This was a great debate on
God and
morality. Bradly say Gods isn't the source of morality and Flannagan says God is the source of reality. I was hoping that Bradley would make a new argument, but he didn't. However Flannagan does advance a theory that is new to me relatively speaking. He was interviewed by Brian Auten earlier this week and it came up again. The argument was that there was no "
genocide" in Canaan because Bible does not say that
Israel killed everyone - even children - and instead follows the history literature in Ancient tradition of hyperbole. The equivalent of chanting "We won! You lost!! You ate the applesauce!!!" I'm not certain that I buy the argument but I want to read his work to try to understand more about his argument. I think it is an interesting point and I want to know more. Thankfully Brian Auten did post a link to Flannagan's blog post on his arguments about the
Canaanites in his interview with Flannagan. I was also distressed about
Biblical inerrancy was not really addressed. Bradley kept hammering with it and it wasn't really answered. This is where I believe a Presuppositional approach would have been handy.with that you can argue that the Bible is true and you have good reason to accept it. Bradly is correct that the Bible is where this rises or falls.
Apologetics 315: Matthew Flannagan vs. Raymond Bradley Debate: Is God the Source of Morality? MP3 Audio
OK, so genocide was an exageration but resurrection was not. Keep telling yourself whatever you need to help make this stuff make sense...
ReplyDeleteIt's a theory I have not embraced, but don't hold back, say how you really feel about it.
ReplyDeleteRyan you seem to be saying that its absurd to consider the "conquest" account hyperbolic and the ressurection literal. Do you have any actual reason for this claim?
ReplyDeleteMy view is that we have reasons for thinking the conquest account is hyperbolic specifically in that the context suggests this as does the literary conventions governing ancient near eastern history texts of the sort Joshua is.
Do you have comparative evidence for a hyperbolic reading of the Gospels, which were not written according to the conventions of ANE history? Or is this you just making bold assertions.
Nope, he doesn't
ReplyDeleteWell, for one, we know genocides actually occur yet and we have no evidence that resurrections actually occur, apart from 2nd hand, non-contemporary, non-eyewitness accounts.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the technical conventions of ancient near east history are, but I know the gospels "read" different than Josephus, Herodotus or Livy.
And Matt; to be fair, I think both events were exaggerations. It's not likely the Hebrews would have let their enemies livestock or virgins go to waste.
ReplyDeleteBut shame on them for pretending that God told them to do it.
Ryan, that's a silly drum to beat. The gospels are not 2nd hand or non-contemporaneous to Jesus' life and ministry. They are dated well within the times contemporaneous people would still have been living.
ReplyDeleteAnd since you don't know the "the technical conventions of ancient near east history" as well as Matt does, maybe you should study his work and the history before making a hard fast judgment.
Well, Luke is most certainly second hand. The author admits it in the first verse.
ReplyDeleteMarcus said They are dated well within the times contemporaneous people would still have been living.
People who were babies at the time, maybe...
Um no. Take Mark. The earliest date some give is 40 AD....7-12 years after the Resurrection.
ReplyDeleteAnd Luke was an eye witness to many evens in Acts. That mean he was contemporaneous with the first apostles.
ReplyDeleteRyan
ReplyDeleteYou write Well, for one, we know genocides actually occur yet and we have no evidence that resurrections actually occur, apart from 2nd hand, non-contemporary, non-eyewitness accounts. That confuses questions, here you are addressing the question of wether what the text say occured actually did occur. But thats not the question I was addressing, what I was asking was wether the text actually says the events occured in the first place.
We know that humans kill other people, it does not follow from this that when a basketball team says "we slaughtered the enemy" they are not speaking hyperbolically. Similarly we know that elvis is probably dead, it does not follow from this that people who claim he is alive are not speaking literally. The question of wether a statement is literal or figurative is not the same as wether its true or false. Its funny how both fundamentalists and athiests seem to miss this.
The issue is what the language and literary conventions governing such texts suggest. I have argued that with the Genocide passages the evidence suggests a non literal reading.
I note you have ignored this evidence.
So I ask you again, do you have any evidence that such conventions dictate a literalistic for these passages and do you have similar evidence that the gospel stories are figurative?
You write
but I know the gospels "read" different than Josephus, Herodotus or Livy.
Actually, a lot of studies show that the do follow the same literary conventions of greek biography like Plutarch. I take it then that you think Plutarch did not intend his account of Alexander the great to assert that the major events in Alexanders life actually happend?
Perhaps you should just admit you shot your mouth off and engaged in ridicule before thinking.
Marcus said "The earliest date some give is 40 AD....7-12 years after the Resurrection."
ReplyDeleteYeah, maybe... some... possibly... but the part of Mark that actually addresses the resurrection is probably from the 3rd century.
ds said "it does not follow from this that when a basketball team says "we slaughtered the enemy" they are not speaking hyperbolically."
ReplyDeleteds, I'm assuming you are Matt. Remember the part where I said I agreed the Hebrews probably exaggerated?
I take it then that you think Plutarch did not intend his account of Alexander the great to assert that the major events in Alexanders life actually happend?
You are aware that Plutarch is not exactly known to be the most accurate because of his chosen style?
Ryan, once again you seem to be evading the point.
ReplyDeleteI asked: "I take it then that you think Plutarch did not intend his account of Alexander the great to assert that the major events in Alexanders life actually happend? "
You respond with
"You are aware that Plutarch is not exactly known to be the most accurate because of his chosen style?"
But that does not address my question. I did not ask whether Plutarch was historically accurate in every detail. I asked whether he purported to assert the major events in Alexanders life occured. If he did then the Gospels which are written in the same Genre should not be read in way where they do not purport that the major events in Jesus's life did not occur.
ANE history writing is different. We know that in ancient near eastern history writing it was common for people to describe a skirmish in which their side won (often narrowly) in terms of killing every single member of the other sides nation and leaving no survivors and so on, this was not intended to be taken as a literal description by the authors. We also know that when the bible does use this language the author tells us latter in the text that the people in question were not literally wiped out.
So contrary to your initial claim, it's quite sensible to interpret the Gospels as purporting to tell us that Christ rose and also to interpret Joshua as hyperbolic and not to assert that Genocide occurred. Its called reading texts in context.
Matt; I don’t believe it’s an all or nothing proposition as you are trying to set it up to be. Plutarch tried to write as accurate of a history as possible given the literary and thematic constraints imposed on his work by his chosen agenda. What was going on in his head when he tried to connect Alexander and Julius? I have no idea, but I think it’s safe to say he must have known that pieces and parts were less than 100% accurate. In short, Plutarch had an agenda and historical accuracy suffered as a result. We know much less about the intentions of the actual gospels authors then we do about Plutarch, but agenda is obvious as well. So no, in my opinion it’s not sensible to interpret any of the fantastic elements of the Gospels as fact. And the same would go for the genocides in the Old Testament, as you rightly point out.
ReplyDeletePlutarch was not a good choice to hang your argument on.
Ryan, Matt is not setting up an all or nothing proposition but I think you do if you are trying to argue that if we take Joshua saying that they killed everyone as hyperbole then we have to take the miracles and the resurrection as hyperbole or fabrication.
ReplyDeleteThe Gospel writers including Luke and John are very clear as to their intentions of writing their Gospels. Why would you say that we know Plutarch's motivations but so little about theirs? Luke and John don't seem to think that they are exaggerating anything.
Marcus; Still trying to misrepresent any position contrary to your own, I see. I haven’t decided if you do that out of malice, laziness or incompetence. I didn't say Joshua (or 1st Samuel or Exodus, or other random OT horribleness etc...) is an exaggeration therefore the Gospels are exaggerated. Please reread.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not mistaken (and because I don't want to misrepresent his position☺), Matt is saying Plutarch and/or the Anonymous Gospel Authors could only write what they thought was either 100% truth or 100% fiction. Or maybe he’s not saying that but that seems to be the implication. Apparently it's not possible for someone to write something that looks like history and is honestly intended as history, that isn't quite history.
If you look at the four gospels comparatively, you’ll see different agendas, John making an effort to show his divinity, Matthew that he’s the king of the Jews, etc… Agendas have a way of introducing inaccuracies, and one should be cautious of using agenda driven narratives as history, as we can clearly see with Plutarch (and as we should see with the Gospels).
Actually, Ryan I wasn't trying to misrepresent you at all. Based on what you said.,..that is what it seemed like to me what you are saying. You said you don't think either the old testament and the Gospels are true history. Why? You are basically saying that you think Plutarch and the writers of the Gospels wrote histories that they knew were wrong with the intention to deceive? or why? If you are saying that the writers of the Gospels embellished what happened, knowing that it did not happen, then you are saying they exaggerated. How have i misrepresented you?
ReplyDeleteAs for Matthew to prove Jesus had the right to the Throne of Israel and the Jesus is God ion John. Theses motivations are only a problem if these ideas were not true or supported by reported events that did not happen. I don't think you can prove that they didn't.
Marcus said "Ryan I wasn't trying to misrepresent you at all. Based on what you said.,..that is what it seemed like to me what you are saying. You said you don't think either the old testament and the Gospels are true history."
ReplyDeleteThat's all well and good, but what you said was "you are trying to argue that if we take Joshua saying that they killed everyone as hyperbole then we have to take the miracles and the resurrection as hyperbole or fabrication."
Notice the if/then? I'm in no way arguing that if Joshua is exagerated, then the Gospels must be too.
I think a more important question then if Plutarch meant his history of Alexander to be taken as fact is did Plutarch mean for his history of Theseus to be taken as fact?
And Plutarch's intent really doesn't matter in the end, does it. Should we take his history of Theseus as fact? And if not, why should we take an ancient, 2nd hand account of a guy raising the dead as fact?
Ryan, before we go farther are you arguing "if/then" here?
ReplyDeleteAnd Plutarch's intent really doesn't matter in the end, does it. Should we take his history of Theseus as fact? And if not, why should we take an ancient, 2nd hand account of a guy raising the dead as fact?
If we don't take Plutarch's history of Theseus as fact, then we should not take the Gospels as fact? Is that your argument?
Are you trying to obfuscate?
ReplyDeleteThe only if/then argument I am making is that if a non-eyewitness account has fantastic elements then then it should be read skeptically, especially the fantastic elements.
The only connection between Plutarch (and in Matt's case, Joshua) and the Gospels I would make would be to illustrate the Theists natural skeptisism to everything that falls outside their chosen beliefs. I guess it's similar to John Loftus' outsider test of faith (or whoever came up with it). It certainly shouldn't be a deal breaker for the theist, but it should cause introspection.