Against John's Gospel, against A Course in Miracles: More on ACIM and the liberal methodology of the Historical Jesus

Defenders of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) often stress the scholarly difference between the Synoptics and John in order to justify the prima facie reliability of the view that ACIM's Jesus is the same historical Jesus. 

I think that, if consistently worked out, such view is self-defeating for proponents of ACIM, since the methodological criteria used  by liberal scholars to distrust John's Gospel ALSO applies to ACIM. 

Such methodology cut both ways, and the skeptical conclusions derived from the liberal methodology that applies to John will apply (even with more power) to ACIM.

The second thing I want to stress is that the agreement of some ACIM's proponents and the liberal trends of the historical Jesus is ideological, not methodological (i.e. it is an agreement not based on the consistent application of the liberal scholarly methodology, but in a a priori  sympathetic view of the liberal conclusions).

Proponents of ACIM more or less agree with liberals about the portrait of Jesus, and from there they conclude that ACIM, being in more or less agreement with such "scholarly" portrait, is at least for that extension evidence that ACIM's Jesus it is the same historical Jesus studied by scholars.

This approach is amanzingly superficial and, in my opinion, unworthy of serious investigators. 

The simple agreement or coherence between two propositions don't imply that both are reliable, specially if the methodology used to arrive to one proposition destroys the other proposition.

Suppose that a skeptical materialist argues, on the basis of the neurophysiological evidence for materialism, that reincarnation cannot exist. It would stupid for a Spiritualist to support his denial of reincarnation on the basis of such conclusions reached by the skeptical materialist. Even though they could both agree on the conclusion that reincarnation doesn't happen, the methodology used by the materialist also destroys spiritualism.

This is a egregious case of methodological INCONSISTENCY and exposes that the whole sympathy of the imaginary spiritualist with the imaginary materialist is purely ideological and strategical, not methodological.

Reject the materialist's methodology, and the spiritualist cannot deny reincarnation anymore on that basis (he would have to appeal to other, materialism-independent, basis in order to keep his denial, for example, arguing the lack of evidence for reincarnation in most mediums, the conflicting opinions of mediums regarding reincarnation and so forth).

In the case of the historical Jesus, what determines a given portrayal of Jesus is the methodology being employed by scholars.

For example, if you assume that miracles are impossible, then any Gospels account of miracles will be seen as legends or myths. This will determine a portrayal of Jesus which is miracle-free and purely naturalistic. (Note that if Jesus really performed miracles, the naturalistic accounts won't include this aspect of his life as historical, and hence will be incomplete).

But on a different methodology, for example one which is theistic or at least agnostic, won't rule out in advance the happening of miracles. Therefore, if the Jesus' ministry included the factual occurence of miracles, this methodology will favour the recognition of such events and hence a more accurate picture of the real Jesus.

For the reasons mentioned above, the mere agreement or cohrence of a given source (e.g. ACIM) with a given portrayal of Jesus (e.g. the Jesus of the Jesus Seminar) is insufficient to warrant the conclusion that ACIM is reliable, especially when the methodology used by the Seminar to reconstruct Jesus also destroys the credibility of ACIM (as I've argued here, which proves in passing that such "agreement" is, largely illusory).

Consistency demands that the ACIM proponent either rejects such methodology (on behalf of preserving the reliability of ACIM) in whose case the Seminar's portrayal of Jesus becomes unwarranted, or either rejects ACIM. This dilemma tends to trap the proponent of ACIM and he hardly he will can escape from this (except with double standards, wishful thinking, ad hoc speculations, etc.).

  

Against John, against ACIM

Let's explore more specifically why the methodology and assumptions which liberals suggest to distrust John's Gospel also affects ACIM (I'm leaving aside, for the moment, the underlaying naturalistic assumption which pervades liberal scholarpship: such assumption is key and crucial to understand the liberals' denialism of the resurrection, but ACIM is entirely based on the assumption that Jesus was risen from the death. Hence, the liberals' naturalism makes whole of ACIM a non-starter) :

1)John's Gospel is the LAST one to be written (around 100 AD). Therefore (so argue liberals) the differences between John and the Synoptics can be accounted by a process of legendary development of the Christian theology developed decades after Jesus died, which falsifies, or tend to falsify, the true person, teaching and message of Jesus.

But then that could us say, consitently with the above "possibility of theological development which falsifies the truth", of ACIM which was written in the 20th century?

Specially, in the light of passages (clearly coloured by later and advanced Christian-theological terminology) in ACIM attributed to Jesus like this:

The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is One. There is no confusion within Its Levels, because They are of one Mind and one Will.  This single purpose creates perfect integration and establishes the peace of God

The expression "Holy Trinity" doesn't appear anywhere in John nor in the other Gospels. Such expression was a development of later Christian theologians centuries after Jesus' death.

But then, why the hell such expression appear in the lips of ACIM's "real" Jesus? 

Any honest inquirer who accepts ACIM would ask: Would liberal scholars accept such "Holy Trinity" expression, if it were appeared in John? Probably not, but then... why should us accept it when it appears, 19 centuries after John, in ACIM? Why exactly?.

Clearly, a double standard is used here to evaluate the John's Gospel and ACIM. If consistency were used, then it becomes obvious that methodology which affects the credibility of John will affect, more forcelly,  ACIM too.

2)Liberals deny that Jesus used expressions mentioned in John like "I'm the light of the world" and so forth.

But some of such expressions appear in ACIM. A whole section of it is entitled "I'm the light of the world".

Note that liberals deny the historicity of such sayings (not its theological meaning, which is not a historical question addressed by historians). But if the ACIM's Jesus is the same historical Jesus and such ACIM's Jesus uttered such expression, then (whatever is its actual meaning), the liberal conclusion is false. It would be a historical fact that Jesus uttered such a thing.

Hence, the proponent of ACIM, having realized that the liberal conclusion in that case is false, cannot anymore deny such expression in John (in fact, ACIM would provide multiple attestation of such utterance in John), and the whole question to be dicsussed will be the interpretation of such utterance (not its historicity = its actual utterance by Jesus himself).

Again, for truth-seekers outhere: how could a proponent of ACIM to agree with a liberal methodology which denies such utterances, when the same expression appear in ACIM (19 centuries after Jesus' death!)?

Why the speculations of "theological development" are sympathetically accepted when employed against John, but are suddenly omitted or undermined when assesing ACIM, which is extremely later (and hence much more susceptible to such objection of "later developments") than John?. Why exactly?

This shows that the proponent of ACIM is not interested in methodological consistency. He's interested in reaching a portrait of Jesus which is ideologically palatable.

3)The proponent of ACIM will agree with the view that John's Jesus doesn't talk in parables and tend to use long discourses, while the Synoptics' Jesus does, and will conclude from this that John is unreliable because it is very different than the Jesus of the earliest sources.

But does the ACIM's Jesus talk in parables? Certainly not. 

On the contrary, the ACIM's Jesus talks in a very straight forward manner and even clarifies a bunch of Christian expressions. The ACIM's Jesus enjoys providing LONG discourses and explanations about a given topic and offering psychoterapy.

Consider this teaching of the ACIM's Jesus:

 The Last Judgment is one of the most threatening ideas in your thinking.  This is because you do not understand it.  Judgment is not an attribute of God.  

It was brought into being only after the separation, when it became one of the many learning devices to be built into the overall plan.  Just as the separation occurred over millions of years, the Last Judgment will extend over a similarly long period, and perhaps an even longer one.  Its length can, however, be greatly shortened by miracles, the device for shortening but not abolishing time.  If a sufficient number become truly miracle-minded, this shortening process can be virtually immeasurable.  

It is essential, however, that you free yourself from fear quickly, because you must emerge from the conflict if you are to bring peace to other minds.  The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by God.  Actually it will be undertaken by my brothers with my help.  It is a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much you may think that punishment is deserved.  Punishment is a concept totally opposed to right-mindedness, and the aim of the Last Judgment is to restore right-mindedness to you.  The Last Judgment might be called a process of right evaluation.  It simply means that everyone will finally come to understand what is worthy and what is not. 

There are no parables in such teaching. Note also how long is it (and I've just copied a part of the whole section about it).

In formal terms (no parables + long discourse) the above teaching seems to be more like John than the Synoptics. 

Therefore, consistency demands that the unreliability attributed to John on such basis applies to ACIM too.

But it is not important to the proponent of ACIM. He will agree with the liberal veredict on John, will castigate Christians for ignoring such differences between John and the Synoptics established by "scholaprship", and at the same time will take a cup of  coffee while reading and agreeing with the LONG explanations of ACIM's Jesus which are parables-free and provides straightforward information about a bunch of topics like the Holy Trinity, the Son of God and the Last Judgment.

This is possible only in America...

4)The proponent of ACIM sometimes argues the Synoptics say little about Jesus himself. His main focus is on the kingdom of God. On the contrary, in John, the main focus is in Jesus himself, not on the kingdom of God.

If that claim is understood as a claim that John stresses different aspects of Jesus in a more explicit way, then I agree. John makes explicit what, mostly, is implicit in the Synoptics.

But if such claim is understood as a claim implying that what John says is INCOMPATIBLE with the Synoptics' Jesus, then I disagree. As far I know, nothing in John's Jesus seems to be incompatible with the what's already present in the Synoptics.

Consider this saying in John 14: 1-8 (which seem to bother liberals too much):

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.

Liberals will smile and condescendently dismiss the historicity of such expression like "I'm the way, the truth and the life". (We may suppose that ACIM's proponents, while applauding and enjoying the liberal denialism  and debunking of such expressions, will take another cup of hot coffee, sit with the legs crossed in a comfortable chair, while reading and wholly agreeing with the section in ACIM in which Jesus affirms  "I'm the light of the world" or "the Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity", and be very astonished to discover that the Jesus of ACIM is amazingly compatible with liberal conclusions...).

But let that pass. Consider the expression "No one comes to the Father except through me".

A now, compare with this saying in Q (Matthew 11.27/Luke 10:22):

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him

Is not Jesus saying in Q basically the same than in John? Is not Jesus saying that he's the unique and special intermediary between God and men?. Is not John providing a multiple attestation (with  different words) of Jesus' exclusivistic view in Q?.

The proponent of ACIM will say that most of the sayings of Jesus are about God' kingdom and not about his person.

But this is irrelevant. You don't undermine the importance of Jesus' identity by the number of times which he referred to himself (the importance is determined by who he THOUGHT he was). Even if just ONE time he said or implied to be divine, it suffices to prove that Jesus' self-perception was divine, even if one million times he talked about other things beside himself.

The above saying of Jesus in Q in which he regards himself as God's Son in a unique and exclusivistic sense is a dagger in the heart of much of liberal scholarship, even if it were the only saying of Jesus' divine status (and certainly, this is not the only one).

Trying to undermine the importance of such utterance about Jesus' divine self-perception appealing to other, most common and numerous, teachings about God's kingdom, is like undermining NDE as evidence for survival arguing for the thousand of NDE cases which have a purely psycho-physiological explanations.

One single case of a veridical NDE would be extremely more important (for the survival question), than one million of cases of delusional NDEs. The latter doesn't refute the single case which proves survival. And that single case is a LOT more important than the millions of delusional NDEs, since such single case is what proves survival, destroys materialism, etc. (note all the implications of that single fact).

Likewise, the hundred of times which Jesus referred to God's Kingdom or other questions don't refute the few authentic cases (even if it were just ONE) in which he regarded himself as divine in some sense. If one single tradition about Jesus' divine self-perception is historical, this suffices to make the point that he regarded himself as divine. And is it is the case, are wrong the disciples when they focus their attention in the only Son of God which comes to Earth, directly sent by God? What would you do if you become convinced, on the basis of the evidence and your personal experience, that God himself (or his "only and unique" Son who claims to have divine authority on Earth) is a friend of you? Would you treat him as a mere mortal who shares interesting New Age insights and aphorisms? It would be ridiculous!.

To treat God (or His representative) like that is what an committed atheist with an axe to grind against God would do. But not rational person would treat God, or His ultimate representative on Earth, as a another guru or prophet or spiritual teacher. This would be a serious misunderstanding of the trascendental spiritual importance of the person that we have in front, specially when such person is claiming that his is the ONLY intermediary between God and men.

(Note that here we're not assuming that Jesus is really God or the Son of God. Here we're just discussing what Jesus claimed and did and hence what the disciples believed on the basis of their experiences with Jesus).

As I've argued, we have good historical evidence that Jesus' self-perception was divine and exclusivistic. In the case of Q mentioned above, Jesus' divine Sonship and prerrogative to reveal God is asserted by himself as a CONDITION for entering God's kingdom, so the liberal emphasis in God's kingdom regardless of Jesus' person is an egregious (religious pluralistic and atheistic) misrepresentation of what Jesus is teaching, namely that, only through him (the people that Jesus chooses) will be saved.

We have shown briefly Jesus' divine and exclusivistic self-perception in Q. 

But in the Synoptics, we find more sayings of divinity, for example:

In the Synoptics, we find Jesus' self-attribution of divine prerrogatives, like forgiving sins, for example in Mark 2: 10-11:

But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— ¹¹ “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.

In the Synoptics, we find Jesus changing, on his own authority, the laws given by God in the Old Testament. For example in Mark 2: 27-28:

The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; ²⁸ so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath

Not human being has the authority to change the laws what God has imposed. (It is not surprising that the Jews, correctly, understood such Jesus' claims as blasphemous, since Jesus was putting himself in the same level than God, assuming God's prerrogatoves and even changing what God has decided, a fact which explains perfectly why he was crucified by the Romans under the Jewish instigation). The portrayal of the Jesus Seminar of a Jesus who is a passive, mere teller of stories is simply an egregious misrepresentation of the historical evidence on behalf of an ideological, naturalistic agenda and cannot explain well why such supposedly passive, nice story-teller, not threatening person would receive such severe punishment as the crucifixion.

In Mark 10:45, we read:

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

So, it is not surprising that younger New Testament scholars, including some liberals like agnostic James Crossley (an expert in Mark's Gospel. Crossley dates it in the end of 30s, mid 40s AD), have written:

Famous terms for Jesus such as "son of Man" or "Son of God" really were being used by or of Jesus when he was alive. Jesus did really practised healing and exorcism; and Jesus really did predict his imminent death and probably thought it had some atoning function." (How did Christianity begin? p.1)

We could discuss the theological interpretation of such expressions and titles like the "Son of God". But on historical grounds, the evidence clearly points out to the conclusion that such titles were used during the life of Jesus, and not were later developments.

In John we find more explicit expressions of Jesus' divinity. But nothing in John's Jesus is incompatible with what is implicit and explicit in the Synoptics and in Q.

Conclusion

As I've mentioned, I've become very dissapointed about this matter. Specially, in the paranormal community, there seems to exist a willing and studied ignorance of the historical Jesus studies.

You argue for the authenticity of a given Jesus' tradition which supports the Christian view, and they'll think you're arguing for Christian theology (they conflate Christian theology with Historical Jesus research).

For example, you argue that the historical evidence shows that Jesus' self-perception was exclusivistic, they will think you're arguing for the theological doctrines of Trinitarianism, biblical infallibility or the Virgin's Birth.

You argue that they evidence for the resurrection is good, they will think you're a fundamentalist who holds to flat Earth theory, and takes the Bible on faith.

You argue that liberals have naturalistic prejudices which cause skepticism regarding some Jesus' deeds and that they misuse the criteria of authenticity in order to reach anti-Christian conclusions, they will think you're accepting uncritically the conservative scholars' work or the Bible on face value.

I haven't seen such irrationalism, willing unability to proper understanding, unsympathetic reading, ignorance and anti-intellectualism even among "skeptics" of the paranormal.

More shocking to me was to discover that there are people who accepts ACIM (or the Urantia Book and other new age sources) and simultaneously agree with the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar, not realizing that the naturalistic and skeptical methodology of the Seminar which produced such idiosyncratic conclusions about Jesus is a methodology which also destroys ACIM.

Such level of intellectual blindness and self-deception is just astonishing.

 

It's very frustrating, exasperating and dissapointing.

I haven't seen such level of superficiality, subjectivism and emotionalism in any other field that I've studied.

It is simply hard to believe.

 

Marcus Borg and the lack of evidence as "evidence" for what the Historical Jesus never said

In this interview, liberal New Testament scholar Marcus Borg says this:

The first is that Lewis’ statement depends upon accepting John’s gospel as a historically factual account of how Jesus spoke: “I am the light of the world,” “Whoever has seen me has seen God,” “I and the Father are one.” Most mainstream scholars today would say that Jesus never made those claims for himself, that they are the post-Easter testimony or witness of the early church, and when one no longer thinks of Jesus making those claims for himself, then Lewis’ argument evaporates.

In the past few years and months, I've dedicated a major part of my time to survey carefully the scholarly literature on the Historical Jesus, searching for the positive EVIDENCE for Borg's and other liberal claims.(Keep in mind that in the Jesus research context by "evidence", it means those traditions about Jesus which pass the criteria of authenticity).

After months and months of reading papers, technical articles, books, watching debates, keeping online correspondence with some New Testament scholars and hearing tapes about the historical Jesus, I can say very confidently this: There is NO EVIDENCE at all for Borg's claims like the ones above. There is not ONE criteria of authenticity which support the conclusion that Jesus "never" said that.

When you press liberals to provide exactly a single piece of historical evidence for such claims, their answer consists mostly in a bunch of question-begging assumptions and speculations. In other cases, you get only ad hominem replies, red herrings, speculations about your motives (they will accuse you of "fundamentalist" if you keep pressing questions about evidence) and so forth (all of them sophistical methods intended to distract the attention from the issue at stake, namely, the specific historical evidence for the claim that Jesus never said such and such).

The criteria of authenticity are positive criteria, namely, they provide positive evidence for what Jesus said and did, not negative evidence for that Jesus did not said or did. 

The liberal methodology of Borg is an egregious misapplication of the criteria of authenticity.

The abscence of evidence for Jesus saying X at most would support the conclusion that we don't know if Jesus said it or not. Such lack of evidence is not positive evidence for the negative conclusion that Jesus didn't say it. This is a basic logical and historical point.

For example, A Course In Miracles put in Jesus' lips this claim:

The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is One. There is no confusion within Its Levels, because They are of one Mind and one Will.  This single purpose creates perfect integration and establishes the peace of God.

There is not shred of evidence that such words came from Jesus. But does it "prove" that Jesus "never" said that? Obviously not. At most, we can conclude that, lacking positive evidence for that, we don't know if Jesus said this or not. We're left with a position of agnosticism, not of denialism.

But then the same historical logic and reasoning applies to Jesus' putative words in John's Gospel (specially given that John's Gospel comes from the 1st century in contrast with ACIM, which is 19 centuries later. So John's Gospel stands historically far better than ACIM in regards to the criterion of date, which implies that, on that criterion, John's Gospel is a lot more reliable than the ACIM. But even in this case, it doesn't prove definitively that ACIM is false).

Consider the claim "I am the light of the world". This appears in John's Gospel, but in the Gospel of Thomas (the favorite apocryphal Gospel of revisionists like the Jesus Seminar) something very similar is reported, and (for New Age believers) in ACIM too (an entire section of the ACIM is entitled "I am the light of the world").

Given that it appears in John's Gospel and it is also attested by Thomas' Gospel (provided such tradition were independent), how in the world can Borg to claim such confidently that Jesus "never" say that?

Even if it appears only in John, how exactly this proves that Jesus didn't say that?

Even if it didn't appear in any historical source whatsoever, how exactly such lack of evidence is a positive proof for Borg's categorical assertion that Jesus "never" claimed that?

It is just bad logic and scholarship (put in the service of atheism, religious pluralism and anti-Christian prejudices).

The underlaying liberal (and question-begging) assumption is that if the early Church strongly believed X about Jesus, then any tradition in which Jesus says X is not historical, but an invention of the Church. This is so absurd  and prejudiced as saying that if parapsychologists have interest in proving telepathy, any positive data or reporting supporting telepathy must be flawed or seen with suspicion (this is the standard skeptical position).

According to such liberal "logic", since Chris Carter, Titus Rivas or Michael Prescott are strong believers in the afterlife, all their arguments for the afterlife must be false or at best seen as suspicion, since they are biased and strongly interested in defending the afterlife hypothesis.

Since Dean Radin has dedicated his entire professional life to make of parapsychology a science, we must doubt of all his arguments and evidence shown in his books since he's a "believer" in psi.

This amount to claiming that all or most of the evidence coming from parapsychologists and believers in the afterlife is unreliable, a sheer invention of credulous people who are not interested in the truth.

The last point was made by skeptic Martin Gardner:

How can the public know that for fifty years skeptical psychologists have been trying their best to replicate classic psi experiments, and with notable unsuccess? It is this fact more than any other that has led to parapsychology's perpetual stagnation. Positive evidence keeps coming from a tiny group of enthusiasts, while negative evidence keeps coming from a much larger group of skeptics

In Gardner's jargon, enthisiasts = parapsychologists = tiny group of believers in psi. (The implication is that the evidence coming from "tiny group of enthusiasts" is unreliable. Only the evidence from the "large group of skeptics" is trustworthy).

Exactly the same can be found among "liberals". They assume that if the evidence about Jesus' divine self-perception come from Christians (i.e. enthusiasts of Christianity), the evidence cannot be taken seriously. It MUST be an invention of the Christian enthisiasts.

What is the difference between Gardner's position and the liberal's position? None. Zero... except that Gardner is talking about parapsychologists and the liberals about the early Christians. That's all.

Both are working on the assumption that enthusiasts (of parapsychology or Christianity or...) are not reliable sources of information, and such assumption overrides any possible contrary evidence.

My study of the debate around parapsychology prepared me to discover the misleading ways of argumentation of liberal scholars like Borg.

Exposing a person's prejudices is useful AFTER you have shown that their arguments are wrong (this is what I've made regarding liberals: After showing that their use of the criteria of authenticity are wrong and misleading, I've explained that fact arguing that their methodology is strongly prejudiced. My contention is not that liberals are prejudiced and non-liberals are free of prejudices; rather, my contention is that the prejudices of liberals, influenced by naturalism and religious pluralism, are question begging against the Christian view of Jesus, and that such prejudices force them to misuse the criteria of authenticity, like Borg does when arguing that Jesus "never" claimed what John says that Jesus claimed).

The problem of assumptions and pressupositions on the Historical Jesus research

Everybody have assumptions, bias and preconceptions. We're all influenced by culture, philosophical assumptions, emotional drivens and so forth. Psychology has shown that beyond any doubt, and common sense supports it too.

The function of "assumptions" is to provide a framework to understand and interpret the evidence (and sometimes, what counts as evidence or not is even determined by the assumptions).

Now the question to comment in this post is not the existence of assumptions, but rather how certain accumptions block our searching for the truth, blocking the acceptance of evidence, or begging the question regarding the topic under investigation.

For example, in psychic research, the materialistic assumption that psi and ESP cannot happen (or are extremely improbable) works as a blocking and question-begging assumption, namely, it interfers with the proper assesment and objective recognition of such phenomena, in the sense that the evidence for it will be interpreted in a way consistent with the assumption, or even worst, not recognized as evidence in the first place.

Present evidence for telepathy, the skeptic will say that the evidence is flawed (even if the flaw cannot account for the overwall results, or even if the flaw is purely imaginary).

Present evidence for remote viewing, the skeptic will say the same and imply that the researchers are biased due to their sympathies to the paranormal.

Present evidence in which not flaw has been detected by the skeptic, he will say that "it is not impossible" that in the future some flaw will appear...

Present evidence which would convince any scientist of any other area of science, and the skeptic will say that the evidence in this case is insufficient because "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

In these cases, what is operating is a set of assumptions which override the evidence,  or explain it away. The assumptions imply setting the evidential standards so high, that no reasonable or realistic evidence could be ever produced to their satisfaction.

I've discoveried exactly the same regarding the historical Jesus studies. In fact, in this field, the assumptions and prejudices tend to be more obvious and more egregious. Not even in parapsychology I've seen such amazing working of blocking and question-begging assumptions like in the historical Jesus studies.

Let's to comment in a couple of them:

Assumption 1: The Gospels were written by deceivers and people who constantly were inventing fictional stories about Jesus (stories which nothing, or just a little bit, have to do with him)

This assumption derives, mainly (but not exclusively) from atheism. Wishful thinking also plays a role here.

Contemporary liberal scholarship is, as a rule, philosophically driven by a form of atheism known as metaphysical naturalism.  The liberal Jesus Seminar makes this assumption explicit and straighforward:

the Christ of creed and dogma . . . can no longer command the assent of those who have seen the heavens through Galileo’s telescope. The old deities and demons were swept from the skies by that remarkable glass. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo have dismantled the mythological abodes of the gods and Satan, and bequeathed us secular heavens (preface of The Five Gospels, p. ix-x, xiii. Emphasis in blue added).

The assumption here is that science makes theism (the existence of God) false and hence the belief in God cannot be accepted. This is straighforwadly an atheistic assumption.

Atheism implies that miracles (understood as special divine interventions) cannot  happen. Since the Gospels are full of miracles, it follows that such stories are fictional. Hence, the Gospels are historically unreliable because they were written by writers who constantly were mading up and writing down false, supernaturalistic fantasies in them.

Note that the conlusion "the Gospels are historically unreliable" derives, in the above argument, directly from the atheistic assumptions applied methodologically on the miracles and other stories in the Gospels.

Drop such assumption, and the whole question-begging result is unwarranted, and you will be free to investigate with Gospels' evidence with a open-critical mind, without any blocking assumption which begs the question in one direction or another.

Note, by the way, that assuming the truth of theism doesn't beg the question regarding the historical Jesus and Gospels, because theism only guarantees the possibility of miracles, but it doesn't imply that any miracle claim is factual (let alone that the Gospels miracles actually happened). 

The advantage of the theist is that he's open to follow the evidence wherever it leads: If it leads to the actual occurence of a given miracle, the theist will accept it, since his worldview allows for such event. If the evidence doesn't support the miracle claim, the theist should reject such specific miracle claim (rejection which doesn't conflict with theism either, since theism doesn't imply that every miracle claim is true).

There is a widespread misconception according to which, if one is a theist, then one is obligated to accept every miracle claim. This is false. The theist is not obligated to accept any miracle claim in the same way which a parapsychologist who accepts the paranormal is not obligated to accept any psychic claim, or that a phycisian who accepts that viruses produce diseases is not obligated to accept the claim that all new diseases are viral.

Atheism, on the other hand, precludes in advance the possibility of any miracle being actual, and only allows as true and valid the evidence contrary to the occurence of miracles. This is why atheistic assumptions (like the Jesus Seminar's) egregiously begs the question against miracles, tend to exaggerate the possible problems of the Gospels as historical sources (problems which are common to any ancient historical document) and hence tends to create unwarranted skepticism about the possibility of the Historical Jesus being actually like portrayed in the Gospels.

Common reply:

I've been shocked with the answers provided by people sympathetic to the Jesus Seminar, when confronted with the above argument.

As a rule, their response is purely emotional and defensive. For example,  they will tell you that "conservative" also have faith commitments or assumptions.

If they were intellectually serious people, they would realize that the faith commitments and assumptions of "conservatives" do NOTHING to justify the assumptions and prejudices of "liberals" nor to refute the argument that such liberal assumptions beg the question. How exactly the faith commitments of a priest justifies the Jesus Seminar's naturalistic (and hence question-begging) approach to the historical Jesus?

Suppose that I write a post in which I expose the question-begging assumptions of a materilistic skeptic (like that I've done here). Does it make sense to reply "Well, but you say nothing about the assumptions or prejudices of Chris Carter or Dean Radin, who are biased in favor of the paranormal"?

No intellectually serious person would argue like that. If a person argues like this, you would suspect that he's an intellectually dishonest person, or simply someone absolutely blinded by his emotions and prejudices and who's reacting on a purely emotional level.

If my argument about the skeptic's prejudices (and how they seriously affect the assesment of the evidence) is correct, it is absolutely irrelevant that other people (let's say, Dean Radin or Chris Carter) have bias and pressupositions too, because the latter doesn't justify the former, and the my critique of skeptics don't rest on the lack of bias or assumptions by parapsychologists.

It's like defending oneself from the charge of murder, saying in the judicial process "Well, Mr.Judge, you're biased too, the guy in front of my home is also a murder and you do nothing about it!".

Even if you were right, and the guy in front of your home is a criminal, and the Judge is biased, this doesn't NOTHING to refute the charges against you.

With such stupid "defense", you probably would end in jail.

I'm extremely dissapointed of people like that. Shame of them.

Assumption 2: The assumption 1 overrides over the criteria of authenticity when they support Christology

Another way of formulating this assumption is like this: The criteria of authenticity ONLY can be accepted when they support non-Christological traditions.

For example:

The criterion of multiple attestation is accepted when it supports non-Christological traditions (e.g. Jesus' historical existence which is attested in several, independent sources). But the same criterion will be rejected by liberals when it supports Christological traditions (e.g. that Jesus was born in Bethelhem, which supports that he was the Messiah predicted by the Old Testament).

Also, the example of the empty tomb. The empty tomb is not itself Christological, but since the resurrection claim implies the empty tomb (it is therefore part of the evidence for the resurrection), some scholars have tried to attack it in order to deny the resurrection.

Although accepted by most scholars ((including by many atheist and other anti-Christian scholars) due to the strengh of the historical evidence for the empty tomb, a few of them (mainly liberals) reject it as an invention by Mark, despite of passing the criterion of multiple attestation (in addition to other criteria like embarassment).

So, many liberal scholars don't apply the criteria consistently, but inconsistently in order to reach anti-Christian conclusions.

The key and secret to understand liberal scholarship in general is to understand exactly its philosophical and ideological rejection of Christology. The criteria of authenticity are then misused (in particular ways, depending on the scholar) to fit this agenda.

Common reply:

A common answer for the above objection is that, even if a tradition passes the criteria of multiple attestation, it "could" be invented by the Church by different, independent persons who share the same beliefs about Jesus.  (Alternatively, it is formulated like this: "It was very easy for the chruch to create that").

The fallacy of this answer is obvious: The "could" and "it is very easy" responses are NOT historical evidence. They're NOT criteria of historicity. They're sheer speculations. Then, how the hell such mere speculations may be overriding force over the historical criteria, like the criterion of multiple attestation?

Even if the same tradition "could" be invented by persons who shared faith in Jesus, it doesn't imply that such invention actually happened. Simply believing in something doesn't make you a deceiver or cheater.

Historians don't work with mere speculations or  sheer possibilities, but with concrete evidence which makes a given possibility more likely than not.

But the underlaying motive for the skeptic is to block or avoid all the evidence which supports the distinctive Christian view of Jesus (Christology). This is pure wishful thinking and intellectually dishonest ideology. That's all. (Compare with the skeptics Martin Gardner or James Randi's creative scenarios of how a psychic "could" cheat the experimenters, or how it was "easy" for a magician to fool the investigators or how the psychic investigators are unreliable because they are believers in psi... even if not such evidence for fraud or deception or technical flaws exists in the specific experiments!)

Certainly, that a magician "could" cheat under certain experimental conditions don't make any particular psychic (in the same conditions) to be a fraud. This is not evidence at all for the claim that given psychic is a fraud. (In the same way, that a given tradition about Jesus "could" be invented doesn't make it an actual, proven invention).

Mere possibility is not evidence, and many liberals use such gambit as a question-begging criterion on non-historicity.

The real problem here is the contemporary ideology of naturalistic atheism. I'm sorry to be so blatant, but I do believe this: When atheistic ideologues put their dirty hands on a given topic (specially on a topic which is in tension with atheism and naturalism) we tend to see pure disaster (recent example: the atheists "take" on Sheldrake in Wikipedia)

Atheists work fine in areas in which atheism is not in question (e.g. computer science, law, medicine, etc). But don't put them in positions in which they must "assess" topics in which atheism is challenged, otherwise...

If Shaldrake is constantly mistreated and misrepresented by atheists in what is supposed to be an innocent online "encyclopedia", you can imagine that atheists would do with the Historical Jesus... the number one, public historical enemy of atheism around the world.

A fictional dialogue about the Historical Jesus between a truth-seeker, a liberal scholar and a new ager (part 10). CONCLUSIONS.

 

 

TS: In our previous dialogues, we discussed the evidence for and against the empty tomb. I think it was proved the evidence was more convincing than the objections to it, although my liberal friend would disagree.

Liberal: Sure.

TS: Since everybody agrees that the disciples had the experience of the risen Jesus and that that gave origin to the Christian faith, I think it is a waste of time to discuss the evidence for it.

I let the hypothetical readers of these dialogues to figure out which is the best explanation for the empty tomb, the physicality of the resurrection appearences of Jesus, the origin of the belief of the disciples that Jesus was risen from the death (contrary to the Jewish expectation about the resurrection) and the transformation of Paul (from an enemy of Christians to become their foremost apologist) after seeing Jesus' appearence to him.

I'd like to suggest that in today's dialogue, we pose some closing remarks and conclusions of these discussions.

NA and liberal: Agreed.

TS:: My conclusion is this, and please read it carefully:

One of the most important things in the searching for the truth is consistency, that is, not using double standards to reach conclusions that we like.

In my investigation about the historical Jesus, I've discoveried massive inconsistencies which are unworthy of true, serious, honest researchers. I've already discussed the inconsistency of "liberals", who portrait themselves as independent, scientific investigators of the Historical Jesus.

In the case of New Agers, the most egregious inconsistencies are these:

1)People sympathetic to the Jesus Seminar (and other liberals) and, simultaneously, sympathetic to A Course in Miracles, Conversations with God, the Aquariam Gospel of Jesus, and other new age 20th sources about Jesus.

The lack of consistency can seen here: If you use the same hypercritical methodology that the Jesus Seminar and other liberals use with the 1st century Christian sources, to research the 20th century sources about Jesus, you would reach extremely skeptical conclusions about such 20th new age sources too.

For example:  as a rule, due to the influence of atheistic naturalism, liberals are skeptical of traditions about Jesus which present a post-mortem Jesus giving any information or teaching (they consider these traditions to be "fictional"). On parity of reasoning, the whole of ACIM and the other 20th centuries sources would have to be considered fictional, since they are sources which provide Jesus' information... 19 centuries after he died.

By this liberal methodological criterion alone, the whole of ACIM and other sources are non-starters.

Consider this: In Galatians 1:11-12, Paul's claim that Jesus passed his teachings to him directly, which is seen by liberals as "non-factual" (they don't deny necessarily Paul's experiences, what they deny is that actually Jesus appeared to Paul and taught him the Gospel). Liberals and New Agers laugh, dismiss, distrust and are very skeptical of Paul's claim that Jesus taught and tutored the Gospel to him, but simultaneously (in the case of some New Agers) they take seriously ACIM and other 20th century sources about Jesus. Why exactly do ACIM/other post-mortem sources are more reliable and veridical than Paul's, who also claimed to know and teach the Gospel that Jesus directly taught him? On what consistent methodological criterion can you justify such view?

It has nothing to do with science or scholarpship, it is pure WISHFUL THINKING.

  

Note: If the New Ager, in order to give credibility to ACIM and other sources about Jesus, skips this liberal methodological restriction and accepts as possible that a post-mortem Jesus provided his true teachings to some person, then Paul's claim cannot be distrusted on the liberal restriction anymore, since it is also possible that Jesus passed his true teachings directly to Paul exactly as Paul taught them! (In this case, the New Ager will be forced to used another double standard to favor ACIM/other sources over the techings of Paul, which again would expose the New Ager's inconsistency, prejudices and bias against the Christian view).

For example:  many liberals assume that the traditions which are singly attested in one Gospel alone are fictional (because they don't pass the criterion of multiple attestation). So, John's Gospel singly attested traditions are considered finctional and unreliable. But on parity of reasoning, all the original content and contributions (=content which is unique, and hence not multiply attested) of the ACIM and other sources, should be considered fictional too.

For example:  Many liberals assume that later, theologically evolved, properly Christian concepts and expressions about Jesus are fictional and not coming from Jesus at all (this is another reason why the 1st century John's Gospel is considered unreliable by such "liberals"). But on parity of reasoning, all the theologically evolved, high-Christological concepts and expressions (like references to the Son of God belonging to the Holy Trinity) that you find in 20th century ACIM and other sources, have to be considered fictional too and not coming from Jesus at all.

For example: Many liberals assume that traditions not found in "Q" are fictional or unreliable. On parity of reasoning, a very large portion of ACIM and other 20th century sources should be considered fictional or unreliable, since they present new information and details not found in Q (including spiritually and theologically charged interpretations about the atonement related to the resurrection and the crucifixion).

The so-called "facts" that some liberals pose about Jesus are consequence of a hypercritical methodology which exclude a lot of historically reliable information about Jesus in the Gospels, a methodology which, if applied consistently to the 20th century sources, would exclude such sources too for being fictional, extremely late and unreliable. This is where the egregious methodological double standard lies.

2)The above evidence suggests that New Agers sympathetic to the Jesus Seminar and other liberals don't agree with such liberals for methodological reasons, but exclusively for ideological ones: such New Agers like the conclusions of liberals about the historical Jesus and dislike the Christian, divine, exclusivistic high Christological view of Jesus. This psychological and ideological fact makes them prone and extremely biased to liberal scholarship (hence, the egregious double standards!).

This fact may be seen easily in this example:

-The evidence for  Jesus' exclusivistic self-perception, divine status and being the Son of God in a unique divine sense, passes several criteria of historical authenticity (including being in "Q"). However, absolutely not evidence exists in Q or any other 1st century historical sources, of Jesus being master of Yoga, Chi Kung, Tai Chi and so forth.

Shockingly, some New Agers are extremely skeptical of Jesus' claims of exclusivism, but at the same time they "suggest" that it is "plausible" that Jesus was a master of Yoga or Chi Kung... and even worst, that Jesus' mastering of these techniques produced the resurrection!

Again, wishful thinking overrides methodological consistency, objectivity and honest search for the truth.

This shows clearly that their notions of "plausibility" have nothing to do with historical evidence and methodological consistency, but with ideological prejudices about how Jesus should be (a prejudice which, essentially and a priori, precludes the possibility of Jesus being like the early Christians thought he was . (Obviously, this is an egregious bias against the Christian view of Jesus)

I find such inconsistency to be hypocrital, intellectually dishonest and unworthy of serious seekers after the truth.

The whole purpose of these people is trying to avoid the distinctive Christian view of Jesus for whatever means they can use, even if some of such distinctive aspects are supported by historical evidence which is better supported than the alternatives.

I'm extremely dissapointed of New Agers and other people like that.

They are not interested in the truth, but on reaching non-Christian conclusions which fit their emotional and ideological expectatives!. They're (anti-Christian) ideologues.

 3)In my opinion, being truthly "open-minded" means to following the evidence wherever it leads, including if it leads you to conclusions unpalatable to you or contrary to your worldview. If it leads you to atheistic materialism, then accept atheistic materialism. If it leads you to socialism, then accept socialism. It it leads you to the factuality of reincarnation, then accept reincarnation. If it leads you to the non-existence of Jesus, then accept the non-existence of Jesus, if it leads you the existence of paranormal phenomena, then accept them.

We're interested in the TRUTH, not on imposing our personal ideology.

But, on parity of reasoning,  if the historical evidence leads you to Jesus' exclusivistic claims (and claims implying divinity), then accept it. If the historical evidence leads you to Jesus' resurrection, then accept it.

Like it or not, you have to be sensible to the evidence, even to evidence contrary to your convictions.

I haven't seen this disposition to follow the evidence in New Age and paranormal circles. They're open-minded only regarding things to which they're initially sympathetic to. If you write about topics that they like (like afterlife research, debunking of pseudoskeptics, etc.) they will applaude you and you will be a kind of hero to some of them.

But regarding topics which they don't like or disagree with, they become angry pseudoskeptics themselves, arguing in uninformed form, providing arm-chair and ignorant criticisms which are not informed by standard methodological criteria and findings of scholarhip, making explicit (and sometimes being proud of) his own prejudices, being hostile, emotional, agressive, intolerant, insulting, intentionally misrepresenting what one is saying, uncharitably interpretating one's arguments, etc. (or using name calling or ad hominem labels or red herrings like "conservative", "fundamentalist", etc. as whether it were a rational objection or real argument which addresses the substantive points and is relevant for serious discussions about the historical Jesus).

Great example provided by people supposedly committed to a "spiritual" life and who constantly are talking of "love" as the universal principle of existence...

Someone said that "extreme tends to touch each other", and the pseudoskepticism that I've seen in some New Age and paranormal circles regarding the Christian view of Jesus is very similar to the pseudoskepticism of atheistic materialists about parapsychology. 

They use exactly the same methods, only varies the content of their ideas or beliefs.

Shame of them.

Summarizing: My current conclusion is that the consistent application of the historical method used by professional historians and the criteria of authenticity supports several of the distinctive Christological aspects of the life of the historical Jesus. This is a historical conclusion.

If one likes or dislikes that, is another problem which perhaps should be discussed in another forum... (of psychology, perhaps).

NA: My conclusions about these discussions are these:

-I agree with TS that the methodology used by the Jesus Seminar and other liberals is too restrictive and biased. 

I didn't see such problem before, because the liberal conclusions tended to cohere well with the teachings of a A Course in Miracles (ACIM), so this coherence with a material which I regard as true (namely, the ACIM) suggested to me that the liberal conclusions were plausible.

However, in these discussions, TS proved that the conclusions of liberals are mainly based on a inconsistent application of the criteria of authenticity and on atheistic assumptions which are gratuitous, in order to undermine or cast doubts on the credibility of the high-Christological traditions found in the Gospels. 

Even worst, I have to concede TS' point that if such liberal methodology is applied to ACIM (in the same way in which it is applied to the Gospels), then such liberal methodology would produce extremely skeptical conclusions about ACIM. Now, I can see this problem clearly.

This puts me in a dilemma: On one side I have ACIM, and on the other side I have the liberal methodology. Since the latter would see ACIM as unreliable,  and I think that ACIM is true, I'm forced to doubt and be more critical of the the liberal methodology. But if I do that, then I cannot dismiss anymore some of the traditions supporting the Christian view of Jesus (traditions which were dismissed by liberals precisely using the methodology which would destroy the ACIM too).

TS also mentioned other 20th century sources like ACIM which provide information about Jesus (put in Jesus' lips) which is contrary to ACIM.

Again, this puts me in a trouble: I haven't non-question begging reasons to distrust these sources on behalf of ACIM, and I openly concede this point.

However, ACIM has reached my heart, it has had a profound effect in me, has caused a whole change in my spiritual life and I still consider it to be true. If you want, you can think that my commitment to ACIM is based "on faith" (and as I'm consistent, I cannot attack anybody, including some Christians or Muslims, who disagree with me and hold their views "on faith" too).

I have to live with that subjectivism.

Liberal: I've already heard all the arguments of TS and NA, and I'm still unpersuaded by them. My conclusions, widely shared by contemporary scientific scholarpship, are:

-Jesus was basically a 1st century teller of stories and parables, and his purpose was basically changing people's minds. That's all, basically. In this regards, there is nothing special about him. A lot of people, before and after Jesus, have provided the same teachings about loving others, etc.

He was another "spiritual" teacher, like many others. There is nothing exclusive about him, he is one among a spectrum of spiritual teachers (all of who teach basically the same and not one is seen as superior than the others in a divine sense), whom my collegue Marcus Borg likes to call "Spirit-Persons".

-The extremely exalted, divine view of Jesus has nothing to do with the historical Jesus. It was a later view developed by his followers and put back into Jesus' lips. Jesus NEVER uttered such things.

-Hence, all the Christological traditions in the Gospels are all fictional and didn't come from Jesus's lips.

-Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God in any special sense.  By the way, phrase "Son of God" was used also of prophets, kings, etc. without implying nothing special.

-Jesus was a miracle-worker in the sense that people around him perceived him as someone who performed many miracles. But actually and literally, miracles don't exist and in this sense Jesus didn't produce them. Such miracles are fictions. In Jesus' time, a lot of other "miracle-workers" existed too, so Jesus is nothing special in this regards either.

-The stories about the empty tomb are likely to be fictional, since they're full of hopeless contradictions. The same applies to the resurrection narratives. All of these were invented for apologetical purposes of trying to convince others that Jesus was risen from the death. They're pure legends.

-The story of the resurrection were caused by hallucinations of the disciples. This hallucinations caused in them the impression that Jesus was somehow divine, and hence (with time passed) Jesus' human figure was exalted into God himself. Hence, when the Gospels were written decades after Jesus' death, this highly distorted, unhistorical divine view of Jesus was already in place and the Gospels were written from that biased, historically corrupted, theologically distorted perspective.

This is the origin of the "Christological" traditions in the Gospels.

In summary: Jesus was a mere man like you or me. Period. He simply stressed spiritual, psychological and moral teachings like all the other "spirit-persons". He didn't see himself as "divine" in any special sense.

All the "divene powers" added to him don't belong to him at all, and are the product of the religious enthusiasm of his followers, who exalted him into a divinity, systematically misunderstood his teachings, centring them around a person and largely falsified the historical facts on behalf of a religious agenda and propaganda.

These are some of the conclusions of modern, scientific scholarship about the historical Jesus.

Regarding ACIM and other 20th century sources, it is easier to think that Helen Schucman and the other authors invented all of that and then put it in Jesus' lips. If such new age teachings "cohere" or not with the scientific conclusions of scholarship don't make such sources reliable, since they are extremely late sources (incredibly later than John's Gospel) and above all it  hasn't been proved that such new age documents come from independent, reliable sources about Jesus, let alone from Jesus himself.

It is up to the readers to reach their own conclusions.

END OF THESE DIALOGUES

A fictional dialogue about the Historical Jesus between a truth-seeker, a liberal scholar and a new ager (part 9)

TS: We began to discuss the evidence for and against the empty tomb. In one of our previous dialogues, our liberal friend argued that he was skeptical of the empty tomb, suggesting that:

The stories of the empty tomb in the Gospels are full of holes and hopeless contradictions.

Right?

Liberal: Right.

TS: Can you expand this objection?

Liberal: Well, when you look upon the Gospels, the narratives regarding the empty tomb are full of contradictions, and therefore it implies that they're are false.

For example, how many women were present in the tomb? According to Mark, 3 women visited the tomb (Mark 16: 1-2), but according to John,  Mary Magdalene was the only woman to visit the tomb (John 20: 1).

There is an obvious contradiction there, and therefore it is false.

TS: Before answering your objection, I'd like to discuss what is exactly a contradiction, because a lot of claims by liberal scholars about "contradictions" are not contradictions at all in a technical sense.

A contradiction occurs when one proposition is the exact denial of another one. Technically, when a proposition claims A, and another proposition claims Non-A, in the same respect,  we have a contradiction between such two propositions.

So, atheism and theism are contradictory, since the former claims God's non-existence and the latter asserts God's existence.

Note that if a proposition claims A, and another proposition claims B, it is not necessarily a contradiction, since A and B could be logically compatible (only when A and B implies some contradiction, in the above sense, we can be sure they're logically incompatible and contradictory).

So, claiming that a man is Colombian (proposition A) and Venezuelan (proposition B) are two different descriptions of the same man, but both propositions could be true because both countries allow having multiple nationalities. They're not contradictory.

Liberal: And what the hell has that to do with the Gospels' narratives about the empty tomb?

TS: It has too much to do with them, because in the specific examples mentioned by you above, if we read them literally, there is not contradiction at all.

Let's compare them. In Mark 16: 1-2 we read: 

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ² And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 

In John 20:1 we read:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb

Mark mentions 3 women, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome, and John mentions only Mary Magdalene.

Liberal: And there is the contradiction! You cannot have 3 women and simultaneously having just one. It is one case or the other.

TS: There is a contradiction only if you assume that John is claiming that ONLY Mary Magdalene visited the tomb, but he's not claiming that. He's just saying that Mary Magdalene visited the tomb, a fact multiply attested by (and in full agreement with) Mark.

Liberal: But John is giving the impression that just Mary Magdalene visited the tomb, not the other women. The other women are not mentioned.

TS: Perhaps. But my point is that, in a accurate reading of the reports, there is not a straightforward technical contradiction between Mark and John´s accounts regarding the number of women that visited the tomb. The contradiction only appears if we ADD the word "only" to John's narrative, which is not part of it.

More specifically, the contradiction only exists if you assume that both accounts were meant to be EXHAUSTIVE accounts of the all the same facts. But as professional historians know, historical sources are selective regarding the facts (and the emphasis on the facts) that they choose to tell. (This selectivity is factually unavoidable, since you cannot recordn and tell absolutely all the facts of the physical universe in a given time. You have to select the facts that are relevant to the event you're narrating).

Suppose that I write: "I visited Michael Prescott's blog the day X, and there was commenting Zerdini, Vitor Moura and Keith Augustine".

And another person writes: "I also visited Prescott's blog the day X, and there was Augustine writing".

Is there a contradiction between the accounts of both persons? Clearly, no proper contradiction exists in such examples. The contradiction only appears if you assume that both accounts are meant to be exhaustive accounts of the same facts, in this case, of the people writing in Prescott's blog on day X.

The above two statements chose to report the facts in a different way, depending on what the author wanted to stress (perhaps, the first statement wanted to stress the ideological diversity of the people commenting on Prescott's blog, and the other statement to stress just the fact that a skeptic wrote there).

Both statements are incomplete and selective in their reporting, but they're both TRUE (and therefore, not contradictory).

Only an extremely prejudiced, biased and uncharitable reader would read the above two statements and conclude "What an amazing contradiction, both testimonies are hopeless contradictories, and therefore we can't believe them. Hence, it is fictional that Augustine (or Zerdini, or Vitor Moura) wrote that day".

This is what liberals do when reading the New Testament, specially the evidence for the resurrection. 

The slightest difference on reporting is magnified and exaggerated into hopeless contradictions and inconsistencies, and not attempt to figuring out plausible harmonizations is made. Such liberals want and are desperate to find inconsistencies in order to disbelieve the information (specially the Christological information) found in the Gospels.

Liberal: I disagree. For me, John is implying that only a women visited the tomb. Period.

TS: Fine, but it is clear that John never says it. Mentioning one person doesn't mean discarding others, even if your emphasis is just in one person.

Liberal: But he's implying it. It is telling that you are free to speculate about tacit "implications" of the empty tomb when Paul didn't mention it, but are skeptical of the "implications" of John regarding the number of women who visited the tomb.

You're using a double standard to favor only the "implications" supporting the Christian view.

TS: I'm not using a double standard. In Paul's case, the "implication" comes from known historical facts (not assumptions) namely:

-Pharisees were believers in physical resurrections.

-Paul was a phrarisee (therefore, he believed in a physical resurrection).

-Paul used the language of the resurrection.

-Paul's contrast is between a natural body and a spiritual body, not between a physical body and a non-physical body.

This supports the conclusion that Paul, when saying that Jesus was "raised on the third day", is implying am empty tomb, since he's referring to the resurrection of the physical BODY.

This is why most scholars expert in Paul agree with this interpretation.

In the case of John, your "implication" is based on mere assumptions about what John meant, namely the assumption that John meant to exclude any other person except Mary Magdalene.  And even though it is certainly a possibility, it is not "implied" by the language mentioned by John in the same way that Paul implies the empty tomb.

But let that pass. 

Let's assume for the argument's sake that an actual, explicit, straightforward contradiction exists in Mark and John's reports on the number of women visiting the empty tomb.

Liberal: Right.

TS: In such case, both Mark and John AGREE that Mary Magdalene visited the tomb. No contradiction affects this core agreement.

If such traditions are independent, then one could argue that it is multiply attested by Mark and John that Mary Magdalene visited the tomb, and hence this fact is likely to be historical.

Liberal: But if the sources are contradictories, we cannot trust them.

TS: But note that the (putative) contradiction doesn't affect the mention of Mary Magdalene as a witness of the empty tomb, it just affects the existence or identity of the other women.

The contradiction regarding the existence or presence of the other women don't refute that Mary Magdalene was a key figure in the discovering of the empty tomb.

Liberal: Perhaps John is dependent on Mark for the story of Mary Magdalene.

TS: But then you're conceding that regarding such fact, they're not contradictory, which is precisely my point! (At most, John dependence on Mark would refute the claim that such tradition is multiply attested, but in turn it would support my other contention that they're not contradictory, which destroys you claim of "hopeless" contradiction!). 

You cannot have it both ways.

Liberal: I disagree. I said "perhaps", but my actual persuasion is that being both accounts contradictory, they're not reliable.

TS: You're misusing the sources, since you're assuming the contradiction affects the whole of the sources, not just parts of them. I'm astonished by such misuse of historical sources by so many liberal scholars.

Liberal: This is why you're credulous and extremely sympathetic to the Christian sources. Skeptical people like me will disagree.

TS: False. I'm arguing my acceptation of Mary Magdalene's visiting the tomb is agreed both by Mark and John, and hence not contradictory.

This suffices to refute your claim that they're "hopeless contradictory".

Moreover, if they're independent, it would provide an example of multiple attestation (and I haven't mentioned the criterion of embarassment, which independently also supports it).

Also, it is false that only people "sympathetic" to Christianity accepts the evidence for the empty tomb.

For example, a world-renown critic of Christianity (who clearly has an axe to grind against the Christian sources) like Bart Ehrman, concedes:

"the earliest accounts we have are unanimous in saying that Jesus was in fact buried by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, so it's relatively reliable that that's what happened. We also have solid traditions to indicate that women found this tomb empty three days later" (From Jesus to Constantine: Lecture 4, the teaching company, 2003).

Liberal: I disagree with Ehrman about it.

TS: Fine, but it is clear that your opinions about based on assumptions, not on facts.  (Assumptions which are hostile to the Christian sources).

The evidence for the empty tomb is well-supported historically and the supposed "hopeless contradictions" (even if they were actual contradictions, which is not the case) don't affect the historical core of the tradition.

This is why atheist historian Michael Grant also concedes:

True, the discovery of the empty tomb is differently described by the various Gospels. But if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was indeed found empty (Jesus, An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, p. 176).

The reason why many "liberals" disagree with such conclusion is precisely because they are not consistent in the application of the historical criteria.

Liberals tend to use the criteria inconsistently in order to reach anti-Christian conclusions about the historical Jesus.

In future dialogues we'll continue to discuss these matters.