Saturday, October 28, 2017

Extraordinary Evidence

Farrell Till comments on a debate that he had with 
Michael Horner concerning extraordinary claims requiring 
extraordinary evidence. From the Errancy Discussion list 
18 Oct., 1995:

...you will remember that Horner would not agree that any of the nonbiblical miracles that I questioned him about had actually happened. He kept saying, "I would have to research that." Finally, you may recall, he simply said, "No," when I asked him if he could think of a single miracle not recorded in the Bible that he believed happened. So even though he chided me for saying, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof," it turned out that he himself apparently accepts this principle as long as it is not an extraordinary claim that the Bible makes.

How, for example, could Horner possibly "research" to see if he can believe that a heifer being led to the temple altar in Jerusalem gave birth to a lamb or that a light glowed around the altar in the middle of the night so brightly as to give the appearance of daylight? Josephus made both extraordinary claims, along with others, but the only evidence for them is the mere fact that Josephus said that they happened. He, of course, *said* that others saw them, but I doubt if Horner would accept this, although he thinks it is "good" evidence when Paul said that Jesus appeared to 500 brethren at once. He will argue that Paul wouldn't have said this if it weren't so because people could have asked the 500 and caught him lying if the claim had not really been true. How exactly one could have gone about questioning 500 anonymous witnesses is a mystery, but, anyway, one could make the same argument about the claims of Josephus. If these miracles had not really happened, would he have said that people had seen them at a time when these people were still alive and could have been questioned?

My point is that what Horner et al consider "good" evidence in terms of "proving" the resurrection, they won't consider good evidence as they "research" the claims of Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, and others to decide if their miracle claims should be believed. I think that the criterion that I stated in the debate is valid: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And I have kicked myself a thousand times for not nailing Horner to the wall when he came at me with his counterargument that said, in effect, that my criterion makes it impossible to prove a miracle ever happened, because I was demanding miraculous proof that the miracle had happened. In other words, his admission that providing miraculous proof that a miracle had happened is impossible was an admission that miracles don't happen and so no such evidence would be possible. If no such evidence is possible because miracles just don't happen, then why is it logical to argue that the original miracle for which the evidence is being demanded had happened? His own argument would have backfired in his face if I had recognized the implications of it soon enough, but that is one of the hazards of public debating. The debater always thinks of things later that he should have said.

I really think that it is not at all unreasonable to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. An extraordinary claim doesn't necessarily have to be a miracle claim, but if it is, I think it is reasonable to argue that such a claim can never be proven. That claim is justified by the simple fact that the past is inaccessible. If a miracle ever did happen, how could one possibly prove it because it would have happened in a past that is inaccessible to the present?

F. Till

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Was The Amalekite Massacre A Moral Atrocity?

It's just hard for me to believe that the average Christian sitting in a pew on Sunday morning knows anything about the following little story in the Old Testament. At least I hope not. How could they know about such and still believe their god, Yahweh, is a God of love--and actually continue to worship such an animal? From *The Skeptical Review*, 1994 / January-February:

by Farrell Till
The story of the Israelite massacre of the Amalekite nation is recorded in 1 Samuel 15 . The facts of the case, as claimed in this chapter, are these: Yahweh sent the prophet Samuel to command Saul, the first king of Israel, to "go and smite Amalek" and to " utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not" (v:3 ); the command explicitly stated that Saul was to kill "both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (same verse). According to the story, Saul took "two hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand men of Judah" (v:4 ) against the Amalekites and "utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword" (v:7 ), except for Agag their king, whom he kept alive to take back as a prisoner. This act of mercy, of course, was a clear violation of Yahweh's instructions, which were to kill everyone and spare no one. In addition to this act of disobedience, Saul also kept alive "the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them" (v:9 ).

Saturday, October 14, 2017

No Contradictions In The Bible?


From Alt.Bible.Errancy, August 2, 1998:

"Paul Russell" <prussell@...> wrote:
I just joined the news group and I see where people 

are so uninformed about the word of GOD. The bible 
never counterdicts itself, it's just you don't understand 
it.

CREA
OK, Paul, if "[t]he bible never counterdicts [sic] itself", as 

you assert, would you please be so kind as to tell us where 
King Josiah died?

At 2 Kings 23:29-30, we are told that he died at 

Megiddo and he was carried from there DEAD in a 
chariot to Jerusalem (where he was buried), but over 
at 2 Chronicles 35:23-24we are told instead that he 
was grievously wounded at Megiddo and carried ALIVE 
from there in a chariot to Jerusalem, where he died 
and was buried. This appears to be a contradiction to 
this poor old country-boy...