Tag Archives: The Resurrection of Jesus

General Apologetics, Skeptics

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 of this series, we looked at William Lane Craig’s response to the skeptical maxim, “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence.”  Now we will review Mike Licona’s response from his book The Resurrection of Jesus. 

Licona reminds us that this was a statement that atheist astronomer Carl Sagan used to frequently utter.  He calls it Sagan’s Saw.  How does Sagan’s Saw stand up as a paradigm for determining the burden of proof?  Licona first looks at landing on the moon.

Landing on the moon in July 1969 was an extraordinary event.  It was extremely difficult and had never occurred previously.  Yet most people believed the reports when they watched astronauts walking on the moon on their televisions, a medium that often distorts truths and presents untruths, legends and fictions.

The moon events were extraordinary.  The reports were believed because they were thought to be credible and the authorial intent to communicate the event as it occurred was known.  In neither case was extraordinary evidence required.

Licona continues by hypothesizing his wife coming home and telling him about people she met at the grocery store.  Should Licona believe his wife?

Let us suppose that my wife returns from the grocery store and tells me that she saw and spoke with our next-door neighbor while there.  Although it is possible she is mistaken, because I know her to be an intelligent and credible witness I have every reason to believe her report without hesitation. 

Now let us suppose that when she returns from the grocery store, she tells me instead that she saw and spoke with the president of the United  States.  I may think this far out of the ordinary.   However, if after questioning her further I can have confidence that she is not joking, or put another way, if I am confident that I understand her authorial intent as being truthful, I would accept her report—and drive to the grocery store with the hopes of having a similar experience, provided that I like the incumbent president.

Her claim that she spoke with the president of the United States in the grocery story is extraordinary in a sense, whereas her claim that she spoke with our next-door neighbor is not.  The former may give me pause.  Yet I am satisfied because of my confidence that the source is credible and that its authorial intent is to describe an actual event accurately.  I would not require extraordinary evidence or even evidence in addition to her report before believing that she spoke with the president of the United States in the grocery store.  Instead, I am interested in the credibility of the report and the authorial intent.

Even though Licona’s wife meeting the president at the grocery store is extraordinary, he does not require extraordinary evidence.  He simply believes his wife’s testimony because he understands her intention to describe the event accurately. 

Stories about the next-door neighbor and the president are one thing, but what would happen if Licona’s wife told him about speaking to a person that he doubts even exists, a meeting that, in his mind, is even more extraordinary than the president?  We’ll continue to analyze Licona’s reasoning in the next part of the series.

Historical Christ, Resurrection

Why Do Two Skeptics Discount Paul’s Testimony about the Resurrection of Jesus?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Historical scholar Mike Licona, in his book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, argues that the apostle Paul’s writings are critical to historical research on Jesus’ resurrection.  But some skeptics disagree.  Licona explains:

Given the historical nuggets provided by Paul that can assist historians in their investigation of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, it is not surprising to find a few who have attempted to downplay its value.  Roy Hoover writes, “No New Testament text claims that the risen Jesus appeared to anyone who had not been a follower of Jesus or who did not become a believer.”

This is quite a move, simply writing off those who became believers after they were convinced that they had seen the risen Jesus.  Hoover fails to address the question of what may have led them to this belief against their previous wishes to reject who they believed was a false messiah.  So how does Hoover account for Paul’s experience?  He writes, “The risen Jesus was seen by one Pharisee who was a zealous enemy of the early church—Paul, from Tarsus; but so far as we know, Paul never met the Jesus of history and cannot, therefore, be counted among his enemies.”  

Licona wonders how this criterion of needing to meet someone to be counted among that person’s enemies makes any sense.

If we followed Hoover’s logic, no one fighting against the Nazis in World War II or imprisoned in one of the Nazi death camps could consider Hitler his enemy unless he had personally met him!

Licona also cites atheist philosopher Michael Martin, who offers a similar argument.  Here is Martin himself: 

Why should the fact that Paul persecuted Christians and was subsequently converted to Christianity by his religious experience be given special existential significance?  Whatever his past record at the time of his report he was a zealous, religious believer and not a religious skeptic.

Licona continues:

For Martin, it seems that in order to be regarded as a credible witness, it is not good enough to be opposed to everything about Christianity, including its followers; one must also be no less than an agnostic.  But as we observed earlier, historians are quite unanimous in their opinion that there is no neutrality when it comes to these matters.  When we speak of bias the knife cuts both ways, and it is quite clear that some religious skeptics reveal their own bias, which is antireligious in nature.

It is amazing to me that Licona even has to make this point.  You can figure out by reading any religious skeptic’s writing, very quickly, that they are burdened with the same kinds of biases that religious proponents are.  None of us can escape our biases completely, but it seems that religious skeptics, like Martin and Hoover, believe that they can.

The reason any person writes about anything is because they have interest in the subject they are writing about.  Nobody writes about subjects they care nothing about, and if they did, we would rightly ignore most of what they write.  Paul deeply cared about what happened to Jesus, and we should, therefore, pay close attention to what he said.  To discount his testimony because he became a believer is the height of hyper-skepticism.