miracles are corroborated/verified testimonies, especially under cross-examination, which require objective evidence.
We Need To Get the Real Scoop
Balaam, did you really hear a donkey talk out of his ass? “Nah,” he laughed. The story was a joke that began with three of us in a bar.
Moses, did God really give you Ten Commandments? “No” he admitted, “I borrowed them. God didn’t give them to me. What’cha going to do about it now?”
Peter, you say Jesus walked on water? “No, that’s fake news! “Jesus tried it but almost drowned. So he had the boys throw me in.”
Biblical scholar Dr. David Madison: “It is worth repeating this blunt reality: we have no way whatever of verifying any deed or saying of Jesus mentioned in the gospels. Their authors never disclose their exact, trustworthy sources, so that scholars could agree that something could be verified. The gospels were written decades after the supposed events described. How would eyewitness accounts or “reliable” oral tradition have been preserved, especially in the wake of the disastrous Jewish-Roman War that destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE?”
End of segment.
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