An Ongoing Dialogue Between Matthew J. Green and JP Holding  

Subject: Beyond Born Again: Has Robert Price Been Answered?

My critique of Beyond Born Again was written some six to eight years ago, and I expect if I did it today it'd be done a lot differently given the amount of knowledge I've gathered in the interim. That's one caveat I need to set forth before I reply to Matthew's critique of my critique, and as I noted to him on TheologyWeb, I would not be surprised to find that his comments led to a sharpening and updating of my own response. And more than that, I am glad of it coming from a truly qualified opponent who takes these matters seriously.

As of this point, Matthew's material will be in bold and my replies in normal type.

At the same time, let me thank Matthew for being patient with me on this response. Various delays (including a health issue) contributed to the lateness of my response here, but he has been gracious in waiting for it.

Actually, I am in the same critical-school that Price now belongs. I consider myself a die-hard, uncompromising advocate of the critical-historical method as applied to biblical scholarship. I believe that there is quite a bit that can be offered in response to the arguments surrounding the reliability of oral traditions and eyewitness testimony. To anyone who agrees that there is very little that can be offered, I ask that such a person be more open-minded and be willing to look beyond the self-appointed guardians of biblical scholarship and give the critical-school a more serious, second look. I love biblical criticism and as an aspiring critical scholar, I have not only devoted my whole life to the study of biblical criticism and ancient history but also to defend it and articulate it so as to educate people about it.

I'll look forward to seeing this, because quite honestly, what little I have seen, even in the interim, from members of this critical school (such as Crossan and Henaut) has continued to show a remarkable lack of understanding of and appreciation for the elements of oral tradition.

Before I go on with Price, J.P. made a couple of comments I found interesting and worthy of comment:

Just a couple of comments; then let us get right to the matter at hand: First, the nasty attitude found in Price's works often is manifestly absent in BBA. Whether this indicates a change in attitude (to the present), or a talented editor, or something else, I cannot say, but I CAN say that one certainly does not sell books by being nasty! :-)

Several things can be said in response! First of all, as a big fan of Dr. Price, I fail to see what qualifies as "nasty". Perhaps J.P can cite specific examples to illustrate this.

I suppose the example that best illustrates Price at his Hyde worst can be found here and here, the most famous line being in the latter where Price says, "With arguments like this, one is forced to conclude that McDowell is either just plain stupid or a damn liar." I should also note that I made this point in the shadow of what I considered, at the time of the writing of the original article, hypocritical complaints from the Infidels crowd about what they thought was nasty commentary on MY part, even as they continued to post material by Price that was of the same tenor; there's a certain group hypocrisy here that preceded it. Of course I'm not thinking Matthew would be aware of this (I think he was a lot younger at the time!).

Secondly, suppose Dr. Price really is nasty. The fact of the matter is that this book was published when Price was a graduate student at Drew University and still very much within the Liberal theology camp. Price has since renounced his faith and has migrated to the Freethought camp. If J.P. is right and Price is nasty, then it can best said that any such "nasty" behavior occurred after his apostasy.

I have no doubts about that myself!

it may,( and I am quite doubtful that this is the case), no change in attitude or a talented editor is needed. This book was the first he ever published and it is long before the publication of books like Deconstructing Jesus or his essays in rebuttal to Josh McDowell. Secondly, as for not selling books by being nasty, I have to ask J.P. this: are you serious?!

When it comes to a first time author with a narrow interest who is addressing traditional religious subjects, actually, YES! :-) I would have to vote for "change in attitude" as the reason for Price moving from the relatively mellow tone of BBA to the "damn liar" sort of riposte he used on McDowell. He's back to more mellow these days, though still capable of a good line now and then (and also often with the tone of the flabbergasted, as when he addressed me last), and that's where I think we see him in the book Matthew refers to (Deconstructing Jesus).

I'll grant that, but I don't see Coulter's purpose as being quite in line with what Price was trying to do as a first time author trying to convince people to change their faith!

In all fairness to Dr. Price, I would have to say that Price is most likely providing a critique of authors he once found personally persuasive. Price initially found authors like McDowell, Montgomery, McNeile, and others persuasive and intends here to explain why he no longer does! William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, Craig Blomberg, Greg Boyd, and others never persuaded Price in the first place and, therefore, he may see no need to explain why he doesn't find their arguments persuasive anymore if they didn't convince him in the first place!

I'll buy that as a reason for what Price did with his book, but not one that I think excuses Price neglecting later and more informed writers. Price is a Biblical scholar, and he of all people must know that these authors he did address were not the cream of the crop even in that day. Take this as my inkling as a researcher, to be responsible with one's sourcework: I believe a writer of this sort owes it to readers to be as up to date as he can.

If I was a Liberal theology student writing this book, these would be the authors I would write in rebuttal to because it was some of these authors whom I found persuasive in the first place! Ultimately Price will have to defend himself on this subject but this is what I take Price to mean here. Also, be as it may, Price may not have regarded Evangelical arguments as having improved much over the years. If he no longer finds his generation of authors persuasive, what makes one certain that he would find modern apologists persuasive?

Perhaps Price did not regard such arguments as having improved, true. But Matthew I do not think would agree that they have not improved! :-) I myself would reject such a point whether it came from a Price or from a McDowell -- it is a fallacy of association to say that just because generation X's arguments were not persuasive, then neother will be generation Y's.

Dr. Price continues in his chapter:

There is a serious blind spot in this approach. Almost completely deductive, it pays insufficient attention either to specific date in the documents under consideration, or to other documentary data which might cast doubt on the generalized criteria. Will these criteria work on other materials analogous to the gospels?

One of the major criticisms against the form critics' idea of the oral tradition is that the period of oral tradition (as defined by the critics) is not long enough to have allowed the alterations in the tradition that the radical critics have alleged

Similarly, John Warwick Montgomery confidently asserts: "With the small time interval between Jesus' life and the Gospels records, the Church did not create a 'Christ of faith'..". This "small time interval" would be about thirty or forty years! Some conservatives protest that this is not really a long period at all. McNeile in his New Testament introduction, a favorite of Montgomery's, states that "It is not unusual for men even of slight intellectual ability to recall and relate clearly important events occuring thirty-five years previously." But surely this is not the real point. Form critics suggest not so much that eyewitnesses forgot the details of waht they saw. Their idea is that other people spun out legendary material during the same period, or that as Strauss suggested, people who witnessed only a little of Jesus' activity formed legendary "rememberances" to fill in the gaps of their knowledge.

A few comments are in order here. First of all, McDowell suggests that the tradition suffered from "alterations". Price doesn't put the word "forgetfulness" in the mouths of McDowell and Montgomery; it actually comes from McNeile.

But doesn't the word "forgot" come from Price too as a description of what Montgomery (using McNeile) says?

Price may simply believe that since these arguments from these three authors are in the same general locus in terms of content that "forgetfulness" may have been what McDowell had in mind when discusses "alterations." To be exact, Dr. Price doesn't specify in his quote (or any quote from McDowell) exactly what McDowell meant by "alterations". At the very worst, Price may simply be guilty of not accurately representing McDowell and Montgomery (no real big crime- Price may wish to carefully qualify his and Montgomer's positions in a future edition of this book or his future book Beyond Born Again: Putting Away Childish Things).

That's fine. I'm not particular about this myself, and I certainly agree that Price needed to qualify what he said here as I didn't find it too clear.

It is McNiele who suggests memory problems; Price may simply have thought this is to be what McDowell and Montgomery had in mind. Next, the argument of A.N. Sherwin-White is very questionable at best and very faulty at worse! There are serious shortcomings I see in his argument. The irony of it is that it has hardly been addressed by skeptics. Indeed, the only serious critique of it has been in Richard Carrier's essay "The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb" in the book The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave.

Well, and of course, that's something else I have addressed in another essay against Carrier, so we'll probably take that up someday too!

Here Price is addressing the theoretical possibility that the gospels may contain legends. Sherwin-White's arguments about the tempo of legendary accretion, is an argument of historical probability. In addition, even this assumes that Sherwin-White's argument is valid (I doubt it) and that Evangelical apologist scholars have responsibly applied it to the New Testament gospels. When Price says that "Whether this or that item in the gospels is authentic must be settled case by case, and on the basis of appropriate historiographical criteria" it is precisely Sherwin-White's argument that is a criterion in the historiography of New Testament scholarship. I fear, then, that J.P.'s criticism here is misplaced.

In the end I don't think the problem is so much that my criticism is misplaced as that Price's argument isn't even here yet formed. As far as I can see Price did little more than express doubts without arguing for their validity -- as I think is as much acknowledged by Matthew himself when he says that the argument is not relevant to Price's case. That may be as it may be, but then it is fair game to do as I did and point out that Price did NOT do more than offer the theoretical, and in response provide my own answer that brings up the points I find that he does not address. To put it succicnctly, I believe Price was trying to have his cake and eat it too: To shed doubt on Sherwin-White's position without actually arguing for any reason for that doubt to exist. To me this is like the critic who, while arguing about whether or not Jesus said X, tosses in throwaway lines such as, "and the Gospels were anonymous, too" without defending that position, much less offering any argument about how to determine authorship of a document. It's what I call in some places "hurling the elephant". And I do not find such methods satisfactory coming from someone in Price's position seeking to undermine a larger position, any more than I think Price would be impressed if I simply cited the Nicean Creed as a proof of the Trinity!

Third, whether or not Sherwin-White is an Evangelical scholar should not really matter; I still consider his argument to be horribly flawed.

To Matthew, I am sure it does not matter what Sherwin-White is or is not; and he can be commended for that. Regrettably to too many Skeptics (he knows who I mean), pointing out that someone is an "Evangelical" or "fundamentalist" or whatever is a staple -- and I have to say that I think Price himself is often guilty of this (eg, such references as "It is only too apparent to anyone who has ever tried having a discussion with an evangelical apologist that these people are able to remain oblivious to their arguments' utter lack of cogency only because their faith has a different origin altogether."), so that it is not entirely wrong to make this point in context. He is not free of stereotyping, not even in his latest works. (As an aside, this line was one written for me by Glenn Miller when he reviewed the chapter.)

Forth, I am not sure whether most classical scholars agree with Sherwin-White on the subject of the legendary accretion tempo; I believe it is an argument elsewhere in his book, not necessarily the one in consideration here.

As far as I have found, no classical scholar does disagree with SW's position; but that may be something to be determined.

At this point I want to turn my attention to particular statement made by J.P. that was quoted above. The part I wish to requote is the following: "A larger point of contention, though, is that the 'small time interval' is actually less than 20 years - most of Paul's letters were written in the 50s AD, and his source material goes back even further than that."

I have to ask J.P. what he has in mind here. I think he misunderstands the argument. He is arguing that the "small time interval" is less than 20 years, between the events alleged to have occurred and the Pauline corpus. However, isn't Price arguing that the time span is between the events alleged and the composition of the written gospels?

Probably, but my return point is that the Gospel traditions existed long before Price thinks they did -- that they existed in Paul's time and before. In other words, I'm saying that even if we date the Gospels paiunfully late (which I'd also disagree with; that's something in particular I wrote more about after the original article, concerning the dates of the Gospels, which I place in the 50s and 60s), Price is neglecting consideration of earlier source material whose foundation rested on the Gospel traditions (unless one wants to argue after the manner of Earl Doherty that Paul never knew any historical Jesus or Gospel traditions [!], a position I hadn't yet encountered at the original writing).

I suspect if I rewrote this today I'd account for that type of argument and link folks over to my material on Doherty.

Aren't the authors whom Price is quoting referring to the time span between the events and the gospel compositions?

Yes, but I think it is a mistake, as noted, to consider that in a vacuum.

When Price goes to make a comparison, with, say, Jesus and Sabbatai Sevi, he is not comparing the kerygmatic material of Paul's letters with that of, say, any "kerygmatic" material of Sevi's apostle Nathan that I know of. Rather, the time gap is between biographical materials written about Jesus, as compared with, say Sevi. Let me quote Price again.

That's all fine, but I'll simply say once more than I think Price was neglectful in NOT factoring Pauline material into the equation.

Dr. Price continues in his chapter:

But weren't the gospel events too well known for any "creative community" to plausibly get away with alteration? F.F. Bruce, alluding to remarks by C.H. Dodd, draws the analogy of how easily World War II was remembered twenty to thirty years afterward. If someone suggested some seriously distorted version of the events of those days, no one would be fooled. Buell and Hyder invoke the example of Richard Nixon's resignation

:

Suppose that, thirty years after Nixon's presidency ended, a nonfiction bestseller portrayed a thoroughly consistent picture of Nixon having left office before his second term expired for reasons of personal health while at the height of popularity...Although most of us did not know Nixon personally, we would certainly know enough to contribute to the rebuttal.

Apart from the will-to-believe already present among their Evangelical readers, how can apologists hope to get away with analogies like this? In both cases we are dealing with events of immediate national and world impact that were continually impressed on the senses of whole populations through massive disturbances in lifestyle and by the mass media. Thus World War II and Watergate were known and remembered in detail by most of the world. The public ministry of Jesus is hardly a comparable case! Had Jesus, like Billy Graham, had the benefit of William Randolph Heart's journalistic machine, perhaps we would have a parallel here. However, as it is, we are dealing with an interant preacher in first-century Palestine. To quote a line from "Jesus Christ Superstar": "If you'd come today, you'd have to reached a whole nation/Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication."

I intend to agree with Price here but J.P. definitely has a response that is worth looking into:

Is that ALL that we are really dealing with? True, Jesus was a "Marginal Jew" for the greater part of His ministry, but remember that for the disciples and many of those around Jerusalem and Judea (read: national impact), events surrounding Him DID have immediate and incredible impact - so much so that many priests and thousands living in that region became Christians within only a few months! Continual impression on the senses? The words and deeds of Jesus were quite continually impressed upon the disciples! Massive disturbances? An earthquake, a darkness at mid-day, the temple curtain torn in two, an execution at Passover (with the attendant crowds), and people falling out of a house speaking in tongues at Pentecost - sounds like some pretty disturbing events to me! These were EXACTLY the sort of events that would be impressed upon people, talked about, and checked out - especially once certain folks started saying that that fellow who was executed had been raised from the dead! No, there was no Hearst machine to publicize things; but there WERE enthusiastic missionaries making exciting claims, and preaching to Diaspora Jews throughout the Roman Empire, many of whom took regular trips to Jerusalem; there was also a collectivist society highly interested in and very willing to control deviant groups. The fact that Suetonius indicates the presence of Christians in Rome less than 20 years after the Crucifixion is testimony to the zeal with which the Gospel was spread. (It is also worth pointing out that a "Hearst machine," or a 60 Minutes investigative team, or whatever you prefer, was not necessary for Jerusalem. It was a relatively small city; every leader and every major figure certainly knew about Jesus; and then there is the evidence of the mutual fear between the crowds and the leaders, the constant interaction among the crowds as to his identity, and so on. In short, there was more than adequate publicity for this to work; and, with the previous messianic claimants and failures, ANYONE could have been quickly lime-lighted - especially one of those troublesome Galileans!)

Sure -- but blame Glenn Miller, he wrote a bunch of that too. :-)

First of all Jesus may have well been a 'marginal Jew' for the greater part of his ministry, but as for the immediate and incredible impact so much that priests and others living in the region converted- what sources do we have here? Is J.P. relying solely on the gospels?

The Gospels and Acts, yes, as well as (now) the broader growth of Christianity that I would eventually argue about more closely with Impossible Faith.

What if the events are precisely the kind of legends that Liberal NT scholars (as Price once was at the time of his writings) have in mind? I fear that J.P. may be appealing here to the gospels uncritically without attempting to establish their reliability as far as the events these gospels allege, happened.

"What if" simply isn't sufficient as an argument -- it could be applied to any record as a critic pleases; just slap on the "legend" label based on nought, and be done with it? Is it "uncritical" to appeal to a primary record? I don't think it is -- I think it is "uncritical" rather to simply apply a label of "legend" without cause. These days I'd also bring in my arguments about the authorship and date of the Gospels, but more than that wasn't possible here since Price had no argument in favor of his view of the legend label either -- the best he did was appeal to the legends of Sevi as a parallel; but that's the worst sort of argument, for "true of X" never makes for "true of Y".

Matthew indeed went much farther than Price did when he argues:

It seems to me that J.P.'s argument here is quite circular- let me illustrate why I think so. Many of the events that J.P. refers to in the paragraph quoted above- the many priest and citizen converts, the earthquake, midday darkness, the temple curtain torn in half, an execution at Passover, the Pentecostal event, the dead being raised after an earthquake opens graves,..etc,- all of these events are recorded in the gospels. It would be tremendously helpful if there existed some outside, secular and Jewish attestation of all these events, such as letters from people like Pilate, Caiaphas, Herod Agrippa, the priests and Teachers of the Law, inscriptions describing these events, letters from people recording these events- strong, multiple, indepedent, secular and Jewish, attesting sources. This could go someway as to establishing the reliability of the oral tradition underlying the gospels and would tend to go someway towards establishing the reliability of the written canonical gospels in our New Testament. Thus, a solid argument can be made in the direction that 1.) Secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek attesting sources->(establishing the reliability of)-> 2.) The oral traditions of gospel stories-> (establishing the reliability of)-> 3.) The written canonical gospels as we have them.

I won't deny that these are things that could be "tremendously helpful". On the other hand, the issue for me is not whether they would be helpful, but whether they are even required. I don't see that they are at all. Of course we don't have letters from Pilate, Caiaphas, et al available to us on any subject whatsoever -- it would be "helpful" to have a letter from Pilate confirming that yes, he really did abscond with Temple funds to build an aqueduct, as Josephus said; but we don't have that. It would be nice if we had it in Vespasian's own words that he healed a man (as Tacitus claims), but we don't. But this is like saying it would be nice to have 150% of what we need when we have 100% (barring any reason why something is NOT 100%).

If each of these three steps would've/would be taken, this would be a potentially powerful argument in favor of the gospels' reliability in terms of the extraordinary events recorded therein and it would be increasingly difficult to maintain one's skepticism in the light of such strong evidence from antiquity. Where I see the circularity in J.P's argument is that he seems to take #3 and inserts it into the slot of #1. So, what we seem to get instead is 1.) Canonical gospels as we have them->(establishing the reliability of)-> 2.) The oral traditions of gospel stories-> (establishing the reliability of)-> 3.) The canonical gospels as we have them. Is not J.P. unfortunately begging questions here by assuming that these events have occurred and that the gospel stories are reliable to begin with?

In the end, I cannot agree that any question is being begged; but rather, that normal benefit of the doubt and "innocent until proven guilty" is the rule being applied. I have yet to see any serious historian claim that it "begs the question" to assume a source is reliable until proven unreliable. The exception has been those of the so-called critical school who go to absurd lengths to do such things as interpret the entire OT as a political falsehood; moderate voices such as Dever's have rightly scorned such extremes.

My position would be that one needs to explain why the Gospels are NOT reliable records -- and at the same time, answer those arguments that say that they are (something I would do in short order after the original of my critique of BBA was posted). On this, the model for apologists even today remains the legal apologetics of Simon Greenleaf (found in the Classics library) who showed that the burden is on the doubter to make a case against reliability.

What about the reference to Suetonius? Well, I would like to see a source of some sort! I doubt that it was the written gospels that appeared 20 years after the crucifixion. Merely having the presence of Christians around the empire says nothing about whether written gospels existed at the time or whether or not the oral traditions underlying these gospel stories are 100% accurate in terms of their historicity or textual transmission down subsequent generations.

As noted, I'd have to disagree. The only way around this is to posit a Doherty-like scheme in which "Christians" of Suey's record believed something wildly different than those who accepted the Gospels -- and that is a case of a theory driving the facts, not vice versa. In this regard I find that arguments are no better than that of someone like (yuk) Acharya S! And again, these days I'd also factor in the TIF components (as I did somewhat, in a phrase that was a later addition).

As for evidence of the mutual fear between the crowds, constant interaction among the crowds, etc...What are the sources for these? If it is the canonical gospels, we are back to square one with circularity!

Sources for these? What Matthew is asking for sources for are the normal behaviors of a collectivist, agonistic society! It'd be my contention that in that light, it is the burden to show why Jesus and the events around him would be an exception to the normal rule.

J.P. Holding continues by quoting Price:

Besides, many of the important words and deeds of Jesus in the gospels are depicted as occurring in the presence of rather small or private groups, e.g., the disciples. (Also see the numerous admonitions to secrecy in Mark 5:43; 8:26, 30;9-9; etc)

I wish Price had offered some cites for the first claim, so we could analyze them directly. As it is, we have no way of knowing which words and deeds he refers to, so we can then ask the question as to whether COMPARABLE words/deeds were spoken/performed in public! (Even so, the size of the group is not a significant issue; the constituency of the group is far more important. If the group is large and/OR confrontational enough, you can still have a considerable feedback/failsafe mechanism!)

Glenn Miller added that phrase, and I expect what he had in mind is more along the lines of honor challenges and/or normal oral teaching settings for the ancient world (in which, as with Socrates and Jesus in the temple, it would be normal for there to be times when students interacted).

J.P. continues:

As for secrecy - sure, see the many admonitions to secrecy; see also the many times that those admonitions were ignored! Mark 7:36, regarding healing of a deaf-mute, says of the admonitions of silence: "The more (Jesus) did so, the more they kept talking about it," and elsewhere are many instances where the subject of a healing went and blabbed in spite of instructions to the contrary. (We also have healings performed in very public places before crowds - cf. the woman with an issue of blood, the blind men of Jericho - and a man born blind whose healing was investigated by the authorities!)

Here I would have added observations made here -- Matthew will find a very sound social reason for the admonitions to secrecy, which indeed make them all the more likely to be authentic and also make it an arbitrary decontextualization to do as Price does and suggest that this had anything to do with a legend-forming process.

J.P. continues:

Now most of the quotes directly cited by Price above are admonitions not to tell anyone that Jesus was the Christ - but even this "Messianic secret" did not stay secret for very long! Once Jesus rode into town on a donkey, that pretty well announced His intentions for all to see! (And even beyond that, we run into questions of WHY the disciples would invent such a claim for Jesus - which is not even dealt with by Price here. Given the impact on the Jewish state and their lives and careers, why in the world would these folks MAKE UP miracles, stories, messianic claims, etc.? This borders on the inconceivable!)

As noted, I put this burden on the critic, not on the document, so my answer would be "no" -- because I don't believe that this is "appropriate, honest, and responsible historiographical criteria" Price has pursued, but rather arbitrary skepticism run amuck. It is very easy to sit and shout at a document that what happened in it may not have happened. It is also easy to throw around words like "bias" and "religious people" and so on without offering any real reason to show that there is an actual problem. I would say that to discuss this, Matthew and I may have to get a little closer to the core assumptions of how "history is done".

As for J.P.'s second parenthetical argument (this is what got me shaking my head in disbelief)- my word, I hardly know where to start with this, but I will try. Let me state that the first thing that comes to my mind is that this is an argument from incredulity and not a good one at that. As with the argument from silence, there are good arguments from incredulity and bad ones and I fear that this comes from the latter category.

Well, what got his head shaking was another Millerism. :-) And I think Miller wasn't so much arguing from incredulity as implicitly asking Price to justify his position and explain motivations.

As for making up miracles, stories, messianic claims, I fear that J.P. may once again be circularly trying to vindicate the gospels as I argued above (not necessarily intentional though- one can engage in a fallacy with good intentions and innocent motives.

Note again that I reply simply by saying I think it's the burden of the critic, not the document, to prove themselves.

It's usually when people deliberately cut corners to win an argument that I withdraw any benefit of the doubt and assume that spin-doctoring is at work!) Moreover I feel inclined to ask- what does "Make up" here mean? Is it because the disciples of Jesus were Jewish, lived in a Jewish society, and had jobs that many of their fellow Jews had back then that makes it all the more incredulous? I am not sure I understand why.

"Make up" (which came also from Miller) I take to mean simply invented out of whole cloth. Not much more can be said, since Price himself wasn't in BBA explaining in detail just how much HE thought was created and how much was real. And again, I think all Miller was doing was asking Price to give his position a better fleshing out. So the "why" isn't an operative question here, and thus I will skip over the further queries directed to it and move on to:

Dr. Price continues in his chapter:

Apologists seem to think they can secure their arguments with mere citation (I am not exaggerating) of Acts 26:26: "This thing was not done in a corner." Does no one notice that Paul is here referring not to Jesus' career or resurrection, but to his own conversion and the attendant uproar which brought him before Agrippa? Does context matter so little?

I disagree. These "things" the King was familiar with were the life story and conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus and the subsequent preaching in Damascus, Jerusalem, and in all Judea- of the gospel. It is this that was not "done in a corner." King Agrippa knew of these things until Paul says that God is with him and he wants to testify and it's when Paul takes, what in Agrippa's opinion, a plunge off the deep end is when Paul says "I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen-that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim the light to his own people and to the Gentiles". This is something Agrippa could not brook. Sure, Agrippa knew the prophets and Paul is persuaded that he even believed them. Agrippa may have believed the prophets but probably thought Paul was pedaling too radical a spin on them- that the Christ would suffer and be the first to rise from the dead and preach a gospel to everyone. Likewise, I do not see how Festus is presumed to be already familiar with the gospel proclamation and Jesus' public ministry and execution. Paul's conversion, I believe, may have been well-known as was he former life as an active villain of the Church, and Paul's preaching was not done in a corner and reflects his conversion. Thus I think Price's reading is rock-solid.

With due respect, I do not see that Matthew has at all countered my reading, but merely re-asserted Price's. The context of the remark, as I pointed out, simply does not cohere with a reference to Paul's conversion. I'll take it further now: Why would Paul refer to his own conversion story as something "true and reasonable"? What use is an appeal to the prophets to confirm Paul's conversion story? What about verse 23 as the closest antecedent to "things" -- and that Festus' outburst came to this claim, and not any personal event recounted by Paul? Why would Festus charge Paul with being insane for reporting a vision from a deity (which as a pagan, he could accept) as opposed to a new, suffering, resurrected deity (three points which, as I show in TIF, any pagan would find outrageous)?

Price continues:

I'd like to ask why, and hopefully that will come later on.

However, it is the crux of J.P.'s analysis here that I think does the most damage here. J.P. says that apologists do not simply say any legends should have "waited" a certain amount of time before forming? What does it mean for a legend to have "waited" a certain amount of time before forming? I was not aware that legends are conscious creatures here!

That's rather too literalist a reading; the obvious implication is that the legend-forming process would somehow be delayed. And at any rate, that's Price's language -- not mine, originally. :-)

(Sorry! I thought a bit of levity might lessen any tension here!) J.P. says "what is being said is that it takes time for legends to be able to 'stick' and earn the status of gospel truth, thus replacing or supplementing what was really true!" But who is saying this? Is McDowell saying this? Is Montgomery saying this? Is Sherwin-White saying this? Price is only responding to arguments he found persuasive and one can hardly fault him for not addressing an argument none of these authors seem to make! I think this argument is one of J.P.'s creations! If one of these authors whom Price quotes had argued this, Price would have addressed it.

As far as I recalled, all these authors (and others) were making this general argument; it's been some time since I read them, but I never got out of them the sort of position Price claims to have found in them, but rather the one I describe. As it is, if that's not what they say, Price's lack of a quote of their "actual" position seems just as damning, does it not? :-)

Next, what "hard facts" would exist to kill a legend? How do we determine what these "hard facts" are? Who produces these "hard facts"? In the case of Christianity, what "hard facts" would exist to kill it if it was based on legends or thoroughly legend-infested? As for dying in a short time- it depends on what the legends were and it also assumes cognitive dissonance is not factoring in! As for legends needing to be assembled so late as to make testing them impossible by normal means- precisely what "normal means" are in mind here? Furthermore, why assume that everything in the Christian faith is all legendary? Why assume that they were "invented"? As for J.P.'s reference to them being "so early that they would be still in the squashable stage at their most critical period" how is this so? What would exist to "squash" them? How would they be so squashed? As for "critical"- critical by what means? By what standards? Are we to infer that critical historians like Thucydides and Tacitus were on scene to carry out critical investigations and would've shared their findings with Jews, Christians, and the "pagans"( i.e. Romans, Greeks, and other folks)? J.P. argues that they were not legends, not invented, rather- they actually happened. I personally regard that as quite hyperbolic. Perhaps J.P. can tone it down a bit and say- he believes that there is good reason to infer that they happened. I personally think that this is an unwarranted stretch. Nevertheless, it gets worse- stay tuned because we will see how!

For all of this, my later self appeals to The Impossible Faith as the resource that answers most of the questions. Beyond that I also would say that 1) it is the critic's burden (again) to show why we ought to believe things like "cognitive dissonance" set in, not merely throw it out on the mat as something that "coulda been"; 2) I do think that the likes of Tacitus were more than capable of the level of critical investigation needed, or that even the average person had enough faculty to assess the central claim ("what most likely happpened to the body of Jesus?") and that the challenges of honor implicit in the scenario make for all the motive necessary for such scrutinty to occur even at the highest levels.

J.P. continues:

If I may be so bold, let me suggest that we may observe three basic stages in the progress of the movements based on legends that Price will cite as examples.

Okay, let's analyze this in greater detail. First of all, in terms of initial acceptance- why do people pick up on the new movement? What are some of the reasons for doing so?

For the case in question, I could decide only one good reason for people to accept Christianity -- irrefutable evidence that a resurrection had occurred.

As for critical analysis- who is carrying out this "critical analysis"? Hostile witnesses? New converts who think they smell a rat and are seriously rethinking their initial decision?

My TIF research leads me to say that it is hostile witnesses and persons intent on destroying a deviant movement who would play this role.

What exactly gets "rough" here? How do folks discover that the movement is based on false premises? Do critics/skeptics discover that it's not as cracked up as everyone says it is? Do believers eventually smell a rat and only after so many facts do not add up and so many anomalies pile up to the point where they're impossible to ignore that the believers finally are intellectually forced to be honest with themselves and consider whether or not they were sold a bad bill of goods? By what reasoning do they do so? What methods do they employ? Is it insiders or outsiders? What prompts the "crash and burn"?

It would probably not be hard to figure out some ways this would take place for a Christian movement rooted in falsehood -- the most obvious would be a claim by authorities that the body was still in the tomb (if indeed that was an option, which I do not think it was); or a check for persons allegedly healed by Jesus turns up nothing -- offhand those come to mind.

As for alteration for survival's sake- I agree that this often takes place among movements and the movement will survive only if the movement has enough resources to survive the hypothetical "Stage 2" and retool the movement.

Here is where I see J.P.'s case crumbling to bits and where I see Price ultimately vindicated! I disagree most strongly with J.P.'s argument that Christianity survived Stage 2! Who was carrying out the "critical investigation"?

My answer: Enemies of the faith -- pagans who found its premises abhorrent; Jews who resented its attempt to subvert traditions; leaders who resented the implied messianism and were concerned for the danger it posed.

What premises were false and found out to be so? I would argue that Christianity never had to face Stage 2! It never had the potential to crash and burn or such a similar phase and nothing needed to be altered for survival- what was there to "crash and burn"?

With due respect, it is my contention from the data of TIF that Christianity could not have BUT faced a very powerful Stage 2 confrontation -- to argue otherwise is to take it completely out of its historical and social context.

J.P. argues that its most basic claim could have been easily countermanded! How so? "All that had to be done was wheel the body of Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem, or take some other assertive action against the Apostles." This is a common argument and I deem it to be one of the silliest arguments in the Christian apologetics arsenal! What is wrong with it? There are several problems wrong with it. Let me devote two whole, separate paragraphs to it before I move on.

The first problem is that it presupposes that the Jewish leadership took an active role in trying to stamp the Christian faith out. I am not so certain that the Jewish leadership took the claims of the Christians that seriously.

Well, that is a) what the record shows, both from the NT and what is indicated in what we have from Josephus, Tacitus, and the rabbis; b) it fits models of how the leadership would deal with a social deviant like Jesus and his followers; c) it fits with how they also dealt with other so-called messianic claimaints. It will not do to simply naysay; I ask for an argument.

I find it interesting that when a fellow atheist and skeptic Jeff Lowder was composing an essay to rebut William Lane Craig's essay on the empty tomb, he noted in a footnote that he was chided by other New Testament scholars for taking "Bill Craig seriously" and notes an interesting possible parallel with the Jewish leadership at the time of Jesus.

That's a very interesting anecdote, but it's clear from the citation of Craig by the likes of Dale Allison and N. T. Wright that whoever Lowder was talking to (he does not name them that I recall), they were more likely to be persons with a "problem" with Craig himself (like, er, Price and Ludemann???) than any objective witness to the fact that Craig was not an authority to be taken seriously. Were Lowder's scholars in leadership positions?

Secondly, note the time between the alleged burial and the time that the disciples started preaching- 50 days later! I am not going to take the classical skeptic route and argue that the body would have decayed beyond recognition- but, rather, that the Jews might not have known exactly how Jesus was buried and therefore would not know if producing the body of Jesus was worth the effort. Was Jesus' body buried with or without spices? They might not have known! Was Jesus buried in a linen cloth? Perhaps, but who is to say?

There are frankly not places for such questions that I can see. Jewish burial methods were a known and established quality, and furthermore, per Byron McCane (an author whose work I have pointed Matthew to recently), the Sanhedrin is precisely who would be most in the know about how Jesus' burial was "done", because they were the ones responsible for ensuring that Jesus was buried dishonorably.

But suppose they could produce the body of Jesus- how could they prove it to the disciples that it was the body of Jesus? And would the disciples believe them? They might have anticipated these difficulties and therefore decided that producing the body of Jesus probably was not worth the trouble.

I don't have any issue with the idea of a core of unconvinced disciples. However, that does not address the matter of a) conversion of non-disciples -- again, my TIF paradigm comes into play here; b) the lack of any certified polemic or exchange indicating a full tomb (and what we do have, the stolen body rhetoric, pointing to a tomb both sides agreed was empty). As for "not worth the trouble" I simply don't see that line of reasoning as valid when we're dealing with an honor and shame setting! The challenge posed by the disciples and their claims would not simply be waved off by the authorities but confronted just as would be the claims of other so-called messianics of the time. Either the Jews or Rome or both would have something to say.

But that's not it! Next, I believe that even if the Jewish leadership was hell-bent on producing the body of Jesus- it would not have done any good! Why? Let me explain!

In his letter to the Galatians (I'm assuming Pauline authorship for the sake of discussion here!), Paul writes in 1:8 that even if an angel from heaven was to come and preach a different gospel- that angel was to be eternally condemned! My point? My point is that Paul is effectively nullifying his readers against disconfirmation (by default of an alternative gospel-implying that the one they believed was false!).

Here I must say that I think Matthew is reading into this scenario too much of modern churchgoers who sit by drooling upon every word of the preacher. The hellfire threat of today and of years past did not exist among the persons Paul preached to. I cannot see it working to say, as Matthew goes on to say, that "Paul was nullifying his readers against apparently supernatural disconfirmation of the gospel that he preached". The effectiveness of such a tactic simply was not there. Galatians uses nothing more than standard Greco-Roman rhetorical forms of the same sort Paul's opponents would be just as apt to use; and so if we wish to go in that direction, then Paul's opponents are just as able to "nullify Paul's readers against apparently supernatural confirmation of the gospel that he preached." I would also say that Paul is not actually anticipating a literal visit by an angel (!) preaching another Gospel.

....how much more would they be nullified towards more mundane attempts at disconfirmation? If the Jews had produced what they considered to be the body of Jesus, I am convinced that the Christians would have dismissed it as fraudulent; an attempt at deception!

No doubt that may have happened, and then -- the discourse would be echoed down the halls of history, in the works of the rabbis, the polemcists like Celsus and Porphyry, and in the replies of the Christians -- and it isn't there. So Matthew's scenario lacks evidence.

If one believes Matthew 27's account of the tomb guards being interrogated- what it means is that the Jewish leadership was dishonest enough to bribe the guards into saying they fell asleep. Christians might have reasoned that if the Jewish leadership would have stooped this low (to bribing guards!) then they might stoop even lower to producing a rotted corpse and saying it was Jesus! But suppose that it was really convincing and something that the Jewish leadership would not have been able to pull off? Would that convince the Christians? I do not think for a second it would have. If Paul believed that an angel might try to deceive believers with a false gospel, then why not believe that Satan had worked with Jews to produce a counterfeit body? The more it looked like it could not have been put together by mere humans would only prove to them that it was the work of the devil- a demonic/Satanic miracle (a counterfeit miracle? a "dark" miracle?)! I don't think that the early Christians would've put it past the Jews to work with the devil to accomplish something that deceptive- given that both the Jews and Satan might both be/have been considered hell-bent on destroying the Christian gospel!

I think I have made my response sufficient to this sort of point. While it is simple to contrive a scenario like this, there is no echo of it in any record. Indeed the more complex it becomes as above, the more the lack of it in any record becomes painfully apparent!

J.P. continues:

And what of Sabbatai Sevi's movement? As we have noted, it never quite made it to a relevant "crash and burn" stage, because of Sevi's apostasy.

I did say "relevant" crash and burn; by which I meant, one comparable to a Jesus scenario, in which Sevi's messianic powers were put to a test, say, on a battlefield. A quiet apostasy behind closed doors is not the same kind of crash and burn.

J.P. continues:

But we can guess that it would have met a hard end anyway: It was being predicted that Sevi would run roughshod over his military foes, "take the dominion from the Turkish king without war," and then cause all nations to submit to his rule! [GS.MM, 272] That's practically inviting a crash and burn! However, the movement did follow a rather unsurprising pattern of decline, with only a minor variation.

As noted, though, it was not the sort of Stage 2 experience that would have had to happen to make for an adequate parallel to the Christian movement. In this light I have no comment for a bit.

Continuing:

Scholem, recognizing such a pattern, writes (ibid., 687)

The shock of the messiah's apostasy should normally have been sufficient to shatter completely the structure of faith and hope that had been erected on the tidings announced by (Nathan), and the Sabbatean episode would have passed like a nightmare, and would have left no noticeable mark on the life and consciousness of the people. Other messianic movements had collapsed in the past without causing serious consequences.

Well, what do you know? That sounds like a Stage 2, "crash and burn" to me. "The messiah's apostasy should normally have been sufficient to shatter completely the structure of the faith and hope..." and he further notes "Other messianic movements had collapsed in the past without causing serious consequences." Really? You mean other 'messianic movements' went through a "crash and burn" phase without causing serious consequences?

J.P. states:

The difference, Scholem notes, is the particularly strong and well-defined emotional investment that many had in the movement, which kept it alive longer than might be expected - which again offers a parallel to today's "Counterfeit Revival," and NOT to historic Christianity. (This is not to deny that the Apostles, for example, had emotional investments of their own; however, without delving too deeply into a tangent here, let it only be said that the Sabbatean movement does NOT provide a suitable parallel - the emotions of the adherents were connected to the movement in an entirely different fashion, and for entirely different, historical reasons: persecution.) Nevertheless, as we shall see, Sabbateanism was never the same after a few years. We will look at how the Sabbatean movement altered itself to survive, following Sevi's apostasy, later on.

Scholem seems to verify my point regarding the Stage 2. It did meet a "crash and burn"! The apostasy was Stage 2! The "particularly strong and well-defined emotionally investment that many had in the movement, which kept it alive longer than might be expected" seems to confirm what I said earlier about having the resources to survive Stage 2. I'd like to discuss more about adherents connected to the movement because of persecution; perhaps I will get there later on in this post! J.P. says that he will look at how the movement altered itself to survive after Sevi's apostasy. Okay, it seems that Sevi's movement went through the exact three stages he outlined. Stage 1, the movement got off the ground, it went through stage 2 with Sevi's apostasy, and it altered itself to survive, which is what J.P. designated at Stage 3. I think J.P. proved the exact opposite that he was intending to!

In direct contrast to Christianity, it seems as though Sabbateanism went through all three stages, while Christianity didn't even make to Stage 2 but rather side-stepped it! Think about it: Sevi converted to Islam! Jesus did not convert to any religion later on. He did not join any religions like the Mithra cult nor did he join any revealed religion like Zoroastrianism. This would have served nicely as a Stage 2 type "crash and burn" by J.P.'s reckoning. I do not believe, for instance, that the crucifixion would have served as a "crash and burn" stage, precisely for the reason that Jesus was held to be innocent and his disciples believed he was!

I think it worth pointing out that the claim that Christianity "side stepped" Stage 2 makes perfect sense if IT IS TRUE! But that is more or less my point: It was ABLE to sidestep the Stage because no one could refute it. And that Jesus did not convert is also more or less my point: It's why the Sevi story isn't a good parallel to use for Christianity; it was not a "relevant" Stage 2 crash and burn but a non-relevant one.

I do disagree that the crucifixion would not be a crash and burn -- without the resurrection to resurrect it! That a small group of disciples held Jesus to be innocent would only result in what we find in Sevi's Stage 3 -- a dwindling group of followers and no new converts to speak of. So again I say, the Sevi model only validates Christian truth.

Above anything on this point, I would point out something about the critique of Price's legendary parallels here. Even granting J.P. has some good points, I would still argue, however that the three-stage argument is still actually an argument about historical probability not theoretical possibility. J.P. would have to argue that this three-stage process is a matter of historical necessity especially given that we both agree that the resurrection would best (and inescapably) qualify as a historical necessary explanation. Even if J.P. were to establish this- I submit that his argument would still fail.

I do maintain the "necessity" view as Matthew has rightly noted in other quarters.

Dr. Price continues:

Listen to his description:

The...realm of imaginative legend...soon dominated the mental climate in Palestine [during Sevi's residence there]. The sway of imagination was strongly in evidence in the letters sent to Egypt and elsewhere and which, by the autumn of 1665 [the same year] had assumed the character of regular messianic propaganda in which fiction far outweighed the facts: [e.g.] the prophet was 'encompassed with a Fiery Cloud' and "the voice of an angel was heard from the cloud."

Letters from December of the same year related that Sabbatai 'Command a Fire to be made in a publick place, in the presence of many beholders...and entered into the fire twice or thrice, without any hurt to his garments or to a hair on his head." Other letters tell of his raising the dead. He is said to have left his prison through locked and barred doors which opened by themselves after his chains miraculously broke. He kills a group of highwaymen merely with the word of his mouth. Interestingly, the miracle stories often conformed to the patterns of contemporary saints' legends. The spread of such tales recalls the statements by the synoptic evangelists that many of their miracle stories came from popular reportage (cf. Luke 1: 65-66; 2:18, 38, 47; 4: 14, 37; 5:15, 26; 6:17-18; 7:17, 22; 8: 34-39, 47; 9: 6-7, 9; 9:43; 12:1; 13:17; 18:43; 19:7, 37, 48).

A similar phenomenon occurred with Jehudah the Said (died 1217). In his own lifetime, legends made him a great purveyor of religious magic, though actually Jehudah was a staunch opponent of such things! More recently, African prophet and martyr Simon Kimbangu became another "living legend" despite his own wishes. One group his followers, the "Ngunzists." spread his fame as the "God of the blacks", even while Kimbaungu himself disavowed the role. Legends of Kimbangu's childhood, miracles and prophetic visions began within his own generation.

I appreciate these examples from Dr. Price and I tend to find them persuasive. Dr. Price continues:

Faith-healer William Marion Brahham was held in exaggerated esteem by legions of his followers, many of whom believed him to be Jesus Christ returned or even a new incarnation of God. He, however, did not teach such notions. In fact, once on a visit to such a group of devotees in Latin America he explicitly denied any such wild claims made for him, but his followers reasoned that he was just testing their faith! Many believed in Branham's virgin birth despite his published recollections of his alcoholic mother.

J.P. responds:

This hardly tells the entire story - there is much more that should be told, and it casts rather a different light on Branham [HH.CR, 134-7]. Branham made rather outrageous claims for himself, saying that "vibrations" in his right hand enabled him to detect and diagnose diseases; supposedly, his hand would turn red and swollen when disease was detected. He attracted crowds, all right, but by 1959 - some 13 years after he had allegedly received an angelic vision calling him to ministry - the crowds started dwindling (crash and burn, Stage 2) and he was forced to make changes and make even more outrageous claims (Stage 3): identifying himself as the prophesied angel to the church of Laodecia; endorsing oddball doctrines like saying that Cain was the product of sexual intercourse between Eve and the serpent, and predicting that by 1977, all denominations would be consumed by the World Council of Churches under the control of Catholicism, and the world would be destroyed

Okay, I'm perfectly willing to grant that Brahham made outrageous claims for himself but a good question is when he made these claims relative to having visited his Lain American devotees. He claimed vibrations in his right hand enabled him to detect diseases- okay, not exactly a claim to divinity as far as I know! He started proclaiming himself to be an angel but this was after he was forced to make changes; we are not told here when his followers began proclaiming him to be Jesus returned or divinity incarnated- was this before the "crash and burn" or after? When did he publish his recollections about his alcoholic mother? Was this before the "crash and burn" or after? As for his doctrines about Cain, his Catholic consummation prediction- when were all of these? So far it seems that Price's parallel seems appropriate- I don't find anything wrong with it.

I'm not particular about any of that or when it happened; my point was simply that Branham isn't a model that will work as a parallel to Jesus. Whenever they happened, the crash and burn did happen, and Branham is today a non-entity. Jesus is not.

J.P. continues:

Branham died in a car crash in 1965. Many of his friends who held to his "virgin-born" status also believed that he would rise from the dead. It did not happen, and today, he is but a footnote to history. Where are his "legions" of followers now? They are gone - as the car hit Branham's car head-on, so, eventually, did the truth hit Branham's followers, and he is now little more than a footnote, with a few of his teachings living on in the works of modern apostates like Kenneth Hagin. So it is: "Branhamism" died because of the cold facts. Christianity, Price must say, refused to die, and in fact grew, in spite of the facts - and we must therefore conclude that the case of Branham provides no significant parallel to historic Christianity.

Branham died in a car crash (Stage 2? Or the end of Stage 3?) Still, when did his followers believe his virgin-birth status and his resurrection? Where are his legions of followers? Good question! But even then I think J.P's case here is still shaky- what cold facts would've convinced Christians to abandon Jesus? Were they all critical-minded skeptics like David Hume who would've smelled a rat eventually if they didn't detect a bogus argument or two to begin with? Given that any critical mindset, tools, education references are totally absent (that I know of!) and furthered by the fact that I believe most Christians would've been nullified by people such as Paul to any potential disconfirmation. But in the case of Branhmaism- who produced the "cold hard" facts? Was it skeptics? Hostile witnesses? Was it insiders who smelled a rat and had a falling out because enough facts just didn't add up and the anomalies piled up much too high to be ignored, suppressed, and shoved under the rug, forcing painful intellectual honesty on the followers as to seriously rethink whether they have made a horrible mistake or not?

Once again, I'd today appeal to what I wrote in TIF as answers to "what cold facts", etc. and we have already addressed the matter of nullification.

Dr. Price continues:

A final exmaple is more recent still. Researcher Ed Sanders encountered a number of legends about Charlie Manson during the writing of his book The Family. One one particular bush trip in Death Valley, "several miracles were alleged to have been performed by Charles Manson." One story related that "Charlie levitated the bus over a creek crag."

J.P. responds:

Indeed, that is the point! None of these comparisons is suitable, for they fail to take into account the many differences from the Gospel accounts and in the history of Christianity. Price has badly misunderstood the point of the apologetic argument. Among the most notable factors of the true argument is the presence and role of eyewitnesses, friendly AND hostile...and that is the topic of our next section! But, let us repeat for emphasis: The issue is "dominance," not "origination" of legends - if we want to see Christianity "doing" legends, we look at the NT apocrypha; but the NT reports do NOT fit in this category at ALL!

Actually, the comparisons are quite suitable, and, in fact that the parallels were in a worse position than the New Testament was. J.P. once again refers to the presence and role of eyewitnesses, both friendly and hostile but I confess not to understand what he has in mind. Who were the eyewitnesses? Why don't we have secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek attestation sources from them? If one cites the gospel references to such, one is indeed arguing circularly as I am convinced I documented above. As for J.P.'s point of emphasis: again, which scholars are arguing for "dominance"? I don't think McDowell is. I doubt Montgomery is. McNeile? It doesn't seem so. This seems to me to be J.P's argument. One cannot expect Price to answer an argument that he has never read before and I doubt Price knew J.P. Holding in 1993! Also, most Evangelicals apply Sheriwn-White's arguments precisely to the "origin" of legends, not the "dominance"- at least not that I know of! Who besides J.P. Holding argues that the eyewitness testimony would be enough to keep the lid on the "dominance" of legends? I know of none! The next quote from Price is great that I wish to "block" quote him for a few paragraphs!

Well, that's fine. :-) I have no need for anything new in reply to the above, and only a few comments on what is quoted of Price. First, he obviously has doubts about Gospel authorship, and these days, again, I do have my own substantial material on that subject. Second, Price appeals to source criticism, and that too is something that since then I have written a great deal about. So there has certainly been much I would add to the fire I built under Price those years ago. We get back to where I said, and Matthew replies:

Didn't they? According to the NT, sniffing out false data and practices (Galatians, the Timothy letters, Simon Magus, the Epistles of John, etc.)or updating and correcting those in need of it (Apollos, the Thessalonians and the parousia, the disciples of John the Baptist who knew nothing of the Holy Spirit, etc.) was one of the MAIN objects of the apostles' preaching!

If I were Dr. Price, I would answer: Indeed, they didn't! As per J.P's argument here- sniffing out "false data" and "practices"- was that with the interest of pursuing factual historical criticism here or was it fighting against perversions of what they considered to be religious truth? Sniffing out "false data"- what data? It seems to me that it was heresy that would've been sniffed out, not because the heresy was ill-grounded and lacking in historical accuracy but because it ran contrary to the "established" truth- a gospel that Paul asserts that he got from no man, whom he didn't confer with flesh and blood to get, but got it from direct revelation.

And I would say: Such is merely a "pat answer" that assumes what needs to be proved! Price begins with the assumption that the doctors are spinning, and asserts his own dominance over the judgment seat without giving us any reason to suppose that he is qualified -- other than that he thinks apologists and Christians are spin doctors! (The appeal to Paul is misplaced, as I noted elsewhere to Price when he used the same argument: Paul refers there not to any sort of revelation containing historical data, but to his soteriological message for the Gentiles -- something that can hardly be proved by historical fact!)

All the other references, especially in the Epistles of John, all refer to religious truth- not necessarily historical fact. Any sniffing out of false doctrines or practices would've been because they were considered heresy contradicting the revealed "truth" that apostles such as Paul believed that they got directly from God- not human sources, no historical criticism in search of facts and methodological accuracy, no verifiable eyewitness testimony, none of it- right from the lips of the Almighty Himself! As for updating and correcting- the best reference I know of is in the pastoral letters to Timothy- again, a well-cited reference is the verse of God-breathed Scriptures. Does this sound like historical criticism, fact-checking, skeptical inquiry, and rigorous methodology that Thucydides would've been impressed with? Not one bit!

Once again, this merely starts with the assumption that such things can't be met with fact-checking and historical criticism ir be compatible with it, rather than proving it. Ideologically, no doubt, Price finds this kind of appeal attractive; but factually and evidentially, it is without ground and entirely circular.

Again the story of Sabbatai Sevi offers an illuminating parallel to the situation envisioned here. In this case we know that the chief apostle of the movement, Nathan of Gaza (a contemporary of Sevi)did repeatedly warn the faithful that the messiah would have to merit their belief without doing miracles. But as we have seen, miracle stories gushed forth without abatement! So in a very analogous case, the efforts of the chief apostle could do nothing to curb the legend-mongering enthusiasm of the faithful.

J.P. responds:

Again, since Sabbateanism did not get time to be critically analyzed before folding, the comparison is really not relevant; but there is an additional point here that dulls the comparison. Nathan was not just the "chief apostle"; he was really the ONLY one! Scholem observes [GS.MM, 207]:

In vain have historians tried to discover Sabbatai's early followers. They never existed. Even his old friends and disciples were converted to faith in his messiahship only by Nathan's gospel.

Thus, Scholem designates Nathan both the John the Baptist and the Paul of the Sabbatean movement - and that is where a significant difference arises. All of the control was in the hands of one man, Nathan - even Sevi himself mostly stood in the background! There was no control, and no feedback loop, no effective way of controlling the spread of legends as there was with early Christianity. (The legends of Sevi, according to Scholem, originated with individual followers - NOT with the leadership! This is the OPPOSITE of what we see in Christianity - where the leadership set the truth [what the skeptics say are the "legends"] down, and took an active role in squashing false information; whereas, Nathan would hardly have time to travel all over Europe and the Mideast BY HIMSELF(!) teaching people to keep the volume down! And beyond that are social reasons for the spread of the Sabbatean movement which we are not even touching upon!)

Some comments are in order here. First of all, who would've done the "critical analyzing" if there had been enough time? Would his disciples do it? Would the critics have done it? Holding's argument seems to imply that whereas there wasn't enough time in the case of the Sabbatean movement, there was enough time in the case of Jesus! Well, then, who would've done the analyzing? Would the potential converts have done it? Would the critics?

Well, once again, my answer is found today in TIF -- there were numerous social, political, religious, and ideological opponents would would have done the analyzing and suppressing.

If the latter, I don't think for a second, that it would've made a dime's worth of difference! I believe most Christians would've been effectively nullified against any potential disconfirmation- whether it was competing miracle claims arguing that the Christian gospel was false or even attempts to produce the body of Jesus.

I have already spoken to "nullification" above.

And even this, as I argued above, supposes that there was a strong interest among the Jewish leadership to do so! If the disciples would've done it before converting- how would they have done it? What methods would they have employed? What training would they have to be sure they possessed the necessary critical training skills and historical methodology required to carry out a critical investigation? What education would they have had?

I find this rather overplayed. The questions imply that no one could have been qualified to debunk Christianity without several degrees from approved major universities and an IQ of 410! The claims made were simply not that hard to address and debunk -- a tomb was empty; a body was not there; these persons saw X person alive again. What "methods" does Matthew suggest were lacking that were needed but not used? What "historical methodology" is of such a specialized nature and of such reach that only it is sufficient to answer the question, "was this body here or not"? Questions like these lead to the inevitable conclusion that NO ONE is qualified to "do" any history until the 20th century!

And finally, even if all of these were no problem and the necessary education, tools, inquiry, training was there- what secular, Jewish, Greek, Roman, independent, attesting evidence is there that they did? As Dr. Price argued in his conclusion that I cited above- it's important to replace the "must have" with "might have".

And I of course argue that the TIF factors bring us to that "must have."

Without the secular/Jewish/Greek/Roman, independent, attesting evidence to establish precisely what Holding is arguing for, all he really has as an argument are hypothetical "must haves".

Price continues:

I have already mentioned the deification of Smion Kimbangu in his own lifetime despite his own wishes. the additional relevance of this fact in this context is obvious. It is wise to keep in mind the caution of Bollandist scholar Hippolyte Belehaye. In discussing the sources and historicity of saints' legends, he remarks:

The intellectual capacity of the multitude of reveals itself on all sides as exceedingly limited, and it would be a mistake to assume that it usually submits itself to the influence of superior minds. On the contrary, the latter necessarily suffer loss from the contact with the former, and it would be quite illogical to attribute a special value to a popular tradition because it had its origins amid surroundings in which persons of solid merit[in our case, the apostles] were to be met with.

J.P. responds:

Unfortunately, Belehaye's book has NOTHING to do with the NT situation, and in fact, does not even refer to the NT events! It has to do with exactly the sort of "late legends" that I have referred to earlier - those made tens or even hundreds of years after the fact, when it became way too late to offer any convincing contradiction!

Once again, the same questions I have repeatedly asked apply here. In fact, I see something that tends to confuse my understanding of J.P's case here. What "late legends" are we talking about? Which "late legends" stick? Is J.P. arguing that legends must go through the Stage 2, "crash and burn" phase and that only after Stage 2 is no longer possible, that later legends are able to stick? If this is the case, not only do the same arguments that I have made above apply, but I also believe that the gospels were written after the destruction of the Temple and that many New Testament narratives, themselves legends, are precisely what J.P. may have in mind here in reference to "later legends". I simply believe that many legends of the New Testament, would've been beyond the reach of falsification and that any such falsification would only serve to keep new converts from joining and not cause massive apostasy among the Christians because they would've been nullified against disconfirmation.

Once again, I have already spoken to nullifcation and why that will not be of any relevance here. The legends of course are the saints' legends -- Matthew will have to read Belahaye to get his questions about the nature of those answered. I am not connecting any of this to my 3 stages thesis so I do not know where Matthew has come up with a connection. I am simply saying that the dates of the saint legends are not even comparable to a "worst case scenario" for the dating of the NT.

J.P. continues:

In point of act, Belehaye indirectly provides SUPPORT for the veracity of the NT accounts [HD.LGS, 13-4]. He notes, first of all, that in serious circumstances (like being witness to a murder at a trial) we are LESS likely to add exciting and legendary elements to a story - and as salvation was thought to be at stake, there is every reason to say the Apostles and early Christians took their testimony seriously! Second, Belehaye notes the common-sense view that the more hands a story passes through, the more likely it is that embellishment will occur. But of course, there were almost NO intermediaries for the transmission of the NT - it was eyewitnesses and their disciples who passed on the information! And beyond that are matters related to memory and oral transmission which is beyond Belehaye's scope...And, we should add that the sort of legends that Belehaye refers to ALWAYS end up with outrageous flairs of the sort that are distinctly lacking in the Gospels!(As an extra aside - if we want to talk about "superior minds," let us remember that the rabbis, Pharisees, and scribes had a great deal of power and influence - not just greater intellect! Excommunication and ostracization, as a member of a decidedly minority group, for example, would tend to be a powerful disincentive to legendizing a fellow Jew into God - or even into a simple Messiah!)

I don't think Belehaye provides any support for the New Testament veracity. First of all, in serious circumstances, I have no doubt that there would've been less likely a tendency to add exciting and legendary elements to a story, I don't think that applies in the case of Christian origins. First of all, it would be helpful to specify what "serious circumstances" would apply to the Christians and apostles.

The pairing of the words was a Millerism again :) but it's not too hard to describe: The very serious belief that they held the brokerage of God in the tradition of the OT prophets. For a Jew that means a "serious circumstance". Beyond that I'd rate the reversal of a shame evaluation of the degree of crucifixion a pretty serious circumstance. There's no levity or room for creativity there for anyone who recognizes the seriouness of such events -- and it is unlikely that they did not.

Secondly, J.P. says that the Apostles and Christians took their testimony seriously-(whose) testimony would the Christians take seriously? Who is "they" as in "their testimony"?

I believe that means, they took their own giving of testimony seriously.

Next, as for the more hands, the more embellishments, I agree but it's very shaky to apply this to Christian origins. There would've been many hands from the time of the alleged events to the gospel compositions in written form- contra Holding. By suggesting that there would've been no "intermediataries"- how does J.P. know this? It seems to me that he is circularly assuming what I noted above. Instead of having secular/Jewish/Greek/Roman/critical attestation establishing oral tradition reliability, ergo establishing written gospel reliability, it seems that J.P. is taking written gospel reliability and substituting it in the place of secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek/critical attestation. You'd have to assume something like this to get away with speculations like a lack of intermediataries and act as though you have solidly established historical facts arguing in your favor! I doubt there were any eyewitnesses of any solid, critical repute! If anyone wishes to contest this- I am ready and willing to discuss it!

By this date of course I would appeal to my own findings (already alluded to) in terms of the authorship of the Gospels as well as the reliability of oral tradition generally as I have documented in other articles -- and no doubt we will discuss it as time permits!

As for outrageous flairs- I doubt that most apologists would identify an "outrageous flair" if their lives depended on it! I'm not trying to insult any apologists by suggesting stupidity on their part, but rather, that their methodology just won't allow for that kind of historical reasoning in the same way that creationists' methodology just won't allow for the tinkering of Genesis to accommodate for an ancient earth or any form of Darwinian evolution! As in J.P.'s case, I would have to ask him what kind of "outrageous flair" he has in mind. What would qualify has "outrageous"? To me, an earthquake with an angel descending and opening up a tomb door seems to be extraordinary/outrageous. Believing that a horde of zombies rose from the dead after the crucifixion earthquake cracked open tombs like a hammer on a walnut would certainly qualify as something extraordinary or outrageous. I'd like to comment on oral tradition and memory soon enough!

I'd offer two kinds of outrageous flairs. The first would be literary in nature -- lavish descriptions and narrative of the sort that the Gospels do not have. The second would be performative in nature and be the sort of things we find in the apocryphal Gospels, with Jesus and Judas having an aerial battle like Superman and Captain Marvel. The things Matthew picked are frankly either not that spectacular -- an earthquake is a perfectly natural occurence -- or else are judged "outrageous" within the presumption of materialism, rather than the paradigm of Jewish religioisity. In the end though this is just Hume's argument reworked, and I have recounted the failures of Hume in other contexts.

Price continues:

Bruce and Montgomery go on to add a negative version of the eyewitness argument: what about non-Christian eyewitnesses who could have called the Christians' bluff? "Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses in the audience would have served as a further corrective." Would it? Evidence indicates this to be pretty doubtful. Bruce is not reckoning with the contagious fervor of apocalyptic movements; one hears what one wants to hear. In the case of Sabbatai Sevi, we know that "hostile witnesses" tried to keep things under control but to no avail. The rabbis of Constantinople announced during Sevi's stay there"..we have not beheld a single miracle or sign..only the noise of rumors and testimonies at second hand." No one seemed to listen.

J.P. responds to this:

Again, as we have noted, there wasn't really enough time for the Sabbatean movement to be critically analyzed before Sevi apostatized - so whether anyone "listened" or not is actually irrelevant. (Also, note that we HAVE "hostile witnesses" in the case of Sevi, but they were ineffective. We don't even HAVE such a contra-testimony in the case of Jesus; not a single dissenter who was a contemporary! Further, it is worth pointing out that (1) the Jesus movement was rather of a non-apocalyptic nature; and (2) unlike Sabbateanism, Christianity was still a "book/cognitive based movement" -- NOT a mystical movement like Sevi's. Appeals to Scripture were the modus operandi for Jewish sects of the day!) But now let's take into consideration a few things about the Sabbatean movement that Price mysteriously forgets to tell us about.

Oh good heavens! I hate this, but I am going to sound like a broken record here. I already addressed my skepticism of the time issue in terms of critical analysis and the type of analysis employed and by whom. As for the time factor in terms of analyzing critically the Sabbatean movement before Sevi apostasized- who would've carried this out? The disciples? The critics? If the former, why didn't they carry this out before joining? If the critics, wouldn't they have carried out an analysis every step of the way regardless of the movement's evolution- assuming that there was resources available and the interest and motive to utilize them? And besides- suppose that the Sevi's followers had nullified themselves prior to Sevi's conversion so that only the word of Sevi himself would've been enough to shake them- then any disconfirmation would've been fallen on deaf ears making it that they didn't "listen" highly relevant- much more than J.P. would think. I think that they might've been nullified in the same way I believe Paul nullified Christians, especially the Galatians, against disconfirmation. As for a lack of contra-testimony in the case of Jesus, I have some serious reservations in the form of questions. Where would the contra-testimony have come from? Critics? I certainly don't expect the gospels to record any contra-testimony- you don't edify believers and strengthen their faith with over contra-testimony unless it's for rhetorical purposes of setting up an hypothetical argument just to knock it down! Secondly, what interest and motives do we have of counter-testimony from those would've been the most interested and highly motivated enough to carry it out? Do we have secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek/critically attesting sources from critics who document their attempts to clamp the lid on the Christian faith, explaining what methods, arguments, attempts they made, but failed? I doubt it! That would help here.

These days of course I'd also add in various TIF factors -- notably, the agonostic tenor of the period which would have given lie to Price's doubts about confrontation; and that there were more than enough people with motive (eg, to destroy a deviant movement), power, and resources to carry out the needed debunking. I'd also have added these days my input from preterist eschatology to show that there was no sort of element of apocalyptism of the sort Price envisioned.

I disagree with Matthew about the contra-testimony not being recorded -- it would have been recorded, and answered (however well it could be) just as it was in Matthew's Gospel, by Paul, and in the works of later Christian apologists.

J.P. continues:

What happened to the movement after the apostasy? It underwent a classic "Stage 3" execution - for all intents and purposes, the movement died. There were still a few people who believed that Sevi was faking his apostasy, though, and they stuck around in some force until 1850 as a half-Muslim, half-Jewish group called the Donmeh. [BM.HJD, 166] Its adherents were persecuted by the Jewish community; its literature was destroyed, and it devolved into a thoroughly mystical sect looking for Sabbatai to return as Messiah at a later date [see GS.JM, 287-324]. The movement slowly dwindled, until, in 1989, the Encyclopedia of Judaism was able to report, there was nothing left but a small community of the faithful in Istanbul.

So the movement did face a Stage 2! And from the material I have just quoted above- it seems that the apostasy was it! The "crash and burn"! Okay, I am getting confused here, was or was not the apostasy of Sevi Stage 2? The movement died, true. There were a tiny faithful who believed that Sevi was faking it- in other words there were a core of followers who had become nullified to the point of being beyond any disconfirmation- just like Paul with the Galatians. And guess what? The apostasy of Sevi was a mundane, earthly, purely human event- nothing supernatural in the origin, scope, or nature of the disconfirmation, whereas Paul was nullifying his followers against even supernatural means of disconfirmation. So the nullification of Christians against disconfirmation was a lot stronger and farther reaching than that of Sevi's movement. If I may be so bold, I believe that many of the Christians were nullified beyond redemption- had Paul renounced his gospel, many Christians would just assume Paul was faking apostasy and that he was testing their faith! Christians were persecuted too! Otherwise modern martyrdom arguments lose steam! Let's not forget that Christians had not two but three problems to worry about: Jews, Romans, and heretics! Some Christians probably believed that Jesus was going to return in their lifetimes literally and I can imagine other Christians reading a preterist interpretation into the gospel stories.

As I have noted, I believe Matthew misunderstood me to say there was NO Stage 2 for Sevi's group when I was actually saying there was one fo a different type. I have already spoken to the matter of nullification and will say nothing else of the subject here, other than that I don't think Matthew's scenario for Paul is a realistic one in a first century setting. The "testing your faith" rationale is one that I don't see popping up until the age when fossils were discovered and some wondered what they had to do with the Flood.

J.P. continues:

And this, again, is what we would expect from a movement based on legends: Even after a crash and burn, there is always a "core" of followers, as in any apocalyptic movement (again, whether we can truly say Christianity was such is in itself debatable!), who will never desert their leader; BUT, there are always those who "come to their senses" and leave (as the overwhelming majority of Jews did in the case of Sabbatai), and there are ALWAYS those on the outside who will maintain a perspective on the group in question - i.e., the rabbis of Constantinople, as well as other critics of the movement - and act as counters from the very beginning. Indications are that various countering measures were TRIED with Christianity (rumors of the body being stolen; persecution of the Apostles and early Christians, including martyrdoms) - but to no avail! The movement grew in spite of these actions - which leads us to believe that the Apostles had the truth on their side!

But did Christianity go through a "crash and burn" stage? What was there to "crash and burn"? The crucifixion wouldn't have done it; I doubt that Jesus deconverted in any way.

I would say that the crucifixion, yes, would have done it -- without the resurrection.

But even if there were elements subject to a Stage 2 "crash and burn", bear in mind that I believe that the Christians after the resurrection would've been nullified beyond all reason and critical analysis. I doubt that any counter-testimony would've been effective let alone attempted.

I believe Matthew is, again, neglecting to consider the "agonistic atmosphere" of the day which would produce counter-testimony, and that "nullification" is again being used, without evidence of it being present or relevant to the social setting, as an all-purpose convenience. I will add now that there simply was not enough value in Christian belief to make "nullification" a desirable state of mind. All the benefits it offered were available elsewhere and without any trouble (mystery religions, etc.).

I doubt many of the Christians would ever have deserted Paul, Peter, or James or the apostolic circle after the resurrection.

I in turn see no reason for any of those doubts to have any basis.

As for those "coming to their senses"- who were these? Who inside the Christian faith would've done so? I am not aware of any mention in the gospels or secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek/critically attesting sources- once again, I fear that J.P. is treating his "might haves" as "must haves".

I would say in turn that they are merely being dismissed as "couldn't bes" -- but the simple answer is that those who "came to their senses" would be those who upon further consideration of evidence decided that there was no resurrection after all. It is not required that these be mentioned "in the gospels or secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek/critically attesting sources" -- for of course, for one, I would argue that no such persons existed, as the evidence was too soild to dispute!

As in the case of Sabbatai, how is it that some people "came to their senses"? What convinced them in the first place? I bet if examples can be furnished, then it will show that they were nullified against disconfirmation to a point and that point would've been the deconversion of Sevi, while others would've been nullified beyond all reason and criticism as in those who suspected that any apostasy would've been regarded as a test of faith.

It has been many years since I read Scholem, but the answer as I recall would be that the apostasy was the main "convincer" and that the number whom Matthew might regard as "nullifed against disconfirmation" after that were a very tiny number, and that after that there were no new converts -- so that once again, my point remains that there is no suitable parallel to Christianity.

As for hostile acts of counter from the beginning- we have no secular/Jewish/Roman/Greek/critical, attesting, sources from these hostile critics or witnesses that I am aware of so what can we say existed? Appealing to the gospels merely puts the cart before the horse and we wind up arguing in a circle again as I have argued for above!

I disagree. These are the natural and expected social components that would emerge in any setup; the demand for sources is, I think, setting the bar artificially high; and it is rather the critic who must explain why reaction to the Christian claims would not follow an expected social model in its setting. I also do not see why it is circular to appeal to the Gospels; it is not "circular" to appeal to other documents the same way, and I think this is merely an "artifactual" argument of certain wayward forms of historical criticism.

J.P. says "Indications are that various countering measures were TRIED with Christianity (rumors of the body being stolen; persecution of the Apostles and early Christians, including martyrdoms) - but to no avail! The movement grew in spite of these actions - which leads us to believe that the Apostles had the truth on their side!" Which indicators though? Which sources record the countermeasures taken?

Here again I'd be appealing to TIF factors if this were written today.

As for rumors of a stolen body- I'm not aware of any secular or Jewish, independent, attesting sources. Just the Gospel of Matthew! But to use this is putting the cart before the horse and arguing in circle again!

Once again, I consider this sort of argument to be rather artificial and presumptive. The bar has been put high upon no basis, and if applied across the board to all historical documents would produce chaos in historiography. There need not be any extra sources -- if that is so, why is this the case?

As for persecution of the Apostles, which sources (please don't say Acts!) What sources for martyrdom? As for the Christian movement growing despite these actions- this tends to assume that the Christians either knew it was true or knew it was false and were in a inescapable position to know either way! I don't believe this to be the case; I believe that delusion is a possibility and that they knew for absolute certain that the resurrection happened or not is a dubious possibility at best! But if this is the reason Christians believe that Apostles had the truth, for Pete's sake, they need to raise their standards of evidence!

I will say Acts, and see no reason not to, other than (again) standards of unwarranted extremity that set the bar artificially high; though I'd also appeal once again to the social models. I also see no reason why Christians in the critical period did not have it accessible to know whether the resurrection had occurred -- that is, unless we resort to the epistemic despair which is uncertain as to whether we exist ourselves.

J.P. continues:

What happened to the Sabbatean movement itself is a splendid example of the outline above. Scholem [GS.MM, 718] observes that after Sevi's apostasy, Nathan became a fugitive and a vagabond, first being relentlessly persecuted, and then ignored, until his death in 1680. The movement itself was suppressed throughout Europe and Asia, until, as we have seen, it mutated into not much more than something equivalent to a Masonic lodge! Obviously this does not parallel the development of Christianity.<.P>

Same problems apply. Same questions I raise as I raised earlier. I can list these questions upon request if anyone is interested! Dr. Price continues:

In our own day we can find several parallel cases, none of which seem to accord with apologists' claims about what "would" or "would not have happened". Readers may recall the brief flurry of interest, during the great "cult" hysteria of the 70s and 80s, over the young divinity Guru Majaraji Ji. He was a rotund little Buddha of a man, a boy really, who had a notorious preference for Baskin-Robbins ice cream. As it happened, he also had a preference for his secretary and married her, much against the Old-World wishes of his mother. She promptly booted the young godling off the throne of the universe and replaced him with his charisma-less older brother. What, one might ask, was the reaction of the Premies, as the disciples were called, to this train of events? On a visit to Berkeley, a year or so later, I saw them still handing out literature featuring the boy-gods' grinning visage. I asked how this was still possible and was told that the Premies simply refused to believe the whole debacle had happened! All was the same as far as they were concerned.

J.P. comments:

All this provides is yet ANOTHER example of a classic Stage 2 crash and burn, followed by Stage 3 - changes made to survive. But are those pamphlets doing any good? Is the movement growing, gaining new converts? I haven't seen the new followers flocking to the door of the Maharaj Ji Church lately! Price's anecdote, while rather amusing, speaks of nothing relevant to Christian history. Nor, in fact, does this comparison:

Or take the Rastafarians of Jamaica. They venerated Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as God incarnate, despite his own puzzled reaction to this news once when he visited the island. What became of their faith when the disposed emperor died? On a "Sixty Minutes" broadcast an intelligent-looking Jamaican journalist with allegiance to the religion matter-of-fact said he believed Haile Selassie was still alive, his supposed death a "premature report" (Mark Twain) engendered by the unbelieving Western media!

I am not sure that a movement that emphasizes the use of a mind-altering substance like marijuana qualifies as a good parallel to Christianity - unless John Allegro happens to be correct about "Jesus" being a code word for a mushroom! Even so, the parallel is again a failure. Did this movement spread beyond Jamaica and the Rastafarians? No, as a whole it has not, and it was not likely to, between the reaction by Selassie and his untimely death (both prime elements for a stage 2 crash, verifiable by common sources - and that the journalist in question LOOKED intelligent is hardly an indication as to whether he actually WAS intelligent!). So, we see what happened: A classic Stage 3 response, an invented conspiracy formulated to keep the movement alive! And indeed, now, we have in Rastafarianism a quite fractured movement --with much less focus on Selassie. Again, nothing here is relevant to Christian history. Now our final example, which has some relevance - but only because of the subject matter

:

Or who can forget the remarkable case of the religious talk-show host and con-man Jim Bakker? Even after his conviction on the basis of a veritable mountain of evidence, the faith of a stubborn group of his followers remained unshaken. They formed the "Bring back the Bakkers Club"!

Again - where is the "Bring Back the Bakkers" bunch now? Is the movement growing, like Christianity did? Jim has renounced his former life; Tammy is fodder for the tabloids - Stage 2, the nail in the coffin. I have not even seen an attempt at recovery that fits with Stage 3, but because of Jim Bakker's new view on things, any recovery that does occur is also likely to be an entirely new movement. Thus, the parallel again falls flat.

Let me comment on all three of the examples- 1.) The Premies- Are the pamphlets doing any good? (Pssst..J.P, this is Berkeley we're talking about!). It depends on who is distributing these pamphlets? Were all the traditional Premie cultists doing this who were part of the cult despite what Majaraji Ji did against his mother's wishes or were these new converts who were distributing literature? Further, I honestly don't know if the Premies were successful in getting new converts with this literature.

Ha ha -- :) well, Berkeley is another world, I suppose, but what was the first century equivalent to it? I suppose these are questions Price must answer if he wants to use this example.

2.)The Rastafarians- So Haile Selassie died and they refused to believe that he had died- did the emperor predict that he would live forever? Did his followers believe he did? It seems from the sources discussed here that the emperor didn't believe that he was a god or immortal and so the origins of the legendary beliefs about him are indeed odd. But, I strongly doubt that the Christian faith would've met Stage 2 but rather side-stepped it. What would've been subject to a "crash and burn"?

Fortunately this is something I did a huge study on, and I can answer the questions. The emperor made no such predictions of himself; in fact, he was troubled by what was being said of him by the movement and sent counter-missions to them to correct them. So yes, it is very odd. But Rasta was born a movement of "composite plasticity" tailor made to an individualist setting.

3.) Bakkers- Now this was a poor example on Price's part! No one I know of believes that Jim or Tammy are/were God incarnate.(Why on earth would God wear all that make-up?) No examples of legends are reported! The Bakkers weren't believe to have walked on water. I doubt that during their show they were levitated into the air by no physical means. Did Jim miraculously grow angel wings out his backside during a sermon? Where are the legends? We needn't apply any crash, burn, and survival analysis here- the example sucks too much!

Price continues:

In all such cases what we have is "cognitive dissonance reduction." More about that later on, but for now suffice to say that when one has so much at stake in a belief being true ("Lo, we have left everything to follow you..." Mark 10:28), one simply cannot, psychologically speaking, afford to admit one was mistaken. Any fact may be denied or rationalized to avoid such an admission. Finally one is impervious to the evidential barrages of "hostile witnesses."

J.P. comments:

First of all, Price's use of Mark 10:28 is rather misleading. The disciples had a "stake" in Jesus' ministry at the time, but NO stake in a belief in the Resurrection - which had yet to occur, and which they were not even aware would happen And he cannot even get that far! Remember John 6: "From that time on, many turned back..." -- and the "alternative" that the disciples were dealing with was "You have the words of eternal life, to whom shall we go?" It was not an issue of not having any PRACTICAL option, for they manifestly had practical options (i.e., taking up fishing again!). The "we have left all" passage, in context, is about "rewards" -- NOT about being "trapped" in a movement that one has committed all of their psychological resources to! Even so, as we have seen, this long-distance psychoanalysis of the reaction of the early Christians hardly does justice to the truth or to history.

I doubt that it's really all that misleading. True enough the disciples had a "stake" in Jesus' ministry but even when it appeared to have ended at the crucifixion, they would've sought out a new "stake" which would've been the resurrection! As for cognitive dissonance not allowing one to admit one was mistaken- I wish Price would've specified whether he believes that to be the origin of people making up legends or whether he believes that one cannot admit to being mistaken about believing legends that are already in circulation. Recall that the Bakker example didn't contain any legends! Cognitive dissonance doesn't always lead to legend-making although it can make them stronger! I think Price still has a case although his comments about cognitive dissonance are a bit off here. For the record, where did Price bring up John 6?

I have documented in TIF why a resurrection is the last sort of "stake" that would have been sought after the crucifixion. Price did not bring up John 6; that was from Miller as a counter to his use of Mark 10:28.

Not ONE of the parallels used by Price fits the schema of early Christianity; there is NO evidence of a "crash and burn," nor of a "denial" or "rationalization" in ANY of the NT materials or in that of contemporary foes of Christianity; there is NO evidence that the disciples were a singular group impervious to hostile testimony - indeed, the opposite is indicated, because Christianity GREW phenomenally, crossing a variety of cultural barriers, gaining new adherents, in spite of hostile counter-influences!

Now I am confused again. Did the Christian faith encounter any Stage 2 or not? Did J.P. not say "We shall discover that the key difference between the movements that Price cites and Christianity is that Christianity SURVIVED Stage 2 above - in spite of the fact that its most basic claim, the Resurrection, could have been easily countermanded!" I wish J.P would clarify his position!

I'll put it this way: Part of what I define as Stage 2 is the bringing up of counter-claims; and the end of Stage 2 is the success of those claims. So in other words, I'm saying Christianity survived criticism and never reached a crash and burn stage because of that.

Once again, I find that J.P. may be arguing circularly here. Arguing that the gospel materials were true to begin with, sustained the reliability of oral tradition, which in turn verifies the accuracy of the gospel materials is a circular argument. Secondly I don't know of any hostile witnesses outside of the New Testament in secular or Jewish (what about Greek and Roman sources? What about critical-minded sources?) literature providing independent attesting material. Third, I have yet to see any independent multiple attesting sources from Christian converts explaining why they converted, from Jews or Romans, Greeks, or other secular Gentile sources explaining why Christians converted or what the converts found so attractive and persuasive about the Christian faith. Moreover, I believe that the earliest Christians for the most part would be impervious to disconfirmation and would've been nullified against it.

And again, I believe that this demand for extra sources is a case of setting the bar artificially high and -- dare I say? -- making a way to be "nullified" against any "disconfirming" evidence! I am being facetious here, of course. My point is merely that arguments like these are too easily turned back upon the ones that use them (as I did often to Price, in this and other contexts) and so their