5:40 Dr. Allison hits one of my pet peeves. He presents the concept of "keeping an open mind" as being in opposition to skepticism. The idea behind keep an open mind is not to believe a claim if you don't have sufficient reason to. To keep an open mind means to allow the evidence and logic to guide you no matter what you predisposition for a particular answer. A default skepticism is part of that. This is because if you have a conclusion without first having proper reasons for that conclusion, you are closed minded. As a test for this idea, consider that I can believe anything I want as long as I don't require a proper reason to believe.
100% THIS. I just posted a similar comment (I didn’t read the comments first, I usually just upvote comments I agree with but he pissed me off a bit with that ‘misunderstanding’.). Yours is more detailed and calm but we agree.
The best default question I have ever heard for examining a claim or belief comes from the TIK history channel here on UA-cam: "But is that really the case?" While I disagree with him politically, I 100% agree with asking that question of any historical narrative, then examining the evidence for or against that narrative and reaching a conclusion.
@Bad at. Yeah, at 5:40, I agree, however I'm not sure he means it to be a one or the other thing though. Immediately before that he uses skeptism to say one should not just readily accept the thing. I honestly think he just means that he's less skeptical with some of the biblical stuff, than other bits of biblical stuff, I think his 'open minded' isn't meant to pit the two as opposites. Just that he's more credulous. I think it's more a commentary on his personal take, rather than his suggesting those skeptical aren't open minded. I could be wrong. I've only seen him speak a few times, but I got the impression that he is trying to be as open as he can, and admit when he understands why there's opposing skeptical views, he just struggles to get there.
Dr Allison keeps 'an open mind' w.r.t. SPECIFIC aspects of the Christian faith/evidences that are put forth for the resurrection. He still firmly believes that the evidence AS A WHOLE is in favour of Christianity.
I just kept hearing "as a historian, it's very frustrating that the stuff I want to believe can't be defended historically, at all." I know it's not his actual words, but it's what I heard.
Yeah, I don't envy anyone who has that cognitive dissonance to contend with. I do respect what comes across as genuine attempts to be intellectually honest against strong, deep rooted world-view beliefs.
@@jeroenky6038 Whilst we culturally don't recognise it, a substantial amount of the logical leaps necessary to reach a monotheistic or Christian God is just packed into your upbringing. There are plenty of subjective or experiential cues in someone's life that could lead them to become spiritual, none of which include Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour of Man Kind. Jesus didn't seem to visit other cultures until the West arrived there. Other deities were used to explain these experiences. I'm more agnostic than explicitly Atheist but in the same way existence precedes essence, it also seems to precede divinity. After all, accepting you don't have the answer is just as comforting as the deep faith necessary to believe you do.
So, they admit that they were indoctrinated into these beliefs as a child, and admit that the evidence is relatively weak, but they choose to believe anyways because Christianity is pragmatic to their lives. Got it. I also thought it was interesting Licona admitted that if Islam had the same level of "evidence" that he would reject it just based on the fact he doesn't like Islam.
Which is also a bit of an incestuous logical circle, as the REASON he doesn't like Islam is because he was indoctrinated as a child in Christianity. "Why is that other religion not true? Because my religion is true. Why is my religion true? Because I was raised to believe it was true, just like those people in those other religions."
I love the fact that some random guy on youtube, turned atheist got the attention of respected philosophers, historians, and theologians. I think it shows that this has been a long time coming, a lot of the questions posed in these videos are questions we've all had but were unable to ask.
Well, see, that's where their self-promotion is leading you wrong. Notice how you called them "respected philosophers, historians, and theologians"? The two in the video? They're apologists. An apologist is the intellectual equivalent of a fat slob sitting in an armchair covered in Frito dust looking at Olympians and slurring "I could do that" around his sixth beer of the morning. An apologist, hell even a theologian, is nothing respectable or qualified in any sense, it's just some self-granted title conmen use with each other to sell the illusion of respectability. "Theology" is, in other words, a fake degree. I think it's only natural for _real_ experts in history and philosophy to take notice of someone like Paulogia, since they may not have the time around their actual legitimate careers to run a proper UA-cam channel but it's always fun to dunk on clueless bastards and frauds like McDowell and Comfort and the rest. That whole panel of scientists who got together to humiliate Deepak Chopra looked like they were having the time of their life! To put it more simply, I guess I should say that "respected theologian" is equivalent to "gentlemanly wife-beater".
Remember, for hundreds of years, Christians were able to smear anyone that dared to ask these types of questions through their congregation controlled media outlets (town criers) and institutions. And if smearing you and turning you into a social untouchable didn't stop you from asking good questions or telling people the truth, then their Christian police would visit you, and if you survived to make it to their Christian Courts, they had no problem sending innocent people to their congregation controlled prisons and insane asylums.
DNA evidence still is not even 30 years old yet it took 10 years before society would even accept it as fact religions time is coming to a end second by second
"I'm not a skeptic by nature, I'm open minded" I don't think those two are mutually exclusive. When I hear of something new, I don't immediately doubt of its legitimacy unless it clashes with what I know to be verifiably true. In this case, it seems "open minded" means to believe just cuz
I define "open minded" as believing something (that isn't a mundane claim) after evidence that is falsifiable, verifiable, reproducible, and predictive is presented to me (even if the claim is one I don't like, or didn't want to believe before the evidence was presented). I define "close minded" as NOT believing something after such evidence is presented to me. You can be "skeptical" and believe lots of extraordinary things, as many extraordinary things have been demonstrated to be true. It just means you DON'T believe extraordinary things that HAVEN'T been demonstrated to be true...as that list of things is much, much, much longer with no guard rails to highlight the truth.
@@greyeyed123 Skeptical means open-minded. If you hear a claim, you then search for supporting evidence before you accept or reject the claim, whether the claim is mundane or not. Being closed-minded would be accepting or rejecting a claim regardless of evidence supporting or debunking said claim.
Being open-minded is in the definition of what it means to be a skeptic. It is a minor point in the discussion, but he does confuse skeptics with kneejerk nay-saying cynics and open-mindedners with happy-clappy mystics. For a scholar, he is rather fast and loose with his choice of words (also: ".. by nature... "??) Pro tip: You should never be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
A great job of editing Paul. I've watched this on Sean's channel and know how much time this must have taken. Was hoping you would do a video on this and you never disappoint.
It seems to me that the apologists are asking "We have a couple of grams of somewhat plausible evidence, about a kilo of implausible evidence, and tonnes of complete nonsense. Surely, that's enough?" No, it's not.
I've heard plenty of philosophical, historical, and psychological discussions of Christianity, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone having a literary discussion of the gospels and early Christianity, especially not in the context of other contemporary religious stories. I found this discussion and the context it gave to early Christianity to be absolutely fascinating.
That is the difference between a proper historian and a biblical theo-historian that grew up in a millieu favoring to see everything through faith glasses. That's one of the biggest problems in the mythicism/historicism debate: all the pro Historical Jesus folks come from the not very history oriented theo-historical corner. That does not mean they cannot know ANYTHING about hsitory, but most of them, including Dr Ehrmann, will subjugate their historical research under faith aspects and readily accept things any other historian investigating ancient texts would not let go through unqualified. Its a complete sub disciplien of History that heavily leans towards "whatever religion says". See as mentioned in this video "the argument from embarassment", which is barely ever used outside of biblical history studies. But inside the field it is - excuse the pun - taken as the "gospel" truth.
I am actually far more comfortable with the experiential argument for justification of faith, despite it obviously being not especially pursuasive to the unconverted. Apologetics would be put in far greater stead if Christian scholars acknowledged the uncertainty of the historical evidence for Jesus Christ outside of the Bible. If you believe you don't need more, if you don't well.... It wasn't going to pursuade you anyway.
The apologists give away the game at the beginning, they did not start believing Jesus rose from the dead based on evidence, they believed Jesus rose from the dead because it was demanded of them at a young and impressionable age by an authority figure and now they're grasping at straws for some reason to continue holding a belief that they find comforting.
kamil is great, he has a very unique perspective and has come up with some extraordinary insight into religious writing and myth, with a great sense of humour.
5:40 Dr Allison "I'm not a skeptic by nature. I'm open minded..." A good skeptic IS open minded. They just need sufficient evidence to believe. Belief WITHOUT sufficient evidence is not only unskeptical; it is unreasonable.
Wait... So Paul was essentially the Joseph Smith of the 1st century? And just, the only story we got about him is the version his followers believed rather than what the skeptics and "ex Mormons" had to say about him?
Saul threw the supposed teachings of Jesus out and invented his own narrative. And having never seen Jesus in person, how did he know who he supposedly saw.
Does it not occur to some people that, gods appearing at festivals or in battles to hundreds of people dropped off massively with the advent of the camera. The world was full of miracles for a long time but when people started asking for evidence it slowly dropped off.
I have much more respect for Dr's Allison and Licona than pretty much any other apologists that I'm aware of, but that's for doing what is generally considered EXPECTED from academic researchers - admitting and pointing out the weaknesses, the biases, their assumptions, and specifying caveats and potential flaws in their conclusions. I thank them and applaud them for doing so in the video clips provided. But ultimately they are still just arguing for not just magic, but magic which just so happens to have met with their personal approval, and from which they (believe) will benefit from.
The more I learn about this period, the more mundane the Jesus story sounds to me. Like yeah, today the whole story seems kind of unique to us, so Christians say "well how could anyone make this up? It must have happened!"; but that's just because there's 2000 years of other stories built on top of the Jesus one, and 2000 years to bury all the other stories that didn't have the support of major organizations to preserve it. If we lived 2000 years ago, the Jesus story might sound like any coming-of-age or hero's journey story sounds to us today; basically on the level of Star Wars or The Hunger Games.
Or it might sound like the narrative of a hundred other wandering preachers, magicians, and cult leaders. Scholars say that the eastern Mediterranean was rife with characters like these in that period. We already know about the apocalyptic Essene cult at Qumran, whose teachings bear a number of similarities with the Christian cult. I have long surmised that the Jesus narrative may have initially been compounded out of the careers of several wandering preachers related to this or similar cults after one them ran afoul of the authorities and was crucified. There was likely a mish-mash of stories about the life of "Jesus" before the person who wrote Mark around 70 AD assembled a specific version that became the template for the other gospels that were written later. Mainstream Biblical scholars, most of whom were Christians, have challenged virtually every item in the Gospel biographies, except for the crucifixion and resurrection, as being unlikely to be historical, for a list of various reasons. So it seems improbable that the Biblical account of Jesus is close enough to the actual life story of any given individual to say that "there was a certain person x and this person was Jesus." The debate about the historicity of Jesus might not have a definitive solution even if we had a time machine and could go back to Palestine from CE 1 to CE 30 and check things out. All we would be likely to find would be that there had been some apocalyptic preacher who had been crucified, but whose actual biography resembled the New Testament story so little that it would be debatable whether he could be meaningfully identified as Jesus even if it could be established that the story of his crucifixion had become an element of the tradition that ultimately evolved into Christianity. And it would be likely that whatever such a person had been teaching would not overlap with the general theology of Christianity enough to call it a match. So people would still be debating "did Jesus exist or not?" As for the resurrection-- why anyone would believe the account of a miraculous event, recorded nowhere else but in the 2,000 year old scriptures of a religious cult founded at a time when most people believed all kinds of supernatural spooky stuff, including stuff from a host of other cults that had traditions of divine beings rising from the dead, should boggle the mind of anyone capable of rational thought.
I don't understand why the "discovery by women" would be embarrassing. The women who discovered the empty tomb weren't believed! They told some men, and the men didn't believe them. So the men had to go verify for themselves. So why would that be embarrassing? It's exactly what you would expect. Why can't that have been made up?
The "discovery by women" is pretty impossible without them facing a capital crime. Jesus died on Friday and Joseph of "Bestdiscipletown" anointed it with oil, then buried it (so the story goes). There is no reason women would unwrap a corpse which even at that point was starting to reek, so they could douse it again with more oil. According to Jewish law, this would be considered desecrating a corpse, a crime which would mean you'd be stoned (and not in a good way). But the gospels add them in as a plot device as otherwise no one would "know" Jesus had resurrected.
Using the criterion of embarrassment should be totally embarrassing to those who claim it. It could "prove" every work of fiction. Oh, what the characters did here was reasonable - must be true. Oh, here what the characters is NOT reasonable - must be true. Oh, Watson would never claim Holmes fell to his death - how embarrassing, must be true. The wizard was a little man behind the curtain - embarrassing, thus true. Piglet and Pooh continue to walk around a tree, following their own footprints by mistake - yup, were their faces red. True and true.
@@johnnehrich9601 lol spot on. It's not an historical criteria used by real historians. It's funny that biblical scholars have to make up their own criteria for their books to be taken seriously.
Why would the disciples immediately go to the tomb? They were afraid and ran away… and supposedly there were guards at the tomb. Of course the authors of the gospels had to invent an alternative.
wasn't Licona the guy who lost a lucrative teaching position because he correctly stated that the zombie story in Matthew was a non literal exaggeration?
At the end of the day, the main question is, "would you accept the same standard of evidence for the religious claims of other belief systems?" I guess a relevant follow up would be, "if yes, then how do you determine that your Christian beliefs are true when tons of other religions actually *do* have as good or better evidence for their claims?"
As shown in this video, at least Licona openly admits he *wouldn't* accept it. Many others say or demonstrate that as well. But whether they'd say yes or no, they simply deny that other religions *do* have evidence, and exaggerate their own evidence.
You do know you're trying to make an equivalence fallacy when comparing religious claims as if they work the same, right? That's like saying would you accept the same standard for all murders to this one specific case. You would have to argue that every murder case have different situations and evidence that supports it and thus one cannot make a blanket statement to refute every one of them just because of how they operate.
@@silenthero2795 In what relevant way do they *not* "work the same"? In any case, nothing in this thread is about "a blanket statement to refute every" religion. The question being addressed was if another religion had as good or better evidence as christianity, would the apologist convert. And his answer was "no". That answer, along with the admission that he became christian at 10 without real thought about it, shows that the evidence is irrelevant.
@@jursamaj This has nothing to do with this "he became christian at 10 without real thought". What I'm saying is that OP is using a logic to discredit many belief system in a pretense that they work all in the same standard which is false. You're making false equivalence if you do. They should stand on their own merits based on their own evidence, other cases being irrelevant. I cannot speak to any belief system but you need to be very specific what kind of evidence you're speaking of, not just this vague "good evidence" and not just "what if". It's very idle to pretend that every belief system "work the same" even if they share some similarities. "Apples and oranges" as they say. Both are fruit but they're not obviously the same thing.
@@silenthero2795 Nothing in OP's post has anything to do with "discrediting many belief systems", thus everything you said was entirely irrelevant. And you didn't answer the question: In what relevant way do religions *not* "work the same"?
I am so greatful for this feed. Insisting on historicity of scripture is such a huge part of the harm being done by those who claim the name of Christian in this world. I find myself unable to leave the faith, so have the weighty responsibility of trying to turn this tide, and conversations like this help me immensely in that work.
@@recoveringbaptist2749 Just can't do it. Can't walk away from Christ's people without walking away from Christ, and every time I try to do that, the pain is unbearable. Each time, I've ended up diving into scripture and commentary until I find an interpretation that allows me to stay, instead. So I guess mine is the path of reform, whether I want that job or not.
Paulogia even cited this in a previous video responding to IP. Roman's didn't give a crap about local customs when it came to those accused of trying to usurp the authority of the empire.
THIS IS SUCH A COMPELLING VIDEO! How have I not watched this yet? Between Dale and Mike conceding enormously on the evidence for the resurrection, to Kamil presenting the interpretation that the author of Mark was just a very effective, intelligent story-teller who used the motif of "reversed expectations", this is one of the best counter-apologetic videos available.
Kamil was excellent here. Carrier is similar in how he discusses 'what people believed then' or how myths such as the stories we read in the Bible were extremely common back then and how stories and motifs were commonly borrowed. He also does a nice job of helping us see how things could have happened then, based on how strange things happen today that are very similar. Very good stuff
@@jamiehudson3661 You weren't interested in what scholastic field I was in when you asked your earlier question, so why does it matter now? Or is this just a thinly veiled attempt to employ the "appeal to authority" fallacy?
These two historians, I respect the fuck out of them. They seem to be intellectually honest, and fully cognisant of their own internal biases that can affect their work, and as a result actively try to set those aside in this discussion, going with the facts they can verify. They even note when and where their biases lie in the discussion and make sure that it is well know, and then explain what the evidence actually has. We need more Scholars, Theologians, and Historians of any religion and religious text like this. Our history and knowledge pool would be so much richer. I want more of these guys in the field. I am sad they are a minority.
Sadly, Sean mcdowell is well known for going to christian university classes and presenting himself as an atheist to respond to apologetics points (there are a couple of videos on UA-cam of this). So he is merely recovering the respect he lost because of that. Though i agree, is cool to see an historian acknowledging what they actually have.
@@Julian0101I was unaware of that history. I only have what I saw in the video. But it is so sad that historians of the Bible and Christianity and so forth are so inherently dishonest (at least in the US, can't speak for elsewhere cause I don't know), that doing the bare minimum is worth praise.
I've noticed Licona sounds much more honest when he's in dialogue with another Christian like Allison. But when he's discussing with a skeptic or atheist he's not very charitable. For example, in this discussion he even considers the "objective vision" hypothesis to be plausible in regards to what Paul experienced. However, when I've pointed out that the data suggests the appearance to Paul was visionary and by extension the others were too since Paul places his own experience in the same list as theirs without distinction, he immediately shifts the burden onto the skeptic that "it doesn't mean they all just had visions." My response is that Paul's testimony fails to establish these "appearances" were veridical sightings of a resurrected figure in physical reality which is what the resurrection argument requires. The burden of proof is on Licona to show that.
@@tristanalain9239 If you watch his debate with Dan Barker you can really see the slimy tactics of Licona come out, but that debate happened a while ago.
today i told my dad about how fascinating i find the concept of enzymes. and then he goes on to say how "well, some scientists believe that is evidence of god..!" and then i remembered not to discuss topics like that with dad
Should have told him “And some scientists believe the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of cheese. Good thing we don't believe things just because a scientist believes it.”
17:42 It's not implausible that a charismatic cult leader may have the fans with connections to secure his corpse special treatment and a lavish burial. Such things have happened with modern successful cult leaders when the whole cult didn't implode after the founder's death. If a historic Jesus was executed along with two criminals, his followers may have pressured the authorities to get him buried but the other two would be thrown in a ditch or something.
My question is this: why do you even care? Why is there any interest in a subject among people who not only disbelieve in this stuff buteven mock and ridicule it? The only thing I can think of is that there must be some amount of doubt about the position expressed here, however small or insignificant.
@@Gandalf98 Mostly because not only do a large part of the population believe it as divine truth but these very same people make decisions based on these beliefs that affect the rest of society.
@@Gandalf98 We like to learn about this stuff because we are surrounded by people who *do* believe it, and often insist on *us* believing it too. When neighbors, co-workers, family members, etc., assail us with their latest "proof", it's handy to have real info to give them back. It tends to shut them up, at least for a while. To turn your insinuation around: why do you even care if we care? And why are you offering your answer if you really want *our* answers?
@@jursamaj So many christians have had their inquisitiveness - especially about their own delusions - completely knocked out of them so they just cannot understand why other people just have an interest and a thirst for knowledge.
Yeah, that admission that they would not convert religions based on the evidence for Christianity is just super honest for them and I respect them for it. Of course, now the issue is getting that said in the pulpit. But yeah that admission is just … crazy. Though I most definitely respect their intellectual honesty.
I was sent to 'Sunday School' by my parents - from the age of about 8. After a few weeks, when the person in charge could not answer my first question, "Are we going to do another story about Jesus this week" - I became an atheist - nothing I i have heard, read, or experienced, since has changed my conviction.1. 1. We are alone in the universe 2. To outlast our sun, we need to stop destroying the environment we have now 3. To survive, as a species, we need to collaborate on a scale unheard of to date 4. The alternative is a decline, to oblivion, where nothing of what we are survives…
"We don't have fictional characters relevantly similar to Jesus in Mediterranean Antiquity" so all the Greek and Roman gods and demigods are historical too? Or are they not relevantly similar? What am I missing here?
This raises some very very good points and I would love to see an apologist try and respond to it. I have a feeling though that they would just disregard it entirely
This is very good, closely argued stuff on both sides. One very basic point that seems to be completely ingnored in these discussions though is Rabbi Singer's argument about the nonsensical reason given for the women's visit to the tomb at all. See his video Rabbi Tovia Singer: "There was No Empty TombꟷThe Gospel’s Resurrection Accounts Never Occurred". This would appear to lend additional credence to the idea that the resurrection accounts are indeed constructed around literary narratives rather than historical ones or as Rabbi singer puts it "a plot device".
"It's the inerrant word of god! ok but... you know... with some ambiguity and lack of clarity here and there... and... it could have been written better... BUT PERFECT." XD
It seems to me if you are confident enough in a concept for it to be true, yet it lacks sufficient external evidence to support it, that belief is being held for other reasons. Fortunately, irrational beliefs can be easily held in the brain if they are satisfying, not too costly and do not encounter physical verification. This is likely why the life blood of theism is wholly predicated on linguistic history/predictions we cannot verify in the present.
I suspect the original sightings of the risen Jesus are something akin to modern ghost stories and shared experiences of contacting the dead. Even the stories of post resurrection appearances are strange and non real. Sometimes he is mistaken for someone else. Sometimes they didn't recognise him until after they parted. He seems to pass through walls to prove his physical existence to Thomas, who never does touch him. He cooks fish. Perhaps the stories are based on early accounts of people who in grief had resurrection experiences, plus others who believed those accounts.
WTF does Allison mean by ‘I’m not a skeptic, I’m open minded’?! Being a skeptic *is* being open minded to changing your opinion based on *evidence*. Someone who just believes things without evidence isn’t being open minded, they’re being credulous.
It always comes down to the same thing. Would these self-styled "historians" give the same credence to identical miraculous claims made for other religions? The answer is ALWAYS "nope." Everything falls apart whenever this simple question is asked. If their "historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus" is the same sort of stuff as the evidence for "in front of thousands of others, Holy Man Sri Sathya Sai Baba raised from the dead his follower whom he simply called, Venkatesh" a supposed event firmly believed by millions of people and attested by thousands of "first-hand witnesses", then their proclaimed "historical evidence" is just pure bullshit.
The best evidence for "The resurrection" is blind faith, hoping, and making a wish that it's true. Period. There is zero evidence and they know it. 🤦♂️ Also, which is far more likely, that Jesus' body was never found because he was resurrected or because he never existed?
His body wouldn't really matter if he can just hop in another one. Why do you think he wasn't recognized after the resurrection? He came back as Christ but with a different body.
@@natsusatsujinki8342 He came back with a different body… that’s why he wasn’t recognized… and then he switched back into his crucified body that still had all of the holes in it and appeared to doubting Thomas. Of course even most Christian historians think that this story was invented by the authors of the gospel of John.😉
This reminds me of that non-stamp collector video where the one atheist debates the three theists. The atheist just sits there the whole time not saying a word. Then the theists end up going to war in the parking lot outside and he just gets up and leaves.
How likely is it that inspirations for the christian christ character's missing body were: a) the Greek theological trope of the missing body, and b) the chronicler Josephus's story of Yehsu the Egyptian not being heard from after the Romans attacked him and his followers on the Mount of Olives ?
It’s an absurd to claim to know what happens after death. However, if one dies, autopsy, buried,(better yet, cremated), then returns after a year; then we can start a conversation. 😮
I have a book with some stories in it, that doesn't make the stories true. Even if I really really really believe it, that still does not make the story true. The hero might have saved the village, but he did not shoot fireballs at this enemy. 500 people saw Jesus walking around after he was killed is ridiculous. Who are these 500 people and what are their names? Can I go talk to them? Why is it that we do not see any of these supernatural events taking place in modern day with digital video?
Regarding the tomb, how long would it take, with the tools available at the time, to carve out a stone tomb big enough not just for a horizontal body, but for several people to stand inside? More than a weekend I'd imagine. More like months if not years to prepare, which is why only the wealthiest people had them. Apart from the labor costs, you'd need an agreed site to work on, or risk someone claiming your tomb is on their land and it's now theirs. Given the construction time and labor involved, were tombs dug out ready for a client to pay when needed, or were they created only when an advance payment had been made? Were round stones used to seal these tombs once occupied, that could be easily rolled aside by a couple of women, or maybe a couple of tomb robbers? Or were they better sealed or better hidden, like Egyptian tombs?
You're assuming that they had little to no technology when the pyramids around the world had been built with no modern explanation from historians. Logically if the wonders of the ancient world could be produced during the assumed time period then they had equal or greater technology than we had.
I'm not an archeologist but my understanding is that there are locations around Jerusalem which are more suitable for these kinds of tombs than other location. For example the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the traditional location of the tomb) is a former limestone quarry (limestone being easier to carve than other types of stone) and multiple rock-cut tombs were discovered there.
@@Lobsterwithinternet Exactly… that’s why it’s not really that mysterious how the pyramids were built. But I am not sure if you really need the best trained experts to create a rock cut tomb.😉
There is no workable timeline in the Bible for a real person of Jesus. He can't be born in two different years that are at least 10 years apart. He can't be in two different places at the same time when they are many miles apart.
I have an issue with calling "Christian scholars" "Scholars" as they usually have a predetermined outcome decided and then works to find the supporting evidence. Not every Christian scholar is a "Christian scholars", when studying matters that faith doesn't touch on, or those that can convincingly put their biases aside. But those scholars are few and far between.
Dr. Richard Carrier has a wonderful book "On the Historicity of Jesus" that makes some pretty compelling arguments for mythicism. After reading his book personally feel like there's no need to assume that Jesus was a historical person
Five hundred people is a lot of people. I can't imagine how that would happen unless he was on stage or something. I think Adele could walk around Las Vegas all day and one would be pressed to find 500 people who said they saw her.
Also, doesn't 500 sound like an oddly round number? Reporter for the Roman Times: "Okay, how many of you people saw Jesus walking around after he was crucified?" "Oh, tons and tons of us saw him." "Okay, I'll put down 500."
You know, the text answers your questions right? When Jesus started performing his miracles, early, it is described as they were pressed in by "multitudes". (Enough for Jesus to request a boat for some relief from the pressure.) After his death, and coming back, I think a (rounded out) number of 500 people, is quite reasonable.
@@nathanielalderson9111 - *they were pressed in by "multitudes". (Enough for Jesus to request a boat for some relief from the pressure* but then that makes you wonder why no one wrote about Jesus during his lifetime. He was SO popular, according to scripture that he was known all through Judea, Syria and the cities of the Decapolis, but not a single person wrote about him during his lifetime?
@@druidriley3163 because writing back then was expensive, by hand, took a long time, and was separated by long distances. It was not like it is today. And they did write about him. In many places. You're either denying them or don't know about them.
@@nathanielalderson9111 - no one wrote about Jesus until decades and centuries after his supposed lifestyle. NO ONE. And historians have quite a lot of writings from the 1st century. Scholars have letters, books, poems, histories, speeches, laws, etc., etc. People wrote all the time. Historians also know the names of travelers, merchants, and other folks who even traveled to where Jesus supposedly lived during his life exactly when the bible said he was doing his miracles and teachings _and not a single one of these people mention him_ Well-to-do people were literate and according to the bible, Jesus had fans among the rich. Sooo...any reason they couldn't have written about him?
Yup. I believe in resurrection... Then ... I've seen Elvis at my local supermarket. That's much more plausible that "I saw Elvis so now I believe in resurrection."
When giving their reasons for their belief not one of the apologists admits to making money from it as a driving force. Dave Allison at least admitted that his main reason for belief is that it made him feel good. Not interested in proof, just likes to feel good.
Do gods come down from heaven and get earth girls pregnant? of course not, that is mythology. The whole foundation of christianity is mythology. That from the virgin birth, to Jesus' assection to heaven, is mythology. The new testament begins with mythology and ends in mythology.
There’s certainly a lot of mythological elements included in the gospels. That doesn’t disconfirm that a historical figure existed at the base of it all though, something significant had to inspire multiple authors to diligently try and theologically reconcile how someone could both be the messiah while also have the most un-messiah-like, shameful thing happen to them.
When it comes to an historical figure, the entire argument for his existence is nothing more than an argumentum ad populim. Without the magical aspects of the biblical jesus the historical jesus is irrelevant. The entire christian religion hinges on the common dying-and-rising deity trope. And there isn't a shred of evidence that ever happened.
@@jaclo3112 Not the rising from the dead part, no. But I can accept that mainstream scholarship has good reasons to think Mohammad existed, even if I don’t think he split the moon or spoke with an angel. I see Jesus in a similar way.
Symbolically if my parents raised me Christian and I come with the modern update to the belief system(straight from the source)then in a way God and my mother made me. If you don't understand it's probably not for you or not time for you to know. 🤷♂️
Actually it is possible and not all that uncommon for women to get pregnant merely from "heavy petting." Well, that and lying about how pure they were.
Gregor was really interesting and well spoken. Maybe if you're looking for video ideas you could ask him if he has anything going on that would be a good subject for one of your videos and then you could ask him softball questions about his current hyperfixation or whatever he's studying in the genre
At 09:00 when he mentioned Acts, it reminded me of the Bart Ehrman podcast I listened to this morning, where he said that only 7 of the 27 books of the bible are even authentic, those being the 7 verified letters of Paul. I'm sitting here thinking that if only 26% of the book can be verified, it's a very poor foundation for the faith, not that it'll matter to the majority of believers. ua-cam.com/video/TW5b07T5VNM/v-deo.html
By authentic I think he means we have relatively decent confidence in the identity of the author, not necessarily their content. The 'canonical' gospels are anonymous, as are several epistles. My understanding is that 7 of the 13 (14 if you include Hebrews) letters that most Christian denominations have usually attributed to Paul are accepted by scholars to be his writing. Three of them, 1,2 Timothy and Titus if memory serves are almost universally rejected as being forgeries written by someone else. The remaining 3 don't have as strong consensus, but the lean is to they are written by others as well.
5:40 Dr. Allison hits one of my pet peeves. He presents the concept of "keeping an open mind" as being in opposition to skepticism. The idea behind keep an open mind is not to believe a claim if you don't have sufficient reason to. To keep an open mind means to allow the evidence and logic to guide you no matter what you predisposition for a particular answer. A default skepticism is part of that. This is because if you have a conclusion without first having proper reasons for that conclusion, you are closed minded. As a test for this idea, consider that I can believe anything I want as long as I don't require a proper reason to believe.
*Yes! This!*
100% THIS. I just posted a similar comment (I didn’t read the comments first, I usually just upvote comments I agree with but he pissed me off a bit with that ‘misunderstanding’.). Yours is more detailed and calm but we agree.
The best default question I have ever heard for examining a claim or belief comes from the TIK history channel here on UA-cam: "But is that really the case?" While I disagree with him politically, I 100% agree with asking that question of any historical narrative, then examining the evidence for or against that narrative and reaching a conclusion.
@Bad at.
Yeah, at 5:40, I agree, however I'm not sure he means it to be a one or the other thing though. Immediately before that he uses skeptism to say one should not just readily accept the thing.
I honestly think he just means that he's less skeptical with some of the biblical stuff, than other bits of biblical stuff, I think his 'open minded' isn't meant to pit the two as opposites. Just that he's more credulous. I think it's more a commentary on his personal take, rather than his suggesting those skeptical aren't open minded.
I could be wrong. I've only seen him speak a few times, but I got the impression that he is trying to be as open as he can, and admit when he understands why there's opposing skeptical views, he just struggles to get there.
Dr Allison keeps 'an open mind' w.r.t. SPECIFIC aspects of the Christian faith/evidences that are put forth for the resurrection. He still firmly believes that the evidence AS A WHOLE is in favour of Christianity.
Cool to see Kamil featuring in the video. Guy is a well of historical knowledge, sarcastic comments and based humour.
TRUEEEE!
+1
I like Kamil, he enjoys discussing Christianity with a little spit and Polish... sorry. 😛
@@rembrandt972ify
And a little bit of Czech.
yes. Such a great talker Kamil and so much knowledge
I just kept hearing "as a historian, it's very frustrating that the stuff I want to believe can't be defended historically, at all." I know it's not his actual words, but it's what I heard.
Yeah, I don't envy anyone who has that cognitive dissonance to contend with.
I do respect what comes across as genuine attempts to be intellectually honest against strong, deep rooted world-view beliefs.
Yep, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Who would believe the Hittites were real?
@@garlottos Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it is a circumstance where belief is unjustified.
Actually you need more faith to be an atheist then believe in god. What is your evidence that there is no god?
@@jeroenky6038 Whilst we culturally don't recognise it, a substantial amount of the logical leaps necessary to reach a monotheistic or Christian God is just packed into your upbringing. There are plenty of subjective or experiential cues in someone's life that could lead them to become spiritual, none of which include Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour of Man Kind. Jesus didn't seem to visit other cultures until the West arrived there. Other deities were used to explain these experiences. I'm more agnostic than explicitly Atheist but in the same way existence precedes essence, it also seems to precede divinity. After all, accepting you don't have the answer is just as comforting as the deep faith necessary to believe you do.
So, they admit that they were indoctrinated into these beliefs as a child, and admit that the evidence is relatively weak, but they choose to believe anyways because Christianity is pragmatic to their lives. Got it. I also thought it was interesting Licona admitted that if Islam had the same level of "evidence" that he would reject it just based on the fact he doesn't like Islam.
You remember the minutes he said that about Islam? I don't feel like watching the entire video?
Which is also a bit of an incestuous logical circle, as the REASON he doesn't like Islam is because he was indoctrinated as a child in Christianity. "Why is that other religion not true? Because my religion is true. Why is my religion true? Because I was raised to believe it was true, just like those people in those other religions."
Yep, that about sums it up.
Ineed. It’s on par with with WLC’s admission of lowering the epistemic bar to suit his fancy.
@@michaelstanet7453 around 10:00 ish
I love the fact that some random guy on youtube, turned atheist got the attention of respected philosophers, historians, and theologians. I think it shows that this has been a long time coming, a lot of the questions posed in these videos are questions we've all had but were unable to ask.
Historians aren't dealing in mythology. They research facts snd not fiction
Well, see, that's where their self-promotion is leading you wrong. Notice how you called them "respected philosophers, historians, and theologians"?
The two in the video? They're apologists. An apologist is the intellectual equivalent of a fat slob sitting in an armchair covered in Frito dust looking at Olympians and slurring "I could do that" around his sixth beer of the morning. An apologist, hell even a theologian, is nothing respectable or qualified in any sense, it's just some self-granted title conmen use with each other to sell the illusion of respectability. "Theology" is, in other words, a fake degree.
I think it's only natural for _real_ experts in history and philosophy to take notice of someone like Paulogia, since they may not have the time around their actual legitimate careers to run a proper UA-cam channel but it's always fun to dunk on clueless bastards and frauds like McDowell and Comfort and the rest. That whole panel of scientists who got together to humiliate Deepak Chopra looked like they were having the time of their life!
To put it more simply, I guess I should say that "respected theologian" is equivalent to "gentlemanly wife-beater".
Remember, for hundreds of years, Christians were able to smear anyone that dared to ask these types of questions through their congregation controlled media outlets (town criers) and institutions. And if smearing you and turning you into a social untouchable didn't stop you from asking good questions or telling people the truth, then their Christian police would visit you, and if you survived to make it to their Christian Courts, they had no problem sending innocent people to their congregation controlled prisons and insane asylums.
DNA evidence still is not even 30 years old yet it took 10 years before society would even accept it as fact religions time is coming to a end second by second
"I'm not a skeptic by nature, I'm open minded"
I don't think those two are mutually exclusive. When I hear of something new, I don't immediately doubt of its legitimacy unless it clashes with what I know to be verifiably true. In this case, it seems "open minded" means to believe just cuz
If you don’t immediately believe something, it means you doubt it.
I define "open minded" as believing something (that isn't a mundane claim) after evidence that is falsifiable, verifiable, reproducible, and predictive is presented to me (even if the claim is one I don't like, or didn't want to believe before the evidence was presented). I define "close minded" as NOT believing something after such evidence is presented to me. You can be "skeptical" and believe lots of extraordinary things, as many extraordinary things have been demonstrated to be true. It just means you DON'T believe extraordinary things that HAVEN'T been demonstrated to be true...as that list of things is much, much, much longer with no guard rails to highlight the truth.
@@BigFatWedge So do you immediately believe everything you are told? I would define that as gullible.
@@greyeyed123 Skeptical means open-minded. If you hear a claim, you then search for supporting evidence before you accept or reject the claim, whether the claim is mundane or not. Being closed-minded would be accepting or rejecting a claim regardless of evidence supporting or debunking said claim.
Being open-minded is in the definition of what it means to be a skeptic. It is a minor point in the discussion, but he does confuse skeptics with kneejerk nay-saying cynics and open-mindedners with happy-clappy mystics. For a scholar, he is rather fast and loose with his choice of words (also: ".. by nature... "??)
Pro tip: You should never be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
it's interesting to see Cognitive Dissonance in such intelligent people. They believe because that is how they were raised.
Where did you get that from the video? Did you watch the entire original video or Paulogia's hacked up and decietfully editted video?
@@jamiehudson3661 😂
@@jamiehudson3661 “Who are you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes!!” 😆😆😆
@@jamiehudson3661 Thanks for the unsupported accusation. That's what we expect from Christians.
@@donnievance1942 I support in depth in another comment I made on the video.
A great job of editing Paul. I've watched this on Sean's channel and know how much time this must have taken. Was hoping you would do a video on this and you never disappoint.
It seems to me that the apologists are asking "We have a couple of grams of somewhat plausible evidence, about a kilo of implausible evidence, and tonnes of complete nonsense. Surely, that's enough?"
No, it's not.
I've heard plenty of philosophical, historical, and psychological discussions of Christianity, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone having a literary discussion of the gospels and early Christianity, especially not in the context of other contemporary religious stories. I found this discussion and the context it gave to early Christianity to be absolutely fascinating.
It is very late as we have zero out of the first century
That is the difference between a proper historian and a biblical theo-historian that grew up in a millieu favoring to see everything through faith glasses.
That's one of the biggest problems in the mythicism/historicism debate: all the pro Historical Jesus folks come from the not very history oriented theo-historical corner. That does not mean they cannot know ANYTHING about hsitory, but most of them, including Dr Ehrmann, will subjugate their historical research under faith aspects and readily accept things any other historian investigating ancient texts would not let go through unqualified. Its a complete sub disciplien of History that heavily leans towards "whatever religion says".
See as mentioned in this video "the argument from embarassment", which is barely ever used outside of biblical history studies. But inside the field it is - excuse the pun - taken as the "gospel" truth.
I am actually far more comfortable with the experiential argument for justification of faith, despite it obviously being not especially pursuasive to the unconverted. Apologetics would be put in far greater stead if Christian scholars acknowledged the uncertainty of the historical evidence for Jesus Christ outside of the Bible. If you believe you don't need more, if you don't well.... It wasn't going to pursuade you anyway.
Great to see Kamil on your channel , he has a lot of knowledge to offer .
Hey, Kamil Gregor is on Paulogia! This is long overdue, KG is fantastic!
Great job guys : )
The apologists give away the game at the beginning, they did not start believing Jesus rose from the dead based on evidence, they believed Jesus rose from the dead because it was demanded of them at a young and impressionable age by an authority figure and now they're grasping at straws for some reason to continue holding a belief that they find comforting.
Of course. There is no other way to do it.
I0cust13
very insightfuI c0mment
rammed int0 them fr0m birth tiII they cant reas0n
kamil is great, he has a very unique perspective and has come up with some extraordinary insight into religious writing and myth, with a great sense of humour.
5:40 Dr Allison "I'm not a skeptic by nature. I'm open minded..." A good skeptic IS open minded. They just need sufficient evidence to believe. Belief WITHOUT sufficient evidence is not only unskeptical; it is unreasonable.
He's confusing cynicism with skepticism
Excellent commentary! Paulogia's content is so informative. Thank you.
Wait... So Paul was essentially the Joseph Smith of the 1st century? And just, the only story we got about him is the version his followers believed rather than what the skeptics and "ex Mormons" had to say about him?
I have heard others notice that Mormonism is to Christianity what Christianity is to Judaism.
If Paul really believed his vision, he'd be more honest than Joseph Smith. I mean Joseph Smith knew he was lying.
Saul threw the supposed teachings of Jesus out and invented his own narrative. And having never seen Jesus in person, how did he know who he supposedly saw.
Does it not occur to some people that, gods appearing at festivals or in battles to hundreds of people dropped off massively with the advent of the camera. The world was full of miracles for a long time but when people started asking for evidence it slowly dropped off.
This was excellent, Kamil. You have given me more insight than anyone else.
I have much more respect for Dr's Allison and Licona than pretty much any other apologists that I'm aware of, but that's for doing what is generally considered EXPECTED from academic researchers - admitting and pointing out the weaknesses, the biases, their assumptions, and specifying caveats and potential flaws in their conclusions. I thank them and applaud them for doing so in the video clips provided. But ultimately they are still just arguing for not just magic, but magic which just so happens to have met with their personal approval, and from which they (believe) will benefit from.
0
The more I learn about this period, the more mundane the Jesus story sounds to me. Like yeah, today the whole story seems kind of unique to us, so Christians say "well how could anyone make this up? It must have happened!"; but that's just because there's 2000 years of other stories built on top of the Jesus one, and 2000 years to bury all the other stories that didn't have the support of major organizations to preserve it.
If we lived 2000 years ago, the Jesus story might sound like any coming-of-age or hero's journey story sounds to us today; basically on the level of Star Wars or The Hunger Games.
Or it might sound like the narrative of a hundred other wandering preachers, magicians, and cult leaders. Scholars say that the eastern Mediterranean was rife with characters like these in that period. We already know about the apocalyptic Essene cult at Qumran, whose teachings bear a number of similarities with the Christian cult. I have long surmised that the Jesus narrative may have initially been compounded out of the careers of several wandering preachers related to this or similar cults after one them ran afoul of the authorities and was crucified. There was likely a mish-mash of stories about the life of "Jesus" before the person who wrote Mark around 70 AD assembled a specific version that became the template for the other gospels that were written later. Mainstream Biblical scholars, most of whom were Christians, have challenged virtually every item in the Gospel biographies, except for the crucifixion and resurrection, as being unlikely to be historical, for a list of various reasons.
So it seems improbable that the Biblical account of Jesus is close enough to the actual life story of any given individual to say that "there was a certain person x and this person was Jesus." The debate about the historicity of Jesus might not have a definitive solution even if we had a time machine and could go back to Palestine from CE 1 to CE 30 and check things out. All we would be likely to find would be that there had been some apocalyptic preacher who had been crucified, but whose actual biography resembled the New Testament story so little that it would be debatable whether he could be meaningfully identified as Jesus even if it could be established that the story of his crucifixion had become an element of the tradition that ultimately evolved into Christianity. And it would be likely that whatever such a person had been teaching would not overlap with the general theology of Christianity enough to call it a match. So people would still be debating "did Jesus exist or not?"
As for the resurrection-- why anyone would believe the account of a miraculous event, recorded nowhere else but in the 2,000 year old scriptures of a religious cult founded at a time when most people believed all kinds of supernatural spooky stuff, including stuff from a host of other cults that had traditions of divine beings rising from the dead, should boggle the mind of anyone capable of rational thought.
The original comic books
There are plenty of Jesus-like figures in other religions/ mythology. There's nothing original or remarkable about him. Mundane is right.
I don't understand why the "discovery by women" would be embarrassing.
The women who discovered the empty tomb weren't believed!
They told some men, and the men didn't believe them. So the men had to go verify for themselves.
So why would that be embarrassing? It's exactly what you would expect.
Why can't that have been made up?
The "discovery by women" is pretty impossible without them facing a capital crime. Jesus died on Friday and Joseph of "Bestdiscipletown" anointed it with oil, then buried it (so the story goes). There is no reason women would unwrap a corpse which even at that point was starting to reek, so they could douse it again with more oil. According to Jewish law, this would be considered desecrating a corpse, a crime which would mean you'd be stoned (and not in a good way).
But the gospels add them in as a plot device as otherwise no one would "know" Jesus had resurrected.
@@johnnehrich9601 yeah, you can make a case for why it would be impossible. But you wouldn't call it embarrassing, though.
Using the criterion of embarrassment should be totally embarrassing to those who claim it. It could "prove" every work of fiction. Oh, what the characters did here was reasonable - must be true. Oh, here what the characters is NOT reasonable - must be true.
Oh, Watson would never claim Holmes fell to his death - how embarrassing, must be true. The wizard was a little man behind the curtain - embarrassing, thus true. Piglet and Pooh continue to walk around a tree, following their own footprints by mistake - yup, were their faces red. True and true.
@@johnnehrich9601 lol spot on. It's not an historical criteria used by real historians.
It's funny that biblical scholars have to make up their own criteria for their books to be taken seriously.
Why would the disciples immediately go to the tomb?
They were afraid and ran away… and supposedly there were guards at the tomb.
Of course the authors of the gospels had to invent an alternative.
Love Kamil, recognized his voice immediately.
Mike Licona might be the only Christian Apologist who _actually_ has a sliver of intellectual honesty.
Well, that's because he's a historian, not an apologist. They're actual scholars, not salesmen.
Sometimes. Hasn't he made quite a few unsupported claims addressed on this channel?
wasn't Licona the guy who lost a lucrative teaching position because he correctly stated that the zombie story in Matthew was a non literal exaggeration?
@@uncleanunicorn4571
Yeah, he was
I might be mistaken, but didnt he HAD to rectify/backtrack that comment at risk of losing OTHER lucrative offers?
At the end of the day, the main question is, "would you accept the same standard of evidence for the religious claims of other belief systems?"
I guess a relevant follow up would be, "if yes, then how do you determine that your Christian beliefs are true when tons of other religions actually *do* have as good or better evidence for their claims?"
As shown in this video, at least Licona openly admits he *wouldn't* accept it. Many others say or demonstrate that as well.
But whether they'd say yes or no, they simply deny that other religions *do* have evidence, and exaggerate their own evidence.
You do know you're trying to make an equivalence fallacy when comparing religious claims as if they work the same, right? That's like saying would you accept the same standard for all murders to this one specific case. You would have to argue that every murder case have different situations and evidence that supports it and thus one cannot make a blanket statement to refute every one of them just because of how they operate.
@@silenthero2795 In what relevant way do they *not* "work the same"?
In any case, nothing in this thread is about "a blanket statement to refute every" religion. The question being addressed was if another religion had as good or better evidence as christianity, would the apologist convert. And his answer was "no". That answer, along with the admission that he became christian at 10 without real thought about it, shows that the evidence is irrelevant.
@@jursamaj This has nothing to do with this "he became christian at 10 without real thought". What I'm saying is that OP is using a logic to discredit many belief system in a pretense that they work all in the same standard which is false. You're making false equivalence if you do. They should stand on their own merits based on their own evidence, other cases being irrelevant.
I cannot speak to any belief system but you need to be very specific what kind of evidence you're speaking of, not just this vague "good evidence" and not just "what if". It's very idle to pretend that every belief system "work the same" even if they share some similarities. "Apples and oranges" as they say. Both are fruit but they're not obviously the same thing.
@@silenthero2795 Nothing in OP's post has anything to do with "discrediting many belief systems", thus everything you said was entirely irrelevant.
And you didn't answer the question: In what relevant way do religions *not* "work the same"?
100k+ subscribers! Congrats Paul! ❤
I love this type of discussion rather than argument keep it up
What an awesome show! Really enjoyed Kamil’s knowledge, attention to detail, and use of citations.
I am so greatful for this feed. Insisting on historicity of scripture is such a huge part of the harm being done by those who claim the name of Christian in this world. I find myself unable to leave the faith, so have the weighty responsibility of trying to turn this tide, and conversations like this help me immensely in that work.
Marie, can I politely ask you what it is that results in you being 'unable to leave the faith'?
I would also like to know what prevents you from leaving the faith.
@@recoveringbaptist2749 Just can't do it. Can't walk away from Christ's people without walking away from Christ, and every time I try to do that, the pain is unbearable. Each time, I've ended up diving into scripture and commentary until I find an interpretation that allows me to stay, instead. So I guess mine is the path of reform, whether I want that job or not.
I recommend watching Genetically Modified Skeptic for support in deconstruction and apostasy. He recommends several resources.
@@scottmaddow7879 amen!
Thanks! Love Kamil!
Me too!
Big fan of Kamil. Really looking forward to watching this.
That was really interesting what Kamil had to say.. thank you for having him on Paul! Going to go watch some of his stuff now :)
Roman law said that bodies had to be left on the cross as an example to onlookers. They would not have made an exception for some preacher.
Paulogia even cited this in a previous video responding to IP. Roman's didn't give a crap about local customs when it came to those accused of trying to usurp the authority of the empire.
*They would not have made an exception for some preacher* Especially not with the short-tempered, brutal and intolerant Pilate in charge.
THIS IS SUCH A COMPELLING VIDEO! How have I not watched this yet? Between Dale and Mike conceding enormously on the evidence for the resurrection, to Kamil presenting the interpretation that the author of Mark was just a very effective, intelligent story-teller who used the motif of "reversed expectations", this is one of the best counter-apologetic videos available.
Kamil was excellent here. Carrier is similar in how he discusses 'what people believed then' or how myths such as the stories we read in the Bible were extremely common back then and how stories and motifs were commonly borrowed. He also does a nice job of helping us see how things could have happened then, based on how strange things happen today that are very similar. Very good stuff
Very nice to meet this Kamil Gregor. Well spoken, loads of info.
Kamil's knowledge of the period is excellent, raises many new thoughts for alternative explanations
How would you know it's excellent? Are you a scholar?
@@jamiehudson3661 Yes
@@MatthewCaunsfield In what field?
@@jamiehudson3661 You weren't interested in what scholastic field I was in when you asked your earlier question, so why does it matter now?
Or is this just a thinly veiled attempt to employ the "appeal to authority" fallacy?
@@MatthewCaunsfield Why would you say I wasn't interested? All I asked was were you a scholar.
These two historians, I respect the fuck out of them.
They seem to be intellectually honest, and fully cognisant of their own internal biases that can affect their work, and as a result actively try to set those aside in this discussion, going with the facts they can verify. They even note when and where their biases lie in the discussion and make sure that it is well know, and then explain what the evidence actually has.
We need more Scholars, Theologians, and Historians of any religion and religious text like this. Our history and knowledge pool would be so much richer. I want more of these guys in the field.
I am sad they are a minority.
Sadly, Sean mcdowell is well known for going to christian university classes and presenting himself as an atheist to respond to apologetics points (there are a couple of videos on UA-cam of this).
So he is merely recovering the respect he lost because of that.
Though i agree, is cool to see an historian acknowledging what they actually have.
@@Julian0101I was unaware of that history.
I only have what I saw in the video.
But it is so sad that historians of the Bible and Christianity and so forth are so inherently dishonest (at least in the US, can't speak for elsewhere cause I don't know), that doing the bare minimum is worth praise.
I've noticed Licona sounds much more honest when he's in dialogue with another Christian like Allison. But when he's discussing with a skeptic or atheist he's not very charitable. For example, in this discussion he even considers the "objective vision" hypothesis to be plausible in regards to what Paul experienced. However, when I've pointed out that the data suggests the appearance to Paul was visionary and by extension the others were too since Paul places his own experience in the same list as theirs without distinction, he immediately shifts the burden onto the skeptic that "it doesn't mean they all just had visions." My response is that Paul's testimony fails to establish these "appearances" were veridical sightings of a resurrected figure in physical reality which is what the resurrection argument requires. The burden of proof is on Licona to show that.
@@resurrectionnerd Hmmm valid point.
Maybe I was to quick to give that one credit for honesty then?
@@tristanalain9239 If you watch his debate with Dan Barker you can really see the slimy tactics of Licona come out, but that debate happened a while ago.
Happy to find Kamil wherever I can
this was so fire
today i told my dad about how fascinating i find the concept of enzymes. and then he goes on to say how "well, some scientists believe that is evidence of god..!" and then i remembered not to discuss topics like that with dad
Your dad is using the God of Gaps Fallacy. Start with the concept of Burden of Proof and work your way uo.
Should have told him “And some scientists believe the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of cheese. Good thing we don't believe things just because a scientist believes it.”
I've not heard of Kamil before, but I'll definitely be checking out his channel!
He often appears on Pinecreek's channel, too. They have done some in-depth but fun analyses of gospel texts and their sources.
kam and cam highly recommended.
17:42 It's not implausible that a charismatic cult leader may have the fans with connections to secure his corpse special treatment and a lavish burial. Such things have happened with modern successful cult leaders when the whole cult didn't implode after the founder's death. If a historic Jesus was executed along with two criminals, his followers may have pressured the authorities to get him buried but the other two would be thrown in a ditch or something.
Kamil is blowing my mind...so much knowledge and insight.
I'm loving this so far, seeing Christians take an actual honest position is nice
My question is this: why do you even care? Why is there any interest in a subject among people who not only disbelieve in this stuff buteven mock and ridicule it? The only thing I can think of is that there must be some amount of doubt about the position expressed here, however small or insignificant.
@@Gandalf98 Mostly because not only do a large part of the population believe it as divine truth but these very same people make decisions based on these beliefs that affect the rest of society.
@@Gandalf98 We like to learn about this stuff because we are surrounded by people who *do* believe it, and often insist on *us* believing it too. When neighbors, co-workers, family members, etc., assail us with their latest "proof", it's handy to have real info to give them back. It tends to shut them up, at least for a while.
To turn your insinuation around: why do you even care if we care? And why are you offering your answer if you really want *our* answers?
@@Gandalf98 Yeah its just like when people try to discredit the flat earth theory- like why do you even care, right??
/s
@@jursamaj So many christians have had their inquisitiveness - especially about their own delusions - completely knocked out of them so they just cannot understand why other people just have an interest and a thirst for knowledge.
I am not a Christian but dude I respect these guys so much for their honesty
Yeah, that admission that they would not convert religions based on the evidence for Christianity is just super honest for them and I respect them for it.
Of course, now the issue is getting that said in the pulpit. But yeah that admission is just … crazy. Though I most definitely respect their intellectual honesty.
I was sent to 'Sunday School' by my parents - from the age of about 8.
After a few weeks, when the person in charge could not answer my first question, "Are we going to do another story about Jesus this week" - I became an atheist - nothing I i have heard, read, or experienced, since has changed my conviction.1.
1. We are alone in the universe
2. To outlast our sun, we need to stop destroying the environment we have now
3. To survive, as a species, we need to collaborate on a scale unheard of to date
4. The alternative is a decline, to oblivion, where nothing of what we are survives…
"We don't have fictional characters relevantly similar to Jesus in Mediterranean Antiquity" so all the Greek and Roman gods and demigods are historical too? Or are they not relevantly similar? What am I missing here?
I recommend checking the interview I mentioned, the link is in the video description. I go into detail there.
Amazing. This is the first time I have seen a list of actual scholarly works posted on UA-cam (except when I've done it).
"I'm not trying to be skeptical..."
Well, why not?
What a great guest! I loved this, thank~you!
yes, Kamil!!!!
Yay!
Very impressive explanation from Kamil 👌
This raises some very very good points and I would love to see an apologist try and respond to it. I have a feeling though that they would just disregard it entirely
One of your best videos. Very well done.
This is very good, closely argued stuff on both sides. One very basic point that seems to be completely ingnored in these discussions though is Rabbi Singer's argument about the nonsensical reason given for the women's visit to the tomb at all. See his video Rabbi Tovia Singer: "There was No Empty TombꟷThe Gospel’s Resurrection Accounts Never Occurred".
This would appear to lend additional credence to the idea that the resurrection accounts are indeed constructed around literary narratives rather than historical ones or as Rabbi singer puts it "a plot device".
Yes. There is no reason to anoint a buried body and, even if there were, women do not attend the bodies of dead men.
"I'm not a skeptic by nature, I'm open-minded." One does not exclude the other. These words don't even oppose each other.
Kamil is awesome! I love his accent and of course what he has to say too :3
I love how he pronounced all the old names. Greek and stuff.
Loved this episode. So interesting!
"It's the inerrant word of god! ok but... you know... with some ambiguity and lack of clarity here and there... and... it could have been written better... BUT PERFECT." XD
Fantastic - what a shame that no apologist will ever address Kamil's propositions. Come on IP... time to get the cherry picker out.
It seems to me if you are confident enough in a concept for it to be true, yet it lacks sufficient external evidence to support it, that belief is being held for other reasons.
Fortunately, irrational beliefs can be easily held in the brain if they are satisfying, not too costly and do not encounter physical verification. This is likely why the life blood of theism is wholly predicated on linguistic history/predictions we cannot verify in the present.
I suspect the original sightings of the risen Jesus are something akin to modern ghost stories and shared experiences of contacting the dead.
Even the stories of post resurrection appearances are strange and non real. Sometimes he is mistaken for someone else. Sometimes they didn't recognise him until after they parted. He seems to pass through walls to prove his physical existence to Thomas, who never does touch him. He cooks fish.
Perhaps the stories are based on early accounts of people who in grief had resurrection experiences, plus others who believed those accounts.
WTF does Allison mean by ‘I’m not a skeptic, I’m open minded’?! Being a skeptic *is* being open minded to changing your opinion based on *evidence*. Someone who just believes things without evidence isn’t being open minded, they’re being credulous.
He is an enigma…none of us can figure him out
Loved that inserted death of Yoda inserted while Mr. Gregor were explaining the trope of disappearing
Paul as an ancient Deepak Chopra is an interesting frame to consider.
Kamil is the embodiment of "a book says a thing"
It always comes down to the same thing. Would these self-styled "historians" give the same credence to identical miraculous claims made for other religions? The answer is ALWAYS "nope." Everything falls apart whenever this simple question is asked. If their "historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus" is the same sort of stuff as the evidence for "in front of thousands of others, Holy Man Sri Sathya Sai Baba raised from the dead his follower whom he simply called, Venkatesh" a supposed event firmly believed by millions of people and attested by thousands of "first-hand witnesses", then their proclaimed "historical evidence" is just pure bullshit.
It is good to see ppl with some integrity!
The best evidence for "The resurrection" is blind faith, hoping, and making a wish that it's true. Period. There is zero evidence and they know it. 🤦♂️
Also, which is far more likely, that Jesus' body was never found because he was resurrected or because he never existed?
His body wouldn't really matter if he can just hop in another one. Why do you think he wasn't recognized after the resurrection? He came back as Christ but with a different body.
@@natsusatsujinki8342
He came back with a different body… that’s why he wasn’t recognized… and then he switched back into his crucified body that still had all of the holes in it and appeared to doubting Thomas.
Of course even most Christian historians think that this story was invented by the authors of the gospel of John.😉
@@ramigilneas9274 they never think these things through.
This reminds me of that non-stamp collector video where the one atheist debates the three theists. The atheist just sits there the whole time not saying a word. Then the theists end up going to war in the parking lot outside and he just gets up and leaves.
Usually when people get as honest as Licona and Allison, they stop being Christians.
How likely is it that inspirations for the christian christ character's missing body were:
a) the Greek theological trope of the missing body, and
b) the chronicler Josephus's story of Yehsu the Egyptian not being heard from
after the Romans attacked him and his followers on the Mount of Olives ?
Another Dose of paulogia 🍷😌
Naw, not a fan of wine. 🥃🦞
Just excellent discussion
Paulogia main channel videos are amazing because they contain about 5% Paulogia. The 95% is Christians tying themselves into knots and falling over.
Dr. Allison chuckling at Dr. Licona’s side comment on Islam was gold.😆🤣
It’s an absurd to claim to know what happens after death. However, if one dies, autopsy, buried,(better yet, cremated), then returns after a year; then we can start a conversation. 😮
Christianity has become a pure tradition that survives when not closely examined.
I have a book with some stories in it, that doesn't make the stories true. Even if I really really really believe it, that still does not make the story true. The hero might have saved the village, but he did not shoot fireballs at this enemy. 500 people saw Jesus walking around after he was killed is ridiculous. Who are these 500 people and what are their names? Can I go talk to them? Why is it that we do not see any of these supernatural events taking place in modern day with digital video?
Regarding the tomb, how long would it take, with the tools available at the time, to carve out a stone tomb big enough not just for a horizontal body, but for several people to stand inside? More than a weekend I'd imagine. More like months if not years to prepare, which is why only the wealthiest people had them.
Apart from the labor costs, you'd need an agreed site to work on, or risk someone claiming your tomb is on their land and it's now theirs.
Given the construction time and labor involved, were tombs dug out ready for a client to pay when needed, or were they created only when an advance payment had been made?
Were round stones used to seal these tombs once occupied, that could be easily rolled aside by a couple of women, or maybe a couple of tomb robbers? Or were they better sealed or better hidden, like Egyptian tombs?
You're assuming that they had little to no technology when the pyramids around the world had been built with no modern explanation from historians. Logically if the wonders of the ancient world could be produced during the assumed time period then they had equal or greater technology than we had.
I'm not an archeologist but my understanding is that there are locations around Jerusalem which are more suitable for these kinds of tombs than other location. For example the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the traditional location of the tomb) is a former limestone quarry (limestone being easier to carve than other types of stone) and multiple rock-cut tombs were discovered there.
@@natsusatsujinki8342
Or… they had something called slaves… with primitive tools and nearly unlimited time.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 Too bad we know that the pyramids were made by professional workers who were paid well for their work rather than slaves.
@@Lobsterwithinternet
Exactly… that’s why it’s not really that mysterious how the pyramids were built.
But I am not sure if you really need the best trained experts to create a rock cut tomb.😉
There is no workable timeline in the Bible for a real person of Jesus. He can't be born in two different years that are at least 10 years apart. He can't be in two different places at the same time when they are many miles apart.
40:00 is it possible that Paul was referring to the Eucharist here?
I have an issue with calling "Christian scholars" "Scholars" as they usually have a predetermined outcome decided and then works to find the supporting evidence. Not every Christian scholar is a "Christian scholars", when studying matters that faith doesn't touch on, or those that can convincingly put their biases aside. But those scholars are few and far between.
100%. Most Christian "scholar's" job is not to try to hit the target, it's to paint the target around the arrow stuck in the wall.
Biblical scholars are not really "scholars," they are more like lawyers for the Bible.
Check out "Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity" by James Valiant and CW Fahy 😁
oh cool... I will.
Camel, camel, camel, camel! 🎉
(callback to old Nathan and Kyle Huitt video, if I recall correctly)
Finally nice to see a little honesty from Christian apologists.
Very rare…treasure it
Dr. Richard Carrier has a wonderful book "On the Historicity of Jesus" that makes some pretty compelling arguments for mythicism. After reading his book personally feel like there's no need to assume that Jesus was a historical person
Boy, that is the "gospel truth," excellent book.
Amen to that.
Everything else besides, I like the honesty of these two.
Five hundred people is a lot of people. I can't imagine how that would happen unless he was on stage or something. I think Adele could walk around Las Vegas all day and one would be pressed to find 500 people who said they saw her.
Also, doesn't 500 sound like an oddly round number?
Reporter for the Roman Times: "Okay, how many of you people saw Jesus walking around after he was crucified?"
"Oh, tons and tons of us saw him."
"Okay, I'll put down 500."
You know, the text answers your questions right?
When Jesus started performing his miracles, early, it is described as they were pressed in by "multitudes". (Enough for Jesus to request a boat for some relief from the pressure.)
After his death, and coming back, I think a (rounded out) number of 500 people, is quite reasonable.
@@nathanielalderson9111 - *they were pressed in by "multitudes". (Enough for Jesus to request a boat for some relief from the pressure* but then that makes you wonder why no one wrote about Jesus during his lifetime. He was SO popular, according to scripture that he was known all through Judea, Syria and the cities of the Decapolis, but not a single person wrote about him during his lifetime?
@@druidriley3163 because writing back then was expensive, by hand, took a long time, and was separated by long distances. It was not like it is today.
And they did write about him. In many places. You're either denying them or don't know about them.
@@nathanielalderson9111 - no one wrote about Jesus until decades and centuries after his supposed lifestyle. NO ONE. And historians have quite a lot of writings from the 1st century. Scholars have letters, books, poems, histories, speeches, laws, etc., etc. People wrote all the time. Historians also know the names of travelers, merchants, and other folks who even traveled to where Jesus supposedly lived during his life exactly when the bible said he was doing his miracles and teachings _and not a single one of these people mention him_ Well-to-do people were literate and according to the bible, Jesus had fans among the rich. Sooo...any reason they couldn't have written about him?
WOW Paul, this is GOLD! The host seems puzzled….
No one returns from death regardless of the claims of the living.
If you came back from the dead you were not dead.
It's called reality.
Nobody that YOU know. I happen to KNOW differently than you BELIEVE.
@@natsusatsujinki8342
How many people do you KNOW who were actually dead and then came back?😂
@@ramigilneas9274 1 without a doubt.
@@natsusatsujinki8342
Probably with an error margin of 1.😂
There may be more on heaven and earth than exist in your philosophy Horatio....
Yup. I believe in resurrection... Then ... I've seen Elvis at my local supermarket.
That's much more plausible that "I saw Elvis so now I believe in resurrection."
When giving their reasons for their belief not one of the apologists admits to making money from it as a driving force. Dave Allison at least admitted that his main reason for belief is that it made him feel good. Not interested in proof, just likes to feel good.
Paul, have you read "Creating Christ" by James Valiant?
Do gods come down from heaven and get earth girls pregnant? of course not, that is mythology. The whole foundation of christianity is mythology. That from the virgin birth, to Jesus' assection to heaven, is mythology. The new testament begins with mythology and ends in mythology.
There’s certainly a lot of mythological elements included in the gospels.
That doesn’t disconfirm that a historical figure existed at the base of it all though, something significant had to inspire multiple authors to diligently try and theologically reconcile how someone could both be the messiah while also have the most un-messiah-like, shameful thing happen to them.
When it comes to an historical figure, the entire argument for his existence is nothing more than an argumentum ad populim.
Without the magical aspects of the biblical jesus the historical jesus is irrelevant. The entire christian religion hinges on the common dying-and-rising deity trope. And there isn't a shred of evidence that ever happened.
@@jaclo3112 Not the rising from the dead part, no. But I can accept that mainstream scholarship has good reasons to think Mohammad existed, even if I don’t think he split the moon or spoke with an angel. I see Jesus in a similar way.
Symbolically if my parents raised me Christian and I come with the modern update to the belief system(straight from the source)then in a way God and my mother made me.
If you don't understand it's probably not for you or not time for you to know. 🤷♂️
Actually it is possible and not all that uncommon for women to get pregnant merely from "heavy petting." Well, that and lying about how pure they were.
Gregor was really interesting and well spoken. Maybe if you're looking for video ideas you could ask him if he has anything going on that would be a good subject for one of your videos and then you could ask him softball questions about his current hyperfixation or whatever he's studying in the genre
At 09:00 when he mentioned Acts, it reminded me of the Bart Ehrman podcast I listened to this morning, where he said that only 7 of the 27 books of the bible are even authentic, those being the 7 verified letters of Paul.
I'm sitting here thinking that if only 26% of the book can be verified, it's a very poor foundation for the faith, not that it'll matter to the majority of believers.
ua-cam.com/video/TW5b07T5VNM/v-deo.html
You mean "New Testament" not "Bible"
By authentic I think he means we have relatively decent confidence in the identity of the author, not necessarily their content. The 'canonical' gospels are anonymous, as are several epistles. My understanding is that 7 of the 13 (14 if you include Hebrews) letters that most Christian denominations have usually attributed to Paul are accepted by scholars to be his writing. Three of them, 1,2 Timothy and Titus if memory serves are almost universally rejected as being forgeries written by someone else. The remaining 3 don't have as strong consensus, but the lean is to they are written by others as well.
Yay, Kamil on with Paul!