@Touchofgrey
Your attempted deconstruction of the “minimal facts”
approach is a textbook illustration of modern internet atheism: it relies not
on sustained argument, but on rhetorical gestures, appeals to authority without
substance, and a selective, historically illiterate skepticism that evaporates
the moment you are asked to apply it outside the New Testament. Let’s dissect
the carcass of this response, and see what remains once the handwaving and
bluff is swept away.
1. The “Too Minimal” Objection: A Category Mistake
Your chief objection, endlessly repeated, is that the
“minimal facts” approach fails because non-believing scholars who accept the
facts remain unconvinced of the resurrection. This is not a refutation of the
facts, but a comment on the interpretative frameworks scholars bring to the
evidence. The entire point of the approach is to isolate a core set of
historical data so widely accepted (even by critical scholars) that any
adequate explanatory model must account for them. The question then becomes: What
best explains these facts? That some scholars reject the resurrection
despite the data is entirely predictable, given a methodological naturalism
that excludes miracles a priori. You are confusing the fact of scholarly
disagreement (a constant in every discipline) with the bankruptcy of the
evidence itself. The same “method” would dissolve all of ancient history:
Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon is accepted by most, but revisionists remain.
So what?
Further, your claim that “if a non-believing scholar accepts
the facts and doesn’t convert, the argument fails” is embarrassingly naïve
about the function of evidence in rational persuasion. Scholars do not operate
in a worldview vacuum. That one can refuse the resurrection for philosophical
reasons while accepting the facts does not refute the evidential weight of
those facts. It exposes, rather, the presuppositional blinkers of
contemporary secularism.
2. The Myth of “No Evidence Outside the Bible”: Double
Standard and Ignorance
The repeated claim that the minimal facts “all come from the
Bible, so they don’t count” is the height of methodological hypocrisy. First,
the New Testament is not “one book” but a collection of multiple, independent
sources (Paul’s letters, Synoptics, John, Acts, and more) written by different
authors, to different audiences, in different genres, all within a generation
or two of the events. To dismiss these as “not evidence” because they are “in
the Bible” is as silly as dismissing Tacitus’s Annals because they are “in a
Roman book.” The Gospels are ancient biographies and epistolary
literature written in the genre and conventions of their age—precisely how we
know of any figure in the ancient world.
Moreover, external corroboration exists: Josephus and
Tacitus (despite atheist efforts to dismiss or minimize), Suetonius, Pliny the
Younger, and even the hostile Talmudic references collectively affirm the core
elements: Jesus existed, was crucified, his followers proclaimed his
resurrection, and this movement exploded in the immediate aftermath. If you
dismissed every ancient historical fact that is as well-attested as
Jesus’ death by crucifixion, you would be left in a sea of agnosticism so deep
you’d drown before breakfast.
3. “Appeal to Authority” and Scholarly Consensus
The complaint that “scholarly consensus is irrelevant” is a
game you would never play with evolutionary biology, the historicity of
Alexander the Great, or any consensus you personally accept. When Habermas and
others report that the vast majority of relevant scholars—regardless of
theological commitment—accept certain facts (e.g., Jesus’ death by crucifixion,
the empty tomb, post-mortem appearances), this is a report of mainstream
academic judgment, not a naked “appeal to authority.” You then engage in a
bait-and-switch: you demand a unanimity that no field in the humanities ever
achieves, then fault Christian apologists for not meeting your ad hoc standard.
This is intellectual bad faith, not argument.
4. “The Gospels Are Not Independent Accounts”
You parade the old canard that the Gospels are just “four
versions of the same story,” not independent witnesses. This betrays a total
unfamiliarity with the literature on ancient historiography. Multiple
attestation (independent sources or traditions affirming the same core
events) is a bedrock criterion in all ancient historical research. Matthew,
Luke, and John draw on independent traditions; Paul’s letters are indisputably
independent and predate the Gospels; early creeds embedded in the Pauline
epistles (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:3-8) are recognized by skeptical scholars like
Gerd Lüdemann and Bart Ehrman as pre-Pauline, i.e., within a few years
of the crucifixion. To compare this level of attestation unfavorably to, say,
the death of Socrates or the campaigns of Hannibal is an act of selective
skepticism bordering on farce.
Your “testimony about testimony isn’t evidence” move would
vaporize the entire discipline of ancient history. We have no contemporaneous,
“firsthand” written accounts of Caesar crossing the Rubicon; we have what later
historians wrote, based on earlier (now lost) sources, oral tradition, and
public knowledge. To dismiss the Gospel accounts as “not evidence” because they
reflect the memory of the early Christian community is to erase all of history
prior to the modern era.
5. The Empty Tomb and Resurrection Appearances
You claim there is no evidence for the empty tomb or
resurrection appearances outside the New Testament, and that even within, it’s
just “what people believed.” But this is how all ancient history is
reconstructed: by testimony, corroboration, and the explanatory power of
hypotheses. What makes the resurrection appearances unique is not that
people believed in a resurrection—Jewish and pagan parallels do not resemble
the explosive and world-altering character of the Christian claim—but that skeptical,
even hostile witnesses (e.g., James, Paul) are themselves convinced and
transformed. The “legendary accretion” hypothesis is utterly unable to account
for the speed, geographical breadth, and social cost of the resurrection
proclamation.
6. Paul’s Testimony and Apostolic Witness
You object that Paul was “not one of the twelve,” and that
his testimony is suspect. This, again, misses the point. Paul’s independence
from the original circle is what gives his testimony added weight: a
persecutor, turned convert, with direct contact with Peter and James within a
few years of the events (cf. Galatians 1-2). His letters contain creedal
formulas recognized as earliest of all, far predating the Gospels. The
claim that “none of the apostles left written testimony” is simply false: Peter
and John’s authorship of epistles is far better attested than most classical
authorship traditions. Moreover, the primitive Christian kerygma is
demonstrably early, pre-literary, and built around resurrection conviction—not
legendary aggrandizement. To dismiss all apostolic tradition as “fraudulent” or
“forgery” is convenient for your skepticism, but requires you to level the same
charge at every document of antiquity whose direct provenance is unclear.
7. The “Believers Only” Gambit and the Smokescreen of
Superstition
You dismiss the evidential force of resurrection belief on
the grounds that “ancient people were superstitious, so their beliefs don’t
matter.” This is cultural chauvinism disguised as argument. The early
Christians were not credulous; Second Temple Judaism had no category for
an individual rising from the dead before the general resurrection. The
resurrection claim was as scandalous, counterintuitive, and disruptive then as
now. That they believed—and died for—the claim is not an argument for the truth
of any miracle claim, but evidence of the distinctive and
catalytic impact of a specific event they regarded as fact.
8. Epistemic Circularity? A Failure to Grasp Historical
Method
You charge “circularity” because Christians use the biblical
texts as evidence. This is false. The “minimal facts” approach makes no
assumption of inspiration or inerrancy; it treats the New Testament as what it manifestly
is: a diverse collection of ancient documents, evaluated by the same
critical criteria as Josephus or Tacitus. Only a mind determined to disbelieve
could find “circularity” in treating ancient texts as evidence for the events
they purport to describe.
9. Your Standard: Radical Skepticism for the New
Testament, Gullibility for Everything Else
You repeatedly demand standards for Christian claims you
would never apply to your own beliefs about ancient or even modern history. You
demand “external corroboration,” “firsthand testimony,” “unanimous scholarly
agreement,” and a total absence of textual transmission or interpretive
dispute. Yet you have no parallel skepticism about your knowledge of Caesar,
Alexander, Socrates, or your own family genealogy. Your methodology, in short,
is not a recipe for rationality, but for nihilism.
10. Miracles and the Philosophical Bankruptcy of
Methodological Naturalism
You close by insisting “atheists don’t believe in miracles,”
as if this were an argument. But that is precisely the point at issue: if God
exists, miracles are possible, and if a miracle is the best explanation of the
historical evidence, a worldview that rejects it out of hand is simply dogmatic
naturalism masquerading as rationality. The question is not what your
metaphysical prejudices allow, but what the evidence, honestly weighed,
actually points to.
Conclusion
The minimal facts argument is not “minimal results for
minimal minds,” but a deliberate effort to bracket confession and test the core
of Christian claims by the strictest standards available—your own standards,
in fact. If you want to retreat into solipsism, denying that any
historical event can be known, so be it; but if you grant that ancient history
is accessible to rational inquiry, you are forced to reckon with the
resurrection claim as one of the best-attested, most transformative, and
rationally explicable events in the historical record.
Your entire response, stripped of bluster, is an exercise in
strategic skepticism, not critical thought. Until you can apply your “method”
consistently, or offer an alternative that actually explains the data without
ad hoc recourse to skepticism, the intellectual foundations of Christianity—and
the unique explanatory power of the resurrection—stand unshaken.
