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Sailboat

Magic is never reasonable

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle...When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Guy decides to see the South Pacific. Buys sailboat plans, sets to work down in the basement, board by board building the sleek mahogany cutter that will carry him to the islands. Five years he's got the project finished—then he realizes he can't get the boat out of his basement. Oops, we've got trouble with the basic concept.

Using critical scholarship to prove the Christ myth is true is like building a sailboat in the basement—oops, we've got trouble with the basic concept.

That's worth keeping in mind, because when it comes to Christianity's Pagan origins, lots of modern "scholarship" is really modern apologetics, aimed to show the Christ myth fitting with logical, rational, scientific reasoning. The trouble is...

Magic and miracle are never reasonable. You'd think this would be obvious, but it's not. I'm gonna 'splain it with an example, because I don't want you to think I'm making this up:

The elephant in the faculty lounge

of the critical scholarship of Christian origins is, "Is Christianity true?" But critical scholarship—rational scholarship—can't honestly answer the question, because critical scholarship is a ruler that isn't marked to measure what we really want to know.

The famous believing scholar, Doctor of Divinity Arthur Darby Nock, wrote this much quoted paragraph about Jesus (which you might as well skip, since it's translated in the next green box). >>

"In Christianity everything is made to turn on a dated experience of a historical Person; it can be seen from I Cor 15:3 that the statement of the story early assumed the form of a statement in a Creed. There is nothing in the parallel cases which points to any attempt to give such a basis of historical evidence to belief"
[Arthur Darby Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background, 1964, pg. 107].

Dr. Nock's paragraph isn't too clear, so though it's often quoted it's also often translated something like this (this one is worth reading) >>

By the way

Have you maybe noticed how believing scholars haven't made up their minds about the Pagan dying and rising god myth?

Usually they say there weren't any pre-Christian Gods who died and rose again—so there was nothing for Jesus to copy. Flip. Other times, like this one, the point they're after only works if there were dying and rising gods; then believing scholars say 'Yeah, there were dying and rising Gods—but it doesn't matter.' Flop.

Does this flipping and flopping mean believing scholars are bad people, liars maybe? No. It means they are human, like you and me. We can still be friends.

"Nock acutely [!!] observed that pagan myths like the dying and rising god developed over hundreds of years, but that the Message of the death and resurrection of Christ (as in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5) was being proclaimed within a year of the historical Jesus. In other words, that two-pronged Message is so close to the events it reports that it must be historically based, that it was not myth."
[Geoff Robson interviewed by Paul Barrette, Anglican Media Sydney / PO Box Q190, QVB Post Office / NSW Australia 1230]

Let me repeat that. Dr. Nock's acute reasoning goes like this:
	PREMISE	There are two possibilities: Jesus' resurrection was real, or; Jesus resurrection was myth.
	FACT	Stories of Jesus resurrection were recorded soon after his death.
	CONCLUSIO	It's more likely that Jesus resurrection was real than that Jesus resurrection was mythical.

Hey wait! Dr. Nock thinks Jesus' being actually—miraculously, magically—raised from the dead is more likely than Jesus not being magically raised from the dead, but somebody making up a story that he was.

But that's silly. At least it's silly if we're talking about rational, scientific thinking. A magical miracle is never more likely than something that is actually physically possible.

If you know a rule that can tell when a miracle is ever more likely than something that is actually physically possible, we'd all like to hear it. There isn't one. And that's the point. Using critical scholarship to prove the the Christ myth is true is like building a sailboat in the basement—oops, we've got trouble with the basic concept.

So what? So nothing. Doctor of Divinity Arthur Darby Nock is still widely admired for his "acuity," and his paragraph is still reprinted and nodded over throughout scholarly Christendom. In fact this is exactly the sort of stuff believing scholars write down and pass around.



Jesus in the 3d century, healing the sick with a magic wand

But now you know better.

Is it possible Jesus resurrection was real? No, it isn't; at least not rationally and scientifically. Resurrections are magical. Resurrections are miraculous. Magic and miracle aren't scientific. Magic and miracle aren't rational or reasonable.

Yeah, yeah Poindexter. Is it possible Jesus' resurrection was real? —Well, yes. But only if magical, miraculous, supernatural things are possible. And, when you think about it, that's exactly the point of the miracle of Jesus' resurrection. The miracle points up God's power, proves there really is something supernatural going on.

But that's not critical scholarship. That's theology.

Fool's errand
Critical scholarship is about a rational, reasoned interpretation of facts. God and the supernatural, that's theology.

This maybe isn't obvious to you, at least it wasn't obvious to me when I started reading about the Pagan Christs, but rationalism and theology answer different questions. Rationalism is about empiric fact. Rationalism denies the possibility of the supernatural.

The recurring modern question about Christianity is, "Is it true?" Was Jesus God's son? Did He do miracles? Did He rise on the third day for the salvation of mankind? The point of the story is that the story is supernatural.

But miracles aren't rational. Resurrection isn't rational. Critical scholarship—rational scholarship—can't do supernatural. Pity the scholars who poke around for the comet that wasn't there to explain the star that heralded Jesus' birth—they're missing the point. The point of the star is that the star and the birth were supernatural. Scholarizing out the supernatural is as demeaning to the story as dismissing it lock stock and improbability as myth.

Miracles? Was the thing that Jesus did supernatural or not? There isn't a rational test to tell. Ditto Paul's conversion. Ditto resurrection. Ditto Pentecost. Ditto, ditto, ditto.

The more I read other people stumbling around Christianity's Pagan origins, the more I realize we're all on a fool's errand. The elephant in the faculty lounge of the critical scholarship of Christian origins is, "Is Christianity true?" But critical scholarship—rational scholarship—can't honestly answer the question, because critical scholarship is a ruler that isn't marked to measure what we really want to know.

A scholarly and handsome reader Kicks POCM's Ass

Edwin K. P. Chong, Ph.D.
www.edwinchong.us
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor of Mathematics
Fellow of the IEEE

Defending the Historicity of Jesus Christ: An Examination of the Jesus Seminar

to which Greg says

When applied to the consideration of miracles, key to the Jesus Seminar’s analyses of the Gospels, naturalism leads inevitably to the conclusion that miracles must be relegated to the realm of magic.
This sentiment is clear in the following typical dialog:

Is it possible Jesus resurrection was real? No, it isn’t; at least not rationally and scientifically. Resurrections are magical. Resurrections are miraculous. Magic and miracle aren’t scientific. Magic and miracle aren’t rational or reasonable.

Yeah, yeah Poindexter. Is it possible Jesus’ resurrection was real? – Well, yes. But only if magical, miraculous, supernatural things are possible. And, when you think about it, that’s exactly the point of the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. The miracle points up God’s power, proves there really is something supernatural going on.

But that’s not critical scholarship. That’s theology.

The dialog above illustrates yet another common sentiment about miracles, that they are fabrications with precisely the goal to suggest that God exists. The argument goes something like this:

1. The Gospels record the occurrence of miracles.
2. This is to be expected, because the Gospel authors have a vested interest in the propagation of such stories. They are fabrications with the goal to suggest that God exists.
3. Therefore, the Gospels are false."

Dr Chong's misunderstands POCM's point. He thinks,

"The argument goes something like this:
1. The Gospels record the occurrence of miracles.
2. This is to be expected, because the Gospel authors have a vested interest in the propagation of such stories. They are fabrications with the goal to suggest that God exists.
3. Therefore, the Gospels are false."

Minor point: POCM never says the gospels are false. POCM isn't about the truth of the gospels; it is about where Christianity's got its ideas from.

Big point: POCM's analysis is not that miracles are impossible, but that belief in them is irrational—and any reasoned analysis of them is impossible. Because they are imagined to come from magical beings doing magic things that bypass cause and effect, it is in principal impossible to investigate miracles with rational reasoning derived from natural laws that do depend cause and effect.

If Dr. Chong knows a rule that can tell when a miracle is ever more likely than something that is actually physically possible, he should give it. He doesn't. He can't. There isn't one. That's the point.

It is possible to believe in miracles. But it is not possible then to claim the dignity and credibility of civilized rational thought. Miracles are a fundamentally stone age, pre-rational, idea. Have "faith in miracles," and you're standing on the side of the room with Zeus, and Baal, and the naked Pagan cannibals.

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