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Rationally Deferring to Bob Price on Empirical Christianity

November 2, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

Bob PriceI'd promised myself I was going to move on to ethics and stop posting about religious issues, but due diligence requires me to relay this follow-up to my discussion of Mike Licona claiming empirical support for the Resurrection.

As I alluded to in my exchange with Ernie P. about empirically grounding Christianity, arguing about historical evidence is, at least when it occurs between non-historians, pretty dodgy. Anyone who rejects the arguments of the religious is typically accused of not sufficiently engaging them, i.e. being ignorant of their positions and arguments, and not having reviewed all the evidence, etc. Categorically writing off claims of miracles as simply superstition that we modern people should have long grown beyond is considered a crass dismissal. And it's true: to actually engage in religious debates requires more research than I have time and tolerance for. Personally, I can handle the philosophical disputes: the coherence of the concept of God, the classical arguments, the problem of evil. Re. the empirical issues, such as alleged Biblical archaeology, the historical questions about the writing of the Bible and the events it depicts, textual analysis of the Bible itself: for that, all I can promise is to read a few books on the topic at some point, and that's purely to feel educated about it, much as I want to learn more about the Roman Empire or the current political climate in Japan or any number of other cultural and/or historical issues.

I was pleased then after one of my readers here brought him up to finally get to the discussions on Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot featuring Robert M. Price. I found the first to be the most rewarding: he gives his credentials (an actual Baptist preacher, Ph.D., divinity school Professor, Bible expert), his story (started out as a believer in Biblical literalism but, on actually doing research, is now an agnostic sympathetic to religion: despite not believing the Bible to be a significant source of truth, he loves the text itself), and some enlightening information about the historical method that provides some critical ammunition for dealing with the hope-based double-dealing of the devout in this area. I'll leave you to listen to the discussion to get the details; it's a pretty lively episode.

His second appearance discusses more specifically the historical issues involved, and his third describes ambiguities and conflicts among believers as to what Biblical inerrancy might mean. Those in the know about hermeneutics (and I'm not really among these, though I hope to have future PEL episodes in this area) should have some opinions about this last issue: you can't take a text like the Bible as a basic set of postulates as in math. For one thing, the text by its nature cannot determine its own interpretation; "the text" divorced from the expected assumptions of specific audience isn't a sensible concept, so at the very least, a text needs to be unpacked and read into and decoded. Schleiermacher was a major proponent of this approach, and it's no accident that it led him to a very liberal, no-conflicts-with-science (i.e. non-empirical) Christianity.

As discussed in the Dennett portion of the new atheists episode, we routinely defer to experts on empirical matters. Whereas Licona's research into the Resurrection strikes me as something like an oil company evaluating the feasibility of renewable energy, Price's apparent motives are pure, and he's gone much farther into this topic than I would ever in my life have the time or desire to, so for the moment at least, I'm provisionally deferring to him on these empirical matters, and think myself justified (i.e. warranted enough given the situation) in doing so.

-Mark Linsenmayer

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Filed Under: Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts Tagged With: philosophy blog, philosophy of religion, Robert M. Price

Comments

  1. Charles Blackmar says

    November 3, 2011 at 7:33 am

    Mark, I find your blog intriguing. I am glad to see that you are exploring the empirical side of faith. Even though I feel the resurrection is not an empirical matter for us to explore in the empirical sense. As one moves farther away from history the matter of faith must continue in its place. I can only describe this by looking at science as the key to this understanding. I may never understand quantum physics, but that is what the physicist is for. I can only minor explore what they say and make up my mind from there, but I have to at least explore it. I find so many “seekers” in this world only taking for granted the words of experts in a certain field. Have we become too engrossed in being entertained that exploration is out of the picture? My hope is that others will explore more areas of this world to make decisions based upon their empirical findings. It may take the idea of faith to overcome some finding, but that is for the agent to decide on.
    Charles
    Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
    Florida State College of Jacksonville

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      November 4, 2011 at 9:33 am

      Thanks for weighing in, Charles!

      Reply
  2. Russ says

    November 3, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    I run into this again and again regarding the historicity of Jesus: there are those who pursue the story of Christ and then end up on different sides of the fence. I can’t explain it. Individuals such as the fellow you allude to here (Price), Bart Ehrman (Prof at UNC), many in the Jesus Seminar who don’t find the historical record compelling while others such as Lew Wallace (Ben-Hur), Frank Morrison (“Who Moved the Stone?”), Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, etc. became convinced of the historicity of New Testament gospels. This probably explains why Kierkegaard went in a different direction because those questions will never get resolved.

    Reply
  3. Daniel Horne says

    November 4, 2011 at 10:44 am

    Hi Mark,

    For what it’s worth, PBS/Frontline did a great four-hour documentary (hey, less time-consuming than a good book) on the “historicity” of Jesus of Nazareth, which you can watch online here:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/watch/

    Also available on Netflix.

    Bonus: It is also as much a history of the Roman Empire (or at least its Judean province) as it is the history of Jesus and the Apostles.

    I thought it was great history, not just of the early Christians, but also of the Jewish people under Roman rule, and the classical world itself. Here’s a 1998 review from the NYT, if you want to scan press reaction before committing the time to watch. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/06/arts/television-review-a-humble-man-yet-sophisticated-too.html

    Reply
  4. Ace says

    November 20, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    Referring to a Christ-mythicist doesn’t seem very “rational.”

    No offense, but c’mon. His motives are “pure”? rofl. Why? Because he’s a conspiracy theorist that validates your opinions?

    I’m surprised you didn’t “rationally” refer us all to the Zeitgeist movie.

    Anyway.

    Reply

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