The Tension of Faith

Good point about it being "useful" but "very idiosyncratic," but I only felt it necessary to approach the discussion from that perspective because Faith was arguing that the Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy. Since Faith seems to have dropped out of the discussion maybe I no longer need to push that point.--Percy

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I'm also sorry you can't find anything coherent in the position I've layed out. The position itself can be expressed simply: The written word is not evidence. The rationale for that position is somewhat longer, and it become significantly longer as our discussion progressed.

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Except that you do accept written words as evidence for some things, and yet reject them in other cases that seem eminently reasonable - I’m thinking of the use of ancient astronomical records in dating. And your rationale - that the mere possibility of error or falsehood disqualifies a thing as evidence applies to everything we might consider evidence.So, no, you don’t have a coherent position.

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True, but that's a constant that applies to everything we view, whether the written word or true evidence.

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That’s my point. If it applies to true evidence then it cannot be the criterion that distinguishes between things that are evidence and things that are not.

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This is a clear statement of how you feel, but you include no justification. That what people say and write is frequently unreliable is hardly an "unreasonable and extreme position."

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Except that isn’t even a distinction between your position and mine. Which rather proves my point. If you really think that is all there is to your position you don’t understand what you are saying at all. And if you realise that you have gone a LOT further than that then you aren’t even being honest here.

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We're not so far apart as you think. We agree that some parts of the NT are true, some are false, some are unverifiable, some are internally or externally inconsistent or both, and some are impossible. Where we disagree is on our ability to accurately ferret out which category each passage falls into.

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If you wanted to argue specifically about that then you could fairly take in my arguments. Instead you assert that I am inventing implausible naturalistic explanations for supernatural events - and that my descriptions don’t even fit the events. Yet you never offered any support for either claim unless we count your sudden introduction of a claim made in a different book by a different author written decades later (Acts instead of 1 Corinthians).

I think you and Percy are just going round in circles.It's clear that the bible is not evidence that any of the things written in them are/were real, just that someone - we don't even know who - wrote them. Not if we're following any modern-day scientific or legal evidential standards anyway.The existence of some historical artifacts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls are real evidence that those stories existed at the time.But to be properly evidential, the accounts really need to be written by eye witnesses contemporaneously - and even then you'd need to have other corroborating evidence to justify accepting the stories as anything but mythology similar to the Norse legends.The miracles in particular, would necessitate a quantity and quality of evidence that's just impossible to create in a iron-age social system.

This phrasing "The Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy" is just weird. "The Bible" is writings by different authors. John for instance wrote a gospel and some letters and the Book of Revelation. He himself is well enough identified as one of Jesus' disciples in the other gospels, the idea that you need to know more than that is ridiculous, it's not as if contradictory things are said about the man. His own gospel is his account of events that occurred in the life of Jesus as he witnessed them and heard about them. In particular he described miracles Jesus did, and at the end of his gospel he comments that Jesus did many more similar things but that he'd written some of them so that people might believe in Jesus and be saved through Him. He clearly meant that people would believe his simple account of these things, know that Jesus had the power of God and be saved by trusting in Him.You have a prejudice against the miraculous that is the only reason you are arguing against this idea. John does not describe the miracle events in any other way than he describes the simple factual events that aren't miracles. He describes Jesus walking and talking and teaching in the same way as he describes Jesus raising someone from the dead or multiplying food to feed thousands.He makes no disctinction, to him they are all simple facts. It's you who make the distinction, based only on your prejudice that miracles don't exist.The whole point of John's report is to convince the reader that they DO exist, that they were performed by this man Jesus Christ and that the power He demonstrated through those miracles can give a person eternal life. He doesn't indicate the slightest concern that there's any reason not to believe such miracles since they can be described in simple historical accounts just as Jesus' walking to Bethany or eating with His disciples can be. It's YOU who introduce a problem that John does not see, and neither do Christian believers who take John at his word.This is all we're talking about, an account of miracles given as evidence of Jesus' deity, versus your ingrained prejudice that miracles don't happen. There are only so many ways this can be said. You keep trying to prove that your prejudice is more reasonable but it just isn't. John's claim is simple and those who believe it learn some amazing things that lead to eternal life. No matter how you try to spin your prejudice to make it seem more rational or conclusive, it just isn't. You may stick to your prejudice but you really have no reasonable grounds for it, especially since people who have believed John know they have benefited enormously from them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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It's clear that the bible is not evidence that any of the things written in them are/were real, just that someone - we don't even know who - wrote them. Not if we're following any modern-day scientific or legal evidential standards anyway

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Percy has clearly rejected modern-day scientific and legal standards as inadequate. All allow things that could be wrong as evidence. The legal system even allows personal testimony.For my part it seems obvious that we should be applying the standards of history. Further it should be obvious that I am not uncritically accepting the Bible’s claims - in fact I am claiming that assertions made as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus are evidence against a physical resurrection and aren’t evidence of any sort of resurrection at all.And that is from a book of the Bible where we do know the author, for once,

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But to be properly evidential, the accounts really need to be written by eye witnesses contemporaneously - and even then you'd need to have other corroborating evidence to justify accepting the stories as anything but mythology similar to the Norse legends

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I don’t accept a simplistic binary distinction, nor do I think that using texts as evidence is limited to supporting the claims made in the text. The books of the Bible are often poor evidence. But we can certainly analyse the texts and learn some things from them - often things that people like Faith don’t want us to know.

I must have missed that. Scientific enquiry has evidential standards and the bible doesn't meet them by a country mile. What we're left with would be of only passing interest to a few niche historians if it wasn't for the whole edifice errected on it. But that's exactly all it can do. Without further corroberation, it's just another book of fables. The world is full of them. Well of course, it's stuffed full of folk knowledge recycled from generations before.And of course it's also riddled with inconsistencies and stuff that these days we call utterly immoral. But none of it meets any evidential standard whatsoever.

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Scientific enquiry has evidential standards and the bible doesn't meet them by a country mile. What we're left with would be of only passing interest to a few niche historians if it wasn't for the whole edifice errected on it.

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Except where it intersects with histories of more important players like the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Seleucids and so on.But again, why insist in scientific standards instead of historical standards ? Surely history is the discipline that applies.

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But that's exactly all it can do. Without further corroberation, it's just another book of fables. The world is full of them.

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That’s just ridiculous. The Noah stories are evidence that the Flood story was quite widespread in the Middle East - by their obvious relationship to the story in the Gilgamesh Epic. That’s got nothing to do with the question of whether the story is true.

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Well of course, it's stuffed full of folk knowledge recycled from generations before.

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Including some true history - some claims in the Bible are supported by evidence from outside, both archaeological and documentary.

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And of course it's also riddled with inconsistencies and stuff that these days we call utterly immoral. But none of it meets any evidential standard whatsoever.

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That’s your opinion. But if you can come up with a sensible reason for ignoring the similarities in the Flood stories, I’m sure Faith will thank you for it.

History is definately the discipline that applies, but only because there's nothing else. It's the best we have but it's still zip as far as evidence for the stories within them. We have some writings which we can all accept are historical and tell us something about a few people and their mythology at the time. But it's only evidence of somebody writing some stories at the time. And that's cobblers. The flood story in the bible is just a story. And it's obviously preposterous with vast amounts of real evidence proving that there was never any such thing as a global flood which is it's entire meaning. It doesn't provide the evidence that the story it is meant to support.But when you add it to other similar stories from other cultures around the time it becomes more interesting because it creates an alternative hypothesis - a local flood - but that's all, there still needs to be actual evidence to support the stories. (Which there is.) It would be absolutelty staggering if stories about the Middle East didn't contain something non-fictional about the Middle East. In fact, if it didn't it we'd call it pure fantasy. But that is totally beside the point, the point is whether the events happened the way they are described or not. For that we need something beyond the stories. Actual evidence.

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History is definately the discipline that applies, but only because there's nothing else. It's the best we have but it's still zip as far as evidence for the stories within them. We have some writings which we can all accept are historical and tell us something about a few people and their mythology at the time. But it's only evidence of somebody writing some stories at the time

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There is still stuff in there that can fill out the picture we have if that corner Of the world. It may be biased and it may have unhistorical stuff mixed with the history, but read with a properly critical eye there is useful stuff in there. Even Chronicles has - hidden away a little story that hints that the ancestors of the Israelites stayed in Canaan instead of heading off to Egypt - and archaeology agrees. (1 Chronicles 7:20-24). That’s evidence supporting the conclusions of archaeology.

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And that's cobblers. The flood story in the bible is just a story. And it's obviously preposterous with vast amounts of real evidence proving that there was never any such thing as a global flood which is it's entire meaning. It doesn't provide the evidence that the story it is meant to support.

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Of course I was using it as an example of how a Biblical story can be evidence for something OTHER than what the story says. Which you foolishly dismissed.

But this isn't science or law - it's history. Written documents are evidence in history. Having a rough notion of your age and nationality I know you almost certainly covered 'primary sources' and 'secondary sources' as part of your pre-GCSE history lessons.Much of the details of history as we know it, come from written sources. The broad strokes may be verified with archaeology, but seldom the details.To turn to the Bible - Paul is a primary source for understanding some of the concerns, questions and problems facing some of the early churches. For example:

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In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.... So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat,for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!
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So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together.

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1 Cor 11

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I mean we agree that writing something down doesn't make it automatically credible. But it also doesn't make it not evidence. Evidence can lack credibility and still be evidence. Evidence isn't proof - in the scientific sense of the notion rather than mathematical.Historical method - Wikipedia

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When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
Where was it produced (localization)?
By whom was it produced (authorship)?
From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?
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If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.
However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis.
The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text.
When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most "authority"that is the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness.
Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.
If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably enhanced.
When two sources disagree and there is no other means of evaluation, then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.
...

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Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.
Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability.
The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened.
An eyewitness is more reliable than testimony at second hand, which is more reliable than hearsay at further remove, and so on.
If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.
The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased.

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Is the real meaning of the statement different from its literal meaning? Are words used in senses not employed today? Is the statement meant to be ironic (i.e., mean other than it says)?
How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?
How did the author report?, and what was his ability to do so?
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Do his statements seem inherently improbable: e.g., contrary to human nature, or in conflict with what we know?
Remember that some types of information are easier to observe and report on than others.
Are there inner contradictions in the document?

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And so on.

I agree that my position as you've expressed it has issues, but that's not my position. Evidence is the result of events in the real world. The written word is a method of recording evidence, an imperfect one, but isn't evidence itself. I've been calling it information whose accuracy and correspondence to reality may be good, bad or absent, or anywhere along that spectrum. Evidence always corresponds to reality.You've misremembered what I said about astronomical records. I used the example of Tycho Brahe, saying that meticulous as he was, even he made recording errors. I didn't even mention the scribal errors that crept into his records.So I think I do have a "coherent position," and if I don't then you haven't shown that yet. I'm afraid it's all we have, and the progress of science (which involves replication, and which, combined with instrumentation that has grown increasingly sophisticated over time, helps overcome imperfect perception) shows that it is sufficient. In thinking about the imperfection of the entire human perceptual system from sensory elements to brain I'm reminded of N-Rays, a story probably already familiar to you. A professor Blondlot discovered N-Rays, but other researchers were unable to replicate the results. A conference was convened to settle the issue at Blondlot's lab. A prism was necessary to project the N-Rays on a screen, and as Professor Blondlot pointed out aspects of the N-Rays on the screen another scientist surreptitiously removed the prism, and later even removed the N-Rays source. Professor Blondlot continued as if nothing had changed. The other scientist wrote up a report for Nature, and that was the end of N-Rays. It is the unreliability of the written and spoken word and it's disconnection from reality by it's passage through the human perception system that defines a true distinction between our positions, so I myself don't see what you say as proving your point. I'm sorry you don't think I know what I'm talking about, but my general suggestion in such situations is that it isn't worth conversing with such people, so you may want to stop wasting your time and break off this discussion. And if you don't think I'm being honest with you then that's even more reason. I thought I was. I hope I didn't use the word "implausible," and if I did then I misspoke. I think your naturalistic explanations are invented, in the sense that they're made up, unverifiable, unevidenced. And I think I also said that you're inventing naturalistic explanations for events that you can't even be sure ever happened. In specific terms, Jesus may never have appeared to anyone - the appearances may just be elements of a story composed by someone who understood that his audience found miracles highly persuasive. Sorry, I don't recall ever saying anything like this. I *did* say the events may have been made up. I said in an earlier message that I was discussing the entire NT, not just 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 except where I hopefully made it clear that's what I was talking about.Sorry I seem to be making such a hash of this for you. I wish I could do a better job, but I'm doing the best I can.--Percy

Hi Faith, welcome back. I assume we should still not expect any replies to all the messages you ignored? I thought it was a condensed version of your position. For example, in your Message 540 you said: Earlier in your Message 511 you said: So since you don't "deny the truth of the account," I think I captured the meaning of your words pretty clearly when I summarized it as, ""The Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy," but let me read on and see what you're saying now. I'm convinced. John is an incredibly unique name, almost no one in history has ever had the name John, so if the name John is attached to the Gospel of John then there is only one person it could be, and that is the Apostle John.Just kidding. About the attachment of the name John to that Gospel Wikipedia says:

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The Gospel of John is anonymous. Traditionally, Christians have identified the author as "the Disciple whom Jesus loved" mentioned in John 21:24,[15] who is understood to be John son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. These identifications, however, are rejected by many modern biblical scholars.[1][16][Notes 5] Nevertheless, the author of the fourth Gospel is sometimes called John the Evangelist, often out of convenience since the definitive name of the author is still debated.

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But you don't know that John the Apostle wrote the Gospel of John. It's just part of your Christian tradition that you've chosen to believe. I think it's better described as a predilection for accepting that which has evidence. Oh, of course. You're asserting the well known Law of Equivalent Expression. Everyone knows that anything miraculous written about in the same style as the mundane must be true.Just kidding, of course. If you can think of a weaker reason for believing in miracles it would be an amazing accomplishment. Any time you've got the evidence for miracles, I've got the time to review it. Uh, yeah, about this eternal life stuff? Haven't seen any evidence of that either. But I don't see a problem. It's not a problem, at least for me, that John's Gospel is just a story with possibly true elements that also contains supernatural elements that are clearly false. It's also not a problem for me that you believe John true and accurate. I don't consider what other people believe religiously a problem, unless they want to teach it in science class.By the way, after reading your entire post and everything you said about how what John said and how he said it is evidence that what he said is true, I still see, "the Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy," as a pretty good condensation of what you've been saying.--Percy

Gee, that's so strange, because I don't recall ever saying anything like that. I think my emphasis was on the written word, which has known reliability problems. I never said that scientific evidence couldn't be wrong. A simple example is an uncalibrated voltmeter. And I covered eyewitness testimony in an earlier message, maybe the one you chose to skip, but one thing I mentioned was how the unreliability of eyewitness testimony is indicated by the number of prisoners jailed on eyewitness testimony but later freed by DNA evidence.I won't reply to the rest of your post because I liked Tangle's answer.--Percy

So are there Biblical examples that could be considered evidence and if so, evidence of what?The works attributed to a "John" have come up several times and can start as an example. Since the style, context, content, tone and substance of the different works attributed to a "John" vary so much they can be said to represent evidence of several different writers from several different traditions writing with several different purposes to several different audiences.There has been a reference to an asserting from John's Gospel that Jesus preformed the miracles to convince people that Jesus was divine; yet the actual accounts themselves as recorded show an entirely different picture; that Jesus did not perform miracles to convince anyone he was divine and in fact often cautioned people not to talk about such things and in the case of the Wedding Party Booze Run, Jesus did not even take any credit and allowed everyone to think it was just the courtesy of the host and not a miracle at all.Based on the contradictory nature accounts I would say that the miracle stories as well as the assertion by the author of the Gospel John is evidence that the stories were at best very weak evidence and so internally contradictory that any claims as to motive for performing miracles should be disregarded.Then there are the stories of miracles themselves. First, IIRC the only miracle that appears in all four Gospels is the feeding of the multitude and even there the stories vary so greatly that they can at best be said to indicate evidence that the story of the feeding of the multitude was broadly known just as we can say today references to unicorns or My Little Pony are widely known.In the earlier writings I think it is safe to consider many of the stories as evidence of the era, of political affiliations, quasi-governmental organization, of laws and customs, of the relative value of the individual in terms of position in that society. When you move into the New Testament though even those become very very weak evidence. An example is the claimed census that runs counter to what would have been the custom and what is recorded in outside sources.Again, when we look at the written material we find recordings of what should have been a significant even vary with each retelling and become more evolved and mysterious over time just as seen in most folk tales. The Great Commission, supposedly Jesus direct communication of what the job would be, is a fantastic example of a folk tale evolving.So IMHO there can be evidence in the writings found in the Bible but none of them are evidence of Jesus divinity or even Jesus actual existence.

So why did John get attached to this Gospel? My understanding goes like this.The first reference we know of to refer to this Gospel as John's is in the late 2nd Century.At the end of John comes the words:

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This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.

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Which suggests some group of people wrote the text 'we' based on what they claimed was the testimony of a disciple. The name of the disciple is not given. We just know it is the disciple that Jesus loved. This disciple is NOT Simon Peter - as he often appears in the same accounts as this disciple:

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Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved
-John 20:2

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So the claimed authorship then relies on their being 3 particularly favoured disciples, and Peter can't be one of them leaving James and John. According to the internal logic of the story - James dies pretty early which would call into question his ability to testify/author the book in question. Thus, the argument goes, John is the one.There are other arguments, but that's the kind of evidence provided that the author / principle witness of the Gospel of John is at least intended to be thought of as John by whoever wrote it. The evidence is slim, and requires some tenuous argumentation to get there (the above is really the best I could find - coupled with the fact that other disciples get named but there is a pattern of not naming 'the disciple that Jesus loved' and John doesn't get named anywhere...). Other than relying on 2nd Century scholar's opinions there isn't much to go on.How is this relevant to the discussion?So while a (perhaps significant ) degree of faith is required to say John is the author, it is not without evidence. The evidence may not be sufficient for Percy to have faith in the conclusion, but it is apparently sufficient for many Christians.