What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

The presuppositions of the skeptics

The same pedants who declare the New Testament an utterly unreliable historical record also cling to their own certain knowledge of the details of human prehistory. Thus they say that while they can’t be sure if Jesus Christ ever existed, they are quite sure Noah never existed, and they are quite sure no one ever was taken up by God in the manner of Enoch — because while they can’t say anything certain about what happened 2000 years ago, they can be very certain about what happened many thousands of years before that.

One wonders how these people are even certain that Abraham Lincoln ever truly walked the earth. Perhaps George Washington was an invention of avaricious Virginia conspirators dabbling in a sophisticated legendarium? How can these skeptics be sure Columbus or Dante ever existed, much less Plato or Buddha? Clearly their own certain knowledge is confined to the distant murky antiquity of mankind, not his more recent recorded conduct.

To be intensely skeptical of the historical record that comes down to us from Roman imperial times, and insouciantly credulous about conjectures of human prehistory, is a special kind of provincialism unique to our age. Only a current day professor can really hold this awkward and unbecoming poise.

If you truly wonder whether Jesus of Nazareth ever lived, think it possible that he is merely the invention or exaggeration of the world’s great forgery, also known as the New Testament, the only possible position vis-à-vis ancient human prehistory, evidencing a logical soundness, must be complete agnosticism. You cannot now adopt a firm certainly and pronounce the biblical account false.

Comments (8)

I can be certain in my skepticism for the places where the biblical account is false. I also think you are mixing up the types of evidence we have for each individual. Surely someone famous in his own lifetime is going to have tons more evidence to support his existence than someone who wasn't - evidence generated not only by friends and family but also from contemporary competitors, critics, journalists and statesmen. For someone like Noah whose story requires that all such evidence was washed away it would depend on how closely you claim the story tracks history, specifically if there was a global flood and a boat that held two of each animal.

I can be certain in my skepticism for the places where the biblical account is false.

Step2, the tenor of your comment would be clearer if you were to provide some references or examples that you mean for "false".

If you meant Noah and the Flood to be such an example, are you simply glossing over the distinction between interpreting the passage versus the way the passage reads at the first level reading?

We see a similar contradiction, though not usually in the same person, with those people who on the one hand think there's no real evidence that Jesus lived, and those on the other who think there's abundant evidence to convince us that he married Mary Magdelene and had a family.

Step2, I'm drawing out the logical implications of the kind of radical skepticism we see in this notion (recently floated in several big newspapers) that Jesus Christ was not a real man but merely a historical invention. Obviously a more temperate skepticism could settle on the conventional modern view that Jesus most assuredly existed, that he was an extraordinary man whose influence is almost incalculable, but that the accounts of his miracles are not persuasive.

But there is no logical consistency in a view that asserts the impossibility of knowing anything reliable about 1st century Palestine and the surety of knowing there have been no supernatural interventions into human history. The man who holds simultaneously that we can't know anything concrete about Roman times and that we know concretely that history is bereft of anything supernatural, is more or less comparable to the man who says that deep down he's really a donut.

Also, the idea of the New Testament as a gigantic forgery implies a conspiracy crossing generations, cultures, geography. The intricacy of what it asks us to believe about history belies its skepticism.

In the end, of course, no one really holds to this radical skepticism. It's basically a stalking horse for opposition to Christianity.

I think another example would be one I have discussed in a post concerning the historical Adam--namely, that we actually know (by what turn out to be highly conjectural methods) what the smallest number of ancestors is that humans could possibly have had at a given point in pre-history. That's a very strong claim, by the way.

Now, to be fair to most secularists, Christ mythicism is loony fringe stuff even among secular historians, and it's only an artifact of the sensationalism of the media that it ever seems otherwise.

In general, however, even those who don't go as far as to doubt the existence of Jesus are generally rather confused about how strong historical arguments can be, while at the same time being willing to swallow extremely strong claims as more or less "proven" by science. I think what this shows is a confusion about the nature of historical evidence and its strength and an artificial regard for anything, however conjectural, that has the mantle of science (Science) thrown over it.

Step2, the tenor of your comment would be clearer if you were to provide some references or examples that you mean for "false".

I mean false in the sense of the invention or exaggeration of a historical account. If I claimed the story of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was historical fact and you dismissed the supernatural backstory as clearly false and misleading about the events of the Civil War then our views are wildly divergent on who Lincoln really was and why he acted as he did.

If you meant Noah and the Flood to be such an example, are you simply glossing over the distinction between interpreting the passage versus the way the passage reads at the first level reading?

Are you claiming the Flood as global phenomenon is a false interpretation?

I can be certain in my skepticism for the places where the biblical account is false.
I mean false in the sense of the invention or exaggeration of a historical account.

Oh, I agree. For example: I am very strongly skeptical that there ever was a vineyard owner who leased out the vineyard, and who sent first servants and then his son to collect his share, and had the servants beaten and the son murdered, while the murderers said to themselves "now the vineyard will come to us". That there parable was an invention, not gospel truth (so to speak).

Must have been sour grapes :)

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