Post 6: Number

“Number” matters in testimony, but only when it means independent lines, not just a large headcount or a story repeated many times.

In ordinary life, testimony gets stronger when multiple witnesses report the same event independently, through different channels, with the possibility of cross checking. But when many reports trace back to the same source, the “number” can look large while the evidential base stays narrow.

So here’s the question for the resurrection: How many independent lines of testimony do we actually have, once we separate sources from repetition?

A few quick ways to keep this honest:

Lists aren’t automatically independent. A later summary that reports “many people saw” doesn’t give us many independent reports, it gives us one report about many.

Multiple documents don’t automatically mean multiple lines. If documents share a tradition, depend on one another, or arise from the same inner circle, the apparent number can outpace the real independence.

Sincerity doesn’t add independence. A community can sincerely repeat what it inherited without adding new evidential weight.

The importance of testimony isn't just how it relates to the resurrection argument, but it's important across a wide range of domains even in science

There are no rational grounds for believing this to be true. Religion, in general, deals with this successfully and easily overcomes i — Astorre

I think many belief systems cheerfully overcome facts: that’s a function of belief systems, whether religious or not. I think this applies to football teams and schools of literary criticism just as much as it does to Christianity.

I often wonder, in such cases, why Christianity rather than Hinduism, Islam or Buddhism. When read deeply, they too offer cast contemplative opportunities. — Tom Storm

Indeed they do, and it's a good question. I'm guessing that Allison would concede that his affinity for Christianity is rooted in his cultural background. I know that he has engaged honestly with other traditions and I don't think he would try to say that Christianity is demonstrably superior to them according to any neutral, public criteria. That said, he also seems to think that the Christian tradition captures something unique that helps him to make sense of the world in a way not replicated by other traditions, and that the resurrection plays a role in that. I'm not sure if he'd be willing to say anything stronger than that.

Cheers. I saw your farewell in another thread and won't tether you to the forum with another reply. I wish you the best of luck with your novel. Hopefully we'll get the chance to converse again sometime in the future. It's been a pleasure. Take care.

I'm guessing that Allison would concede that his affinity for Christianity is rooted in his cultural background. — Esse Quam Videri

That said, he also seems to think that the Christian tradition captures something unique that helps him to make sense of the world in a way not replicated by other traditions, and that the resurrection plays a role in that. — Esse Quam Videri

I think the second quote is an articulation of the first. It would make sense for the religion of one's cultural background to capture something the others don’t. Not that the reverse isn’t sometimes true for some people.

I’d be curious about the resurrection’s importance.

I have never understood the resurrection story, or, as some put it: God sacrificed Himself to Himself to save us from Himself because of a rule He made Himself.

That may be a bit glib, but the blood sacrifice element never made sense to me. The fact Jesus could walk away from it just demonstrated how little was sacrificed, he was omnipotent to begin with. No doubt there are innumerable theological exegeses to offer to redeem (sorry) this account.

I have never understood the resurrection story, or, as some put it: God sacrificed Himself to Himself to save us from Himself because of a rule He made Himself.

It fits into a larger narrative. The idea that God created the heaven and earth so that beings could live a life independent of his direct control. Or in other words like a puppet that has come to life and doesn’t need strings to move any more and a puppet master to operate them. This inevitably results in some personal autonomy in these beings. Then we have the garden of Eden story, where the beings partake of the tree of knowledge, signifying the fall.
If one takes this narrative on board then it makes sense for a representative of God to be introduced to attempt to guide the beings when they go astray.
Now the crucifixion story signifies that these autonomous beings, due to their independent autonomy have the agency to crucify themselves, or pervert their autonomous behaviour. In the crucifixion this is demonstrated writ large. The resurrection signifies that those beings can be released from the guilt and shame of this behaviour and be reinstated as pristine beings in the garden of Eden, so to speak, as they were prior to the fall.

I am not a Christian, or a Christian scholar, but do find the Christian mysticism of these narratives compelling.

I think the second quote is an articulation of the first. It would make sense for the religion of one's cultural background to capture something the others don’t. Not that the reverse isn’t sometimes true for some people. — Tom Storm

I see what you mean, but I would say that this is a bit overly reductionistic. People choose to align themselves to religious traditions for many reasons that cannot be reduced solely to the influence of their cultural backgrounds.

have never understood the resurrection story, or, as some put it: God sacrificed Himself to Himself to save us from Himself because of a rule He made Himself.

That may be a bit glib, but the blood sacrifice element never made sense to me. The fact Jesus could walk away from it just demonstrated how little was sacrificed, he was omnipotent to begin with. No doubt there are innumerable theological exegeses to offer to redeem (sorry) this account. — Tom Storm

Again, I would say that this is probably overly reductionistic and perhaps even a bit uncharitable. I think that "blood sacrifice" is not the best historical description of how the earliest Christians understood the crucifixion. The language of sacrifice is indeed one of several interpretive strands running through the tradition, but (as far as I know) it was not understood by early Christians as an expression of primitive blood magic. The crucifixion (and the resurrection) were seen primarily as a symbolic condemnation of violence, not a sacralization of it.

I do think religion can put us in contact with the metaphysical source of everything, and my best description of that source is consciousness. This thread isn’t driven by the idea that religion is pointless, or that everything reduces to having the correct beliefs. A person can be oriented toward what is real, and even be changed by that orientation, without being able to justify every doctrinal claim as knowledge.

I’m not attacking Christians, and I’m not trying to score points. I’m evaluating a specific historical claim, and I’m asking whether the testimonial evidence is strong enough for it to be treated as knowledge rather than conviction.

My metaphysics doesn’t rule out God. What it rules out are many of the particular religious pictures people inherit, especially when they present themselves as public historical knowledge without the kind of evidential support that would justify that status. In other words, I’m not arguing against spirituality as such, and I’m not denying metaphysical depth. I’m arguing for clarity about what can be responsibly treated as knowledge, what functions more like orientation and practice, and where conviction has outrun justification.

is the testimonial evidence strong enough to justify belief in a bodily resurrection as knowledge, rather than as conviction? — Sam26

No. Not even close to being in the realm of the same vicinity as being strong enough. William Lane Craig is probably the best example for why: It rests on incredulity about people's reportage which is, itself, derived from a bare acceptance of hte testimonies, despite their contradictions, time-lapses and what not.

I don't even think it rises to the level of a serious claim, let alone supporting supernatural side-lines.

It is bewildering to me that anyone who can understand, for instance, mass delusion, could neverhteless rest their entire cosmic, moral and practical life on such utterly thin and empty reasoning. I have no problem coming across harsh and judgmental. I have absolutely no respect for these positions (religious ones, generally, in lieu of anything sensible in support)

Again, I would say that this is probably overly reductionistic and perhaps even a bit uncharitable. — Esse Quam Videri

Well, I did point out that there were “innumerable” other interpretations so not necessarily.

The crucifixion (and the resurrection) were seen primarily as a symbolic condemnation of violence, not a sacralization of it. — Esse Quam Videri

Really? How so? One only has to look as the Christian tradition of self-flagellation, not to mention conservative Catholic, Mel Gibson’s The Passion to see how central suffering and bloody sacrifice are to notions of atonement for many believers. Suffering seems to be a path to redemption. I’m not saying that’s all there is, I’m asking how else can this be understood without resorting to idiosyncratic and poetic interpretations? What was the point of the crucifixion story, it seems incoherent?

In the Baptist tradition I grew up in, Jesus had to die to save us. His death leads to forgiveness and reconciliation. How so, I don’t think we were ever taught.

No. Not even close to being in the realm of the same vicinity as being strong enough. William Lane Craig is probably the best example for why: It rests on incredulity about people's reportage which is, itself, derived from a bare acceptance of hte testimonies, despite their contradictions, time-lapses and what not. — AmadeusD

That's the point of my thread, viz., that the testimonial evidence doesn't come close to justifying the belief in the resurrection.

It is bewildering to me that anyone who can understand, for instance, mass delusion, could neverhteless rest their entire cosmic, moral and practical life on such utterly thin and empty reasoning. I hope this comes across as harsh. I have absolutely no respect for these positions. — AmadeusD

The problem is epistemological for me (not mass delusion), i.e., that most people don't know how to justify a belief, including many of the people in this forum. I don't have much respect for many religious beliefs either, but that's different from treating religious people with disdain as many do. I try not to but fail at times.

Oh, I agree. The concept of mass delusion was just a point in space. It's not hte crux. The point was just that these believers will understand a concept which makes it highly unlikely their beliefs are sound (we can think here of the many episodes of mass delusion the Catholic church harps on about) and sitll refuse to apply it to their belief about Christ. It's bizarre.

I treat the beliefs with disdain, not the people. They are ridiculous, culturally destructive and intellectually antithetical to truth, progress and reason. Anyone who actively choose to reject those notions probably wont be someone I could be friends with.

I’m not saying that’s all there is, I’m asking how else can this be understood. — Tom Storm

Here's one possible alternative framing that I think would be endorsed by someone like Allison. I'm not going to try to defend this framing, I'm just going to offer it:

Crucifixion in the Roman world was a state execution designed to humiliate, terrorize, and erase. It was reserved for slaves, rebels, and the socially disposable. It was not a religious ritual. It was political violence, publicly justified as “law and order.”

The Gospels go out of their way to show that Jesus is innocent, the legal process is corrupt, religious and political authorities collude, and the crowd is manipulable. The cross is not staged as a sacred offering; it is staged as a miscarriage of justice.

The agents of violence are the state, institutional religion, respectable authority, and the crowd. This is what the world does to truth, fidelity, and love: violence is normalized, justified, and sanctified by “order”.

But the gospel story insists that God is found not on the side of power, but on the side of the executed. That’s not sacralizing violence. It’s exposing it. The cross says: this is what our systems do when they feel threatened.

The New Testament sometimes uses sacrificial imagery, but that imagery is metaphorical, drawn from Jewish covenantal language and morally reworked, not mechanically applied. When early Christians say Jesus “gave himself,” the emphasis is on self-giving, not divine requirement. A key shift happens here: God is not the one demanding blood; humans are the ones shedding it. That’s the inversion many later atonement theories obscure.

If the story ended on Friday the cross would simply be another example of justified brutality: suffering would be ennobled and violence would win.

But the resurrection functions as a reversal of meaning: the executed one is vindicated, the judgment of history is overturned, the logic that “might makes right” is exposed as false.

So the resurrection does not say: “suffering redeems because suffering is good”. It says: “the world was wrong to do this, and God does not side with those who did it.”

That’s why the resurrection is not an optional decoration, but a moral key.

I treat the beliefs with disdain, not the people. They are ridiculous, culturally destructive and intellectually antithetical to truth, progress and reason. Anyone who actively choose to reject those notions probably wont be someone I could be friends with. — AmadeusD

That's true of many systems of beliefs, not just religious beliefs.

Nicely worded. Thanks. The issue with these sorts of interpretations is that they remind me of differing readings of Moby Dick or any great novel.

The New Testament sometimes uses sacrificial imagery, but that imagery is metaphorical, drawn from Jewish covenantal language and morally reworked, not mechanically applied. When early Christians say Jesus “gave himself,” the emphasis is on self-giving, not divine requirement. A key shift happens here: God is not the one demanding blood; humans are the ones shedding it. That’s the inversion many later atonement theories obscure.

If the story ended on Friday the cross would simply be another example of justified brutality: suffering would be ennobled and violence would win.

But the resurrection functions as a reversal of meaning: the executed one is vindicated, the judgment of history is overturned, the logic that “might makes right” is exposed as false. — Esse Quam Videri

Well, we know what Nietzsche thought of this framing: that it valorised suffering and weakness and distorted life. Not that I’m a fan of his work.

Earlier you used the term reductive to critique my comments (and this isn’t intended as any kind of attack, just a friendly word game), but couldn’t it be said that this formulation is also reductive, in that it ignores the contours of the text and reduces the story to ethical symbolism?

Plenty of other versus to draw from, but when I read key passages like Mark 10:45:

“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." I feel ritual sacrifice is central to the story.

Anyway, don't want to distract from the thread's main purpose. Perhaps we need a separate thread on the philosophical meaning of the crucifixion, which I'm sure will range from the prosaic to the exotic.

I meekly suggest that you're both right. Both interpretations are mainstream Christian theology, with the redemptive-sacrifice one being the more traditional and scriptural, but by no means the more arguable.

Yes, as I said earlier, the resurrection is subject to as many critical interpretations as Moby Dick. I suppose that suggests the matter isn’t really about uncovering “truth”, but about an aesthetic response to a narrative, shaped by time, culture and whatever values you hold.

Yes quite true. These are just particularly both pernicious and unreasonable.

about an aesthetic response to a narrative . . . — Tom Storm

Or an ethical one.

Some might consider them related. :wink:

The crucifixion (and the resurrection) were seen primarily as a symbolic condemnation of violence, not a sacralization of it.

I would say symbolic of the possibility of redemption. The narrative indicates this, that Jesus’s life and life story was to demonstrate an acceptance/recognition of human frailty by God. That people by their very nature do crucify each other, do deceive, enslave, etc each other. But that they can be redeemed, can be freed from the guilt and shame, it leaves them. That they can be restored to the purity they enjoyed prior to the fall,(something which is impossible without redemption).

In other religions this issue of destructive human nature is dealt with in other ways. But the goal is the same. To reduce this behaviour in the population, by offering a benevolent alternative and to provide an off ramp for the guilty.

The issue with these sorts of interpretations is that they remind me of differing readings of Moby Dick or any great novel. — Tom Storm

I don't know exactly how Allison would respond to this. I suspect he would say something like "I think my interpretation is better grounded than alternatives, and I am prepared to defend that claim even if it is ultimately not coercively demonstrable by appeal to neutral, public criteria."

Well, we know what Nietzsche thought of this framing: that it valorised suffering and weakness and distorted life. — Tom Storm

My familiarity with Neitzche is mostly second-hand, but I think that his critique may not land against the framing given above. That framing does not valorize suffering and weakness; it valorizes fidelity to truth, love and goodness despite suffering and weakness.

Earlier you used the term reductive to critique my comments (and this isn’t intended as any kind of attack, just a friendly word game), but couldn’t it be said that this formulation is also reductive, in that it ignores the contours of the text and reduces the story to ethical symbolism? — Tom Storm

I think Allison would push back on the charge that he's reduced the story to mere ethical symbolism. I think that he'd acknowledge that the cruxifiction has multiple dimensions— theological, eschatological, political, moral—but that its moral axis is the condemnation of judgment and violence and that the other dimensions revolve around that axis rather than override it.

I suspect he'd also push back on the notion that his interpretations ignore the contours of the text. Allison is the co-author of a three-volume, 2400 page commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that is widely regarded as one of the best scholarly treatments available. I bring this up not as an appeal to authority, or to say this exempts him from criticism, but merely to point out that he is world-renowned for the depth of his engagement with the texts.

Plenty of other versus to draw from, but when I read key passages like Mark 10:45:

“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." I feel ritual sacrifice is central to the story. — Tom Storm

Here are some brief thoughts with regard to the interpretation of that verse:

(1) In the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds of the first century CE the word "ransom" primarily referred to a price paid to liberate captives, or the cost of freeing slaves or prisoners. In that context, paying a ransom is an act that releases others from domination.

(2) Mark 10, the chapter in which the verse is situated, is not a cultic discussion, but a discussion about power. The disciples are arguing about status, greatness and who gets to rule. Jesus responds by contrasting gentile rulers who “lord it over” others with his own model of authority as service to others.

(3) Seen in context, then, Mark 10:45 does not seem to be answering: “How does God forgive sins metaphysically?” It is answering: “What kind of power does God exercise, and what kind of Messiah is Jesus?” The answer is not domination, violence or coercion, but self-giving service, even unto death.

(4) The phrase “to give his life” evokes a voluntary self-offering, not divine extraction. Nothing in Mark suggests God needs blood, demands violence, or is appeased by suffering. The "giving" is Jesus’s fidelity to his mission in the face of violent resistance. That coheres nicely with the “condemnation of violence” reading.

(5) It's noteworthy that the author of Mark never specifies to whom the ransom is paid. Later atonement theories fill in the blank, but the text itself doesn’t.

(6) With the resurrection, God vindicates the executed one. The system that killed him is exposed and violence is judged, not justified. Seen in this light the meaning of the resurrection becomes: "liberation is costly because the world violently resists it — and God sides with the one who bears that cost". That is not blood-fetishism, but moral realism.

I don't know exactly how Allison would respond to this. I suspect he would say something like "I think my interpretation is better grounded than alternatives, and I am prepared to defend that claim even if it is ultimately not coercively demonstrable by appeal to neutral, public criteria." — Esse Quam Videri

Hmm, almost anyone can make that point and then go on to assert virtually anything about a given matter with impunity.

There are few things more tedious than debates about the meaning of Bible verses, so I apologise for even raising Mark, which interestingly never presents us with a resurrected Christ.

With the resurrection, God vindicates the executed one. The system that killed him is exposed and violence is judged, not justified. Seen in this light the meaning of the resurrection becomes: "liberation is costly because the world violently resists it — and God sides with the one who bears that cost". That is not blood-fetishism, but moral realism. — Esse Quam Videri

I’m not convinced by this account, but it’s nicely argued. Perhaps it's a bit too small to fully explain the significance of the crucifixion, or why an omnipotent God would find it necessary to undergo such a ritual to make a point about violence that seems largely lost on the religion inspired by the story; particularly given the extreme brutality the Church has employed over the centuries in imposing its vision.

But I’ll include this in my list of potential interpretations and, in time, perhaps further material will emerge that will make sense of this story. Maybe we need a competition for the best interpretation of the story. Apologies to we should probably stop here.

Hmm, almost anyone can make that point and then go on to assert virtually anything about a given matter with impunity. — Tom Storm

That wasn't quite what I was getting at. The point was to acknowledge the possibility of reasonable disagreement, not to license unconstrained assertion.

I’m not convinced by this account, but it’s nicely argued. — Tom Storm

Fair enough. Thanks for the discussion.

or why an omnipotent God

If people are assuming an omnipotent God, when discussing what God is up to, all discussion is pointless.