How Likely Is It? (2)

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1993/July-August:

by Farrell Till 
When Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the Hebrew god Yahweh performed wonders unlike anything the world had ever seen. Ten plagues were rained down on Egypt with the implication--and sometimes even direct statement--that the Israelites were spared the horrors of the plagues. When hordes of flies swarmed over Egypt, the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, was "set apart" so that "no swarms of flies [would] be there" (Ex. 8:22). Likewise, when the plague of murrain decimated the flocks of Egypt, the livestock of the Israelites was spared (9:6). When the hail came, which was more grievous than any hail that had ever struck Egypt (9:24), none fell on the Israelites in the land of Goshen (v:26). When darkness fell over the land, the Israelites "had light in their dwellings" (10:23), and when the firstborn of Egypt were struck dead, the firstborn of the Israelites were saved through the Passover ceremony.

To say the least, those Israelites witnessed some amazing miracles while Moses and Aaron worked to gain their release from bondage, but the wonders didn't cease when Pharaoh finally relented and gave permission for the people to leave Egypt. They saw Yahweh going before them in "a pillar of cloud" by day and in "a pillar of fire" by night (13:21). And these were not just occasional appearances that Yahweh made to the people, because "the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night departed not from before the people" as they marched out of Egypt (v:21).

The Historicity Of Jesus

More common sense from Farrell Till concerning the 
historicity of Jesus (read Mt 27:45-55 to get the 
background for the following comments). From the 
Errancy Discussion list, 19 June 1997:

> TILL
> Peter, there are arguments from silence, and there are arguments from
> silence. It is unreasonable, for example, to suppose that certain events
> could happen and go unnoticed in contemporary records. How likely 
   would it be that the bombing in Oklahoma City would not have been 
   mentioned in contemporary records?

KIRBY
OK, I'll buy that. I would agree with you that the saints and the darkness
probably didn't happen. This only seems to have relevance to the doctrine
of inerrancy, not the historicity of Jesus.

TILL
But can't you see! The complete silence of secular contemporary records on
the life of a man who allegedly attracted multitudes from foreign countries
and surrounding towns and cities, and performed in their presence all sorts
of amazing signs and wonders makes it extremely important that the writings
about him that were left by his avowed disciples be exceptionally
trustworthy, but how can anyone consider records trustworthy that contain so
many impossible-to-believe entries like the three-hour period of darkness
and the resurrection of the many saints? If we wouldn't give claims like
these the time of day if we found them in any other book, why should we
accord them any more consideration just because they are found in a book
with "Holy Bible" embossed on the cover?

My argument all along has been that the NT gospels are so saturated with
fantastic claims about this man Jesus that, without extrabiblical
corroboration, it is impossible to determine what is fact and what is
fiction. Unfortunately for the Christian position, there just are not any
extrabiblical corroborations for its central claim of a resurrection from
the dead.

>TILL
> Far more likely than that a three-hour period of
> darkness from the failure of the sun's light would go unmentioned.
> Josephus's father was a priest "of great reputation in Jerusalem" (*The
    Life of Flavius Josephus,* 1:2), who would have therefore moved in priestly
> circles at the time Jesus was allegedly tried, crucified, and resurrected.
> Chapter 1 of the autobiograph will give a chronology that establishes the
> time frame. Matthias would have been in his 20s at the time. Chapter 2
> discusses Josephus's education, but he makes no mention of his father 
   ever having referred to the extraordinary events that allegedly 
   accompanied the crucifixion of a man named Jesus. I find this very 
   unbelievable and a most compelling "argument from silence."

KIRBY
I think you mean "believable."

TILL
No, you missed the point I was making. I was saying that I find it
unbelievable that Josephus's father could have witnessed three hours of
darkness at midday and a resurrection of many saints and yet not talked
about them enough to have made an impression on Josephus that would
have been reflected in his works by references to those events. When
World War II ended, I was 12 years old. I had a first cousin who piloted
an LST (landing barge) on D-Day that ferried soldiers from ships out at
sea to Omaha Beach. When he returned home, family members would
sit mesmerized and listen to him tell about his experiences that day, and
all that he experienced were only ordinary, perfectly natural events that
accompanied a massive invasion. I had another cousin on the other side
of my family who was a tail-gunner on a B-29 in the pacific area, and
we enjoyed listening to his reflections on bombing missions his crew
had flown, but there was nothing miraculous about any of the events
he talked about. Are we to assume that Josephus's father and countless
other contemporaries saw very phenomenal events in Jerusalem one
day and just shrugged them off and never talked about them or reported
them to people they had contacts with. Again, I will say that I find this
very unbelievable.

Farrell Till

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

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part Four of Four

Another Exaggeration Problem

by Farrell Till

We noticed in Part One that the Exodus writer began the plague stories with a tit-for-tat premise that quickly created a logistical impossibility. In the first tit-for-tat scenario, Aaron threw his rod down and it became a serpent, but Pharaoh's sorcerers did likewise with their "secret arts" and changed their rods into serpents, which were then gobbled up by the serpent that had been Aaron's rod (Ex. 7:10-12). Hence, the power of Yahweh had from the very beginning proved superior to that of the Egyptian sorcerers. The writer's strategy worked until he had Pharaoh's sorcerers duplicate Aaron's feat of changing the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood, because, as noted in my article linked to above, the writer was at this point claiming a logistical impossibility, for if all the water in Egypt had been changed into blood, there would have been no way for Pharaoh's sorcerers to have done "likewise with their secret arts." It would have been one thing to change existing water into blood; it would have been quite another to change nonexisting water into blood.

The Exodus writer also had a penchant for superlatives that subsequently resulted in other discrepancies. We have already seen how the writer claimed that "all the livestock in Egypt" were killed by a plague of murrain but then later claimed that additional Egyptian livestock were somehow afflicted with boils, killed with hail, and finally killed in the plague against all Egyptian firstborn, human and animal alike. This discrepancy resulted from the writer's consistent use of superlatives to describe the extent of the plagues. The water was changed to blood throughout all the land of Egypt (Ex. 7:19-21); all the dust throughout all the land of Egypt was changed to lice [gnats or mosquitoes] (Ex. 8:17); all the livestock of Egypt died (Ex. 9:6); the hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt (Ex. 9:25)--all seemed to be the writer's favorite word to describe the scope of the plagues. Other superlatives, however, were used to convey that the plagues were unbounded in their scope. Although all the livestock of the Egyptians were killed by the murrain, not so much as one of the Israelite livestock died (Ex. 9:7). The hail was "the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now" (Ex. 9:18,25). Every man and beast in the field were struck down by the hail (Ex. 9:25), which also broke "all the plants in the field" and "shattered every tree in the field" (Ex. 9:25). The locusts were "very grievous" and such as "had never been before, nor ever shall be again" (Ex. 10:14), and they ate "all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left" and "nothing green was left, no tree, no plant in the field, in all the land of Egypt" (Ex. 10:15). Apparently, the Exodus writer just couldn't say that a heavy hail came or that huge swarms of locusts came. No, he had to describe the plagues in superlative terms, i. e., the worst that had ever been or ever would be, which spared nothing in their paths.

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part Three of Four

     
     Lice, Flies, and the Amazing Livestock of Egypt

by Farrell Till

The Exodus writer began his tales of the confrontation between Aaron and Moses and the sorcerers of Egypt with a tit-for-tat theme. Whatever amazing feat Aaron would perform with his rod, Pharaoh would order his sorcerers to do the same, even when it meant increasing the pollutions of blood and frogs throughout all the land of Egypt. After the second plague, however, the sorcerers were stumped and had to give up. Aaron had caused "all the dust" in Egypt to become lice (or gnats or mosquitoes, depending on the translation), but somehow the sorcerers who had managed to change water that didn't exist into blood were unable to change dust that no longer existed into lice (or gnats or mosquitoes).

Exodus 8:16 Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats [lice] throughout the whole land of Egypt.'" ¹⁷ And they did so; Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and gnats [lice] came on humans and animals alike; all the dust of the earth turned into gnats [lice] throughout the whole land of Egypt. ¹⁸ The magicians tried to produce gnats [lice] by their secret arts, but they could not. There were gnats [lice] on both humans and animals. ¹⁹ And the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God!"

Hmm, didn't these guys see the "finger of God" in all the other stunts that Aaron and Moses had performed? One would think that seeing Aaron change the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood would have given these fellows pause to think from the beginning that maybe "the finger of God" was with these two upstarts daring to confront Pharaoh with demands to free the enslaved Israelites, but since they were somehow able to duplicate this feat and change water that didn't exist into blood too, that could explain why they had not yet seen the finger of God in the initial plagues.That wouldn't explain, however, why they could not duplicate the miracle of the lice or gnats. One might argue that they could not have changed dust into lice, because Aaron had already changed "all the dust" throughout all the land of Egypt into lice, but inerrantists should be careful about offering this as an explanation for the inability of the Egyptian sorcerers to duplicate the third plague, because if these sorcerers had been able to change water into blood after the water throughout all the land of Egypt had already been changed to blood, bringing forth some more lice from dust that had already been changed to lice would have seemed like child's play. Ah, the hazards that accompany attempts to find inerrancy in a book riddled with discrepancies.

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part Two of Four

Here a Frog, There a Frog,
Everywhere a Frog Frog

by Farrell Till

As I noted in Part One of this series, the problem of the Egyptian magicians having done “likewise with their enchantments” remains unexplained, but that was far from the only problem in the Egyptian-plague stories. Pharaoh, being the impious sort that he was, still was unimpressed after Aaron and Moses had changed the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood. He witnessed the exchange of miraculous feats between Aaron and the Egyptian sorcerers there by the riverside, then “turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart” (v:23). So Yahweh sent the plague of frogs against Egypt, which was a typical Yahwistic response, by the way. The Egyptian populace had had nothing to do with this dispute between Pharaoh and Moses, but they were the ones who had to bear the brunt of Yahweh’s wrath. Already they had frantically dug for seven days along the Nile for water to drink (vs:24-25), and now, as if this were not enough suffering for their ruler’s obstinacy, Yahweh decided to zap them with a plague of frogs. This Yahweh that biblical inerrantists admire so much has a strange sense of justice and fairness.

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part One of Four

                                The Tit-For-Tat Problem

by Farrell Till
For sheer absurdity, few tales in pagan mythology can match the biblical stories of the Egyptian plagues. The incidents that led eventually to the death of all firstborn in the land and quickly thereafter to the Israelite exodus from Egypt began with a tit-for-tat confrontation between Moses and Aaron and pharaoh’s magicians (Ex. 7:8-13). To show the power that Moses and Aaron had in reserve, Aaron, we are told, cast his rod down, and, presto, it became a serpent. Apparently unimpressed by Aaron’s demonstration, pharaoh called for his magicians and sorcerers, who “did in like manner with their enchantments.” Aaron’s rod, however, swallowed the rods of pharaoh’s magicians. At this point, we might wonder why the “inspired” writer of this quaint little tale said that Aaron’s rod swallowed the rods of pharaoh’s magicians. Surely it would have been the serpent that had been Aaron’s rod that swallowed the serpents that had been the magicians’ rods. To spare inerrantists the trouble of lecturing us on the figure of speech called ampliatio, however, I won’t quibble about the word used to designate what swallowed what, although this does seem to be a careless bit of writing by one whose hand was presumably guided by the omniscient god who created the universe. Just suffice it to say that Aaron’s rod or serpent, whichever the case may have been, saved the day by swallowing the magicians’ rods or serpents, whichever the case may have been. Score one for Yahweh and the good guys.

If one accepts the premise that God once routinely and personally intervened in the affairs of men to achieve whatever results he desired, there is admittedly nothing in this story so far that could be characterized as preposterous. Beyond this point, however, as we will soon see, that situation changed dramatically, and absurdity was quickly piled upon absurdity. What we want to glean from this part of the story before we wade through the sea of absurdities that follows is the evident fact that whoever wrote this part of the Bible obviously intended the tale of the Egyptian plagues to be perceived as a confrontation between the power of Yahweh invested in Moses and Aaron and the magic of pharaoh’s magicians. The writer’s strategy seemed to be to tell the story as a tit-for-tat contest between the power of Yahweh and the power of pharaoh’s sorcerers until finally the latter would have to give up and admit that Yahweh’s power was greater than theirs.

The Problems in Bradford's Complaint

An excellent article by Farrell Till comparing the logical, empirical-based presuppositions of naturalists versus the illogical, unsupported suppositions of supernaturalists. From *The Skeptical Review*, Sept-Oct. 2001:

by Farrell Till

Mr. Bradford seems sincerely convinced that I have a prejudice that will not allow me to see that supernatural presuppositions are just as logical as naturalistic ones. Because of his apparent belief that I won't listen to any arguments in the articles he submits to me, I am asking another person to reply to his attempt to prove the existence of God. It will be published in a later issue, although the subject is not really suitable for The Skeptical Review.In the very first  issue of TSR, published in January 1990, I specifically stated that the paper would not debate the issue of God's existence, but if I had declined to publish Mr. Bradford's article, he would have accused me of being too prejudiced to give consideration to attempts to prove the existence of his deity by scientific argumentation. What Mr. Bradford doesn't seem to realize is that he doesn't really argue his positions. He just asserts them and then vents his frustration when we refuse to fall in line and accept his assertions without questions.

Although I am leaving the "God part" of Bradford's article for someone else to answer, he made some personal remarks about himself and me that I will reply to in this issue, because no one else would really be qualified to speak on some of the accusations he made about me.

Do I resort to "subjective ridicule rather than logic and evidence"? I have to answer this charge with both yes and no. Yes, I do ridicule the inability of biblicists to think rationally. Perhaps I should not do this, but it is somewhat difficult not to do it when a biblicist persists in clinging to an irrational belief when he has seen mountains of evidence that the biblical inerrancy doctrine just cannot be true. When biblicists argue that "soon"or "at hand" didn't really mean soon or at hand when they are shown New Testament promises that the return of Jesus was to happen imminently, it is difficult to be patient with their intellectual dishonesty or irrational determination to make faith more important than common sense. On internet forums, I have often said that a time comes in debates with biblicists to call a spade a spade, and when an inerrantist keeps trying to defend a position that has been shown to be untenable, I think it is time to say without apology that the inerrantist is allowing allegiance to an irrational belief to overrule his/her common sense. In a letter on page 15 of this issue, Tom Broom expressed wonderment that I have the patience to discuss biblical minutia with the likes of some inerrantists whose articles appear in this paper. Believe me, it isn't easy, so when I do at times show a lack of patience and resort to ridicule, it should be understandable. Anyway, if I am guilty as Bradford charges, his complaint would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, because look at his own subjective remarks about me. Saying that I resort to subjective ridicule rather than logic and evidence isn't exactly a compliment.

Why One But Not The Other?

From Alt.Bible.Errancy discussion list, 6-2-98:

TILL

Bill, I'd like to see your reaction to this. On my Errancy list, 

I have tried to get biblicists to explain why they don't accept 

such miraculous claims as those that the Roman historians 

Tacitus and Suetonius made but do accept very similar claims 

that are made in the NT. Some are trying to defend that old 

inerrantist legend that Sir William Ramsay was a biblical 

skeptic until he studied the writings of Luke and found him 

to be a first-rate historian. Their argument is that if Luke 

was accurate in reporting ordinary information like the 

names of people and places known to have existed, 

topographical information, social customs, etc., then that 

is sufficient to believe that he was also accurate in reporting 

extraordinary events, even though none of them has ever 

been independently corroborated. I have cited the examples 

of Tacitus and Suetonius, who both claimed that the emperor 

Vespasian healed a blind man by putting saliva on his eyes 

and a man with a crippled arm by just touching him, both 

of which fabulous claims are very similar to miracles that 

the NT attributed to Jesus. Since Tacitus and Suetonius 

were obviously accurate in much of the ordinary information 

they reported, such as the names of Roman leaders, battles 

that were fought, and such like, why would not the same 

logic that biblicists apply to Luke also apply to Tacitus 

and Suetonius? They both claimed that the miracles 

that Vespasian performed were witnessed by many 

people, and Tacitus said that the men had been sent 

to Vespasian by the god Serapis. I have asked biblicists 

to address this matter, and the only one who has is 

tiptoeing through the tulips but not really explaining 

why he is willing to trust Luke but not Tacitus and 

Suetonius. Maybe Bill S won't mind addressing this 

problem.

Farrell Till

Wanting To Believe In Miracles

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne
A letter I sent to a Church of Christ preacher about 7 years ago:

Christians make the claim that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ. That he was born of a virgin, performed various miracles while on earth, died and about three days later came back to life never to die again, then forty days later ascended into heaven, and that all or much of this was miraculously foretold by God-inspired prophets in the Old Testament. These are all ontologically positive and distant claims that go against all conventional, community experiences. These Christian claims, therefore, bear an extremely high asymmetrical burden of proof. That means that before someone should believe these claims are actually true, the evidence presented would have to be so profound and so unequivocal that one would be forced to believe these claims instead of believing what he knows happens all the time--and go with something that, as far as his experiences, has never happened.

Unfortunately, what I've seen as evidence for these Christian claims is not even close to being sufficient for the type of claims made. The four Gospels are nothing but hearsay, written by biased, anonymous writers. Certain church "fathers" made a fanciful connection to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being the authors--but no one really knows who wrote these book. These church fathers amount to no more than what you would consider denominational preachers today--yet you believe them on this essential matter--and would, today, be very skeptical of anything they had to say on the subject of religion. But even if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the actual authors they were biased and what they wrote amounts to no more than religious propaganda. None of the  disinterested, contemporary scientists or writers of the time Jesus is said to have lived record anything about Jesus, much less his miracles. Josephus does not qualify because it is obvious that his work has been tampered with concerning his mention of Jesus and is therefore flawed and unreliable. Alexander Campbell had this to say:

Evidence Problems

I don't believe that miracle claims can be proven by testimony, however, I would be a lot closer to belief in the miracle claims of the Bible if the testimony for these extraordinary claims had reliable, disinterested, independent, contemporary corroboration. But, alas, there is none to be had. From the Errancy Discussion list, May, 1998:

TILL
You're still missing the point entirely. Commonplace, ordinary events of the past were often corroborated by records left by various sources, but in the case of extraordinary or miraculous events, with which claims the Bible is filled, not a single disinterested, independent, contemporary source ever corroborated any of them. Biblicists rave about the fact that Luke knew geography, topography, social customs, historical persons, etc., etc., etc., all of which can be considered only commonplace information. Miracles, however, would have been so extraordinary that they would have received wide attention. In Acts 2:22, Luke had Peter saying to an audience that numbered into the thousands that "Jesus of Nazareth [was] a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know," so the claim was that such deeds as these were done in the open and were witnessed by many people. If that is so, then why is there no disinterested, independent corroboration of them? 

Miracle Claims

Farrell Till  discusses miracle claims with Theo, a Christian apologist. From the Errancy Discussion list, 7-25-99:

TILL
This shows how very little you know about historiography. Historians do not automatically assume that an ancient document is telling the truth unless there are reasons to suspect otherwise. The information in ancient documents is subjected to very rigorous methods of evaluation to try to determine if there are sufficient reasons to accept the information as historical fact. What serious historiography would accept as historical fact that the emperor Vespasian healed a blind man and a man with a withered hand, just because both Tacitus and Suetonius reported that he did in their historical writings? I'm afraid you have been reading too many Josh McDowellian apologetic works.

THEO
Mr. Till, in your debate against Norman Geisler, you seemed to insinuate that we were to evaluate the evidence in the NT by the laws of jurisprudence used in the courtroom. You claimed that since the NT testimonies of the Resurrection of Christ are not(sic) eyewitness testimonies, then we are to reject them as hearsay.

Silence Of Contemporary Writers

The following is Chapter Two of John Remsburg's *The Christ*, published in 1909:

Silence of Contemporary Writers.

Another proof that the Christ of Christianity is a fabulous and not a historical character is the silence of the writers who lived during and immediately following the time he is said to have existed.

That a man named Jesus, an obscure religious teacher, the basis of this fabulous Christ, lived in Palestine about nineteen hundred years ago, may be true. But of this man we know nothing. His biography has not been written. E. Renan and others have attempted to write it, but have failed—have failed because no materials for such a work exist. Contemporary writers have left us not one word concerning him. For generations afterward, outside of a few theological epistles, we find no mention of him.

The following is a list of writers who lived and wrote during the time, or within a century after the time, that Christ is said to have lived and performed his wonderful works:

Josephus, Philo-Judaeus, Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Arrian, Petronius, Dion Pruseus, Paterculus,[25] Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial, Persius, Plutarch, Justus of Tiberius, Apollonius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Quintilian, Lucanus, Epictetus, Silius Italicus,

Statius, Ptolemy, Hermogones, Valerius Maximus, Appian, Theon of Smyrna, Phlegon, Pompon Mela, Quintius Curtius Lucian, Pausanias, Valerius Flaccus, Florus Lucius, Favorinus, Phaedrus, Damis, Aulus Gellius, Columella, Dio Chrysostom, Lysias, Appion of Alexandria.

Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.

Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion [26]with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.

Josephus, the renowned Jewish historian, was a native of Judea. He was born in 37 A. D., and was a contemporary of the Apostles. He was, for a time, Governor of Galilee, the province in which Christ lived and taught. He traversed every part of this province and visited the places where but a generation before Christ had performed his prodigies. He resided in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle. He mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event which occurred there during the first seventy years of the Christian era. But Christ was of too little consequence and his deeds too trivial to merit a line from this historian’s pen.

Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ’s own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering the time of Christ’s reputed existence. This [27]work has perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the ninth century, who was acquainted with it, says: “He [Justus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did” (Photius’ Bibliotheca, code 33).

A Basic Logical Axiom

From the Errancy Discussion list, 7-26-99:

THEO
Then why does Till always complain that he shouldn't have 

to  prove that Jesus didn't rise from the dead?  If it is so easy, 

why does he not then do it?  Is it because he cannot?  

TILL
Theo, any rational person could show that it is so unlikely 

that fairies exist that the possibility that they do exist 

doesn't deserve even a measure of serious consideration, 

but,  of course, no one can prove absolutely and beyond all 

doubt that fairies do NOT exist.  The same can be shown 

about the resurrection of Jesus, but since I am not the one 

asserting that he rose from the dead, I really have no 

responsibility to prove that he did NOT rise from the dead.  

Do you feel any responsibility to prove that the angel Moroni 

did NOT appear to Joseph Smith? I don't think you do. 

You just can't seem to grasp the logical axiom that says he 

who asserts must prove, so when you issue demands that 

those who don't believe in your resurrected savior-god prove 

that  Jesus did NOT rise from the dead, to rational people, you 

come off looking as foolish as someone demanding that the 

nonexistence of fairies be proven.

Farrell Till

Absence Of Evidence

From the the Alt. Bible. Errancy discussion list, 4-22-03

DGM
Was it not Carl Sagan who said: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?

LK
Absence of evidence means there is no evidence to believe it's true. I'll give you a simple test so you can prove this too yourself. File in court that Bill Gates owes you a million dollars. Go to court and when they ask for evidence tell them, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." see how quickly your case is dismissed.

TILL
Depending on the claim, however, absence of evidence can be compelling evidence against the claim. If, for example, someone should claim that an asteroid struck Sikeston, Missouri, last week, the absence of any evidence of such an impact would be compelling evidence that this did not happen. In the same way, absence of evidence of extraordinary claims in the Bible, such as the midday darkness during the crucifixion, is evidence that this event did not happen.

Biblicists like to talk about archaeological discoveries that confirm the accuracy of the Bible, and there have been some discoveries that corroborate SOME of the information in the Bible. However, the discoveries have confirmed only ordinary events. I have never heard of an archaeological discovery that corroborated any of the numerous miraculous claims in the Bible, yet if all of these events happened, surely there would have been some evidence left of their occurrence.

Farrell Till

Luke The Historian

From the Errancy discussion list, 8-18-97:

TILL

Otsen has cited the amazing historical accuracy of Luke as an argument for biblical inerrancy, as if he somehow believes that because one biblical writer was accurate in some geographical, political, and social matters, he was therefore right in everything he wrote and that the entire Bible must, as a consequence, be inerrant. In an earlier posting, I listed over two dozen references that Luke made in the book of Acts to extraordinary events. I challenge Otsen to present to us some kind of extrabiblical evidence to prove that at least some of these events actually happened. Until he can do this, he is in effect arguing that because Luke knew the geography of the region he wrote about and the names of some public officials and such like, we can thereby know that Luke was also accurate in his reporting of the various miracle claims found in his gospel and the book of Acts. 

I'll use just one example to show how fallacious this line of reasoning is. In *The Twelve Caesars,* the Roman historian Suetonius recorded many events and named many public officials that are universally accepted as historically accurate. However, Suetonius also stated that when Roman officials were arguing over where the body of Julius Caesar should be cremated, two "divine forms" came down with torches in hand and set fire to the funeral couch (Penguin Books, 1989, p. 52). Suetonius also stated that a man who had just recently purchased the mansion that had been owned by the grandfather of Caesar Augustus went to sleep in the room that had been the nursery of Augustus, and in the night he was "hurled out of bed by a supernatural agency and found lying half-dead against the door, bedclothes and all" (p. 56). Suetonius further claimed that Emperor Vespasian healed a blind man and a lame man by just touching the lame man and spitting on the eyes of the blind man (p. 284). Tacitus made this same claim. 

The Absence Of Evidence (2)

From *The Skeptical Review*, March/April 2002:

By Farrell Till 

A favorite saying of apologists who have no evidence to support their positions is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In other words, they mean that just because they cannot find evidence that a biblical event happened or a biblical character or place existed is not evidence that what the Bible says did not happen or did not exist. We saw Everette Hatcher pursuing this line of reasoning when he was unable to cite extrabiblical evidence to corroborate the claim in Daniel that "Darius the Mede" was an actual historical character. In defense of the absence of any extrabiblical references to "Darius the Mede," Hatcher took a familiar track and argued that because such references to Darius the Mede had not yet been found did not mean that they would never be found. He quoted a comment that Dr. Wayne Bindle, a professor at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, had made to him in a personal e-mail. It seems that professor Bindle thinks that I haven't learned very much from the archaeological discoveries in the past 200 years of biblical names that had previously been unknown in extrabiblical records (TSR, March/April 2001, p. 3). The professor didn't cite any examples, so I have no way of knowing what specific names he was talking about. His argument, however, was obvious: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In this case, Bindle was carrying the argument a step further and suggesting that although no such records of Darius the Mede have yet been found, they will very likely be discovered someday.

Hatcher has joined the Errancy internet list to continue our debate on the authorship and inerrancy of the book of Daniel, and he continues to rely on the absence-of-evidence argument as a catch-all explanation to any lack of real evidence to support his claims. On January 1, 2002, he said the following in defense of his position that "Darius the Mede" was an actual historical person.

Archaeology is silent on the point of who Darius the Mede was, and if Till wants to base his argument on this kind of silent evidence he needs to remember how fast theories against the Bible like this have disappeared in the past when the spade of the archaeologist has turned up new information about ancient civilizations. The Hittites are just one example from the last century.

This is actually an argument that assumes biblical inerrancy, because the person who so reasons is really saying that if evidence to corroborate biblical claims hasn't yet been discovered, it probably will be found someday, since everything the Bible says is true. I'm sure that Hatcher or any other biblical inerrantist wouldn't be at all impressed if a Mormon used the same argument in support of archaeological silence about pre-Columbian civilizations mentioned in the book of Mormon, because he would recognize that it is probable that archaeology is silent about claims in the book of Mormon for the simple reason that the places, people, and events in those claims were not real.

A Discussion On The Believability Of Alleged Bible Miracles

The following is a discussion between Farrell Till and a Christian on the believability of miracles. I have not used the Christian's actual name rather I've used "CHRISTIAN" as the designation for this person. The Christian's irrational logic is amazing--I doubt this person uses such logic in other areas of their life:

       CHRISTIAN 
     Your reasoning is circular.

theist - there are examples of miracles in both biblical and nonbiblical historical accounts - and here are some specific examples.  The presumption in reading historical accounts must be first in favor of the accounts. 

Till - miracles are unbelievable.

theist - why is that? 

Till -   I don't accept proof for miracles. 

theist - why is that? 

Till - because the credibility of any proof is impeached by the claim itself. 

theist - why is that? 

Till - because miracles are unbelievable

TILL

No, no, you are misrepresenting my position, so I will have to rewrite your little script.

CHRISTIAN  

No, I think I got it right.

TILL
Yes, we know you think you are **** on a stick.  (That's a saying from the 1940s that you may not understand, but it isn't a compliment.)

Till: Miracles are unbelievable. 

Theist: Why is that? 

Till: Because no verifiable miracle has ever been demonstrated.

CHRISTIAN
First, you must define what you mean by "verifiable."

Introducing A Christian To Rational Thought

Farrell Till introduces a Christian to rational thought. From the Errancy Discussion List, 8-9-99:

TILL
Well, okay, Eric, let me revise the answer that I gave to your question, because I can now see that your answer is much better than mine.  In order for me to believe that the Bible is the word of God, God himself would have to tell me that it is. So all he has to do is appear in a POOF here in my office, and then he'll have me on your side. When can I expect this to happen?

(DAVE 8/7)
Does this mean that for you to accept that anything exists it must appear in your office? (POOF). With that kind of criteria you: (a) don't accept that very much exists or (b) you have faith in an awful lot.

TILL
What a stupidly false analogy. I have never seen Tokyo, Japan, but I have seen countless cities and towns, and I have known people who have been to Tokyo and tell me that it is there. Hence, there is nothing irrational about thinking that Tokyo is a real city.

(DAVE 8/8)
You rely on eyewitness accounts for your beliefs and except them as fact (as well as accepting the reliability of the witnesses). Does this mean that you accept everything you are told just because you have seen a similar occurrence or phenomenon?

TILL
Certainly not. There are some people I wouldn't believe if they told me the sun rises in the east. You're simply setting up a straw man with another false analogy in which you are trying to compare the acceptance of testimony to the commonplace and ordinary with the acceptance of testimony to the extraordinary. Try to get this through your thick skull, Dave. There is a difference in accepting the report that John Doe died and in accepting the claim that he later returned from the dead. When a claim is entirely contrary to reality as one knows it to be from his lifetime of experiences, then he is being entirely reasonable to reject the claim. That is entirely different from believing Jane Doe when she tells me that she saw a car wreck on her way to Peoria this morning. I have also seen car wrecks on the way to Peoria, so it is reasonable to accept her claim as truth. If she is lying about it, so what? That wouldn't be the first time that I believed a lie that could easily have been the truth. If, however, I believe my former student, whom I think I have mentioned on this list, who claims that she is routinely visited by alien beings and has an alien living inside her body to guide and direct her in her crusade to enlighten the public about alien visitations to earth, then I will deserve every bit of ridicule that is heaped onto me for being so gullible.

When You Lack Evidence...

Just common sense, really. Something biblical inerrantists are woefully lacking in: 

When you lack evidence, the only way to decide whether or not to believe something is to ask: Is it likely? If you tell me a bird flew past my window, I will probably believe you, even though I did not see it myself and I have no evidence. That is because such a thing is likely. I have seen it happen before. It is more likely that a bird flew past my window, than that you are deceiving me. But if you tell me a pig flew past my window, I will not believe you, because my past experience tells me that such things do not happen, and so I presume that what you reported is false. Thus, where there is no evidence we have to rely on our own past experience of the sort of things that really happen ( Carl Lofmark from What Is The Bible, pp. 41-42).