Am I “Cooked” by My Own Claims?  Funny how skepticism only shows up when Jesus enters the scene. >> All right, let's see it. >> I think it's likely that there are probably some things that are written in red in the New Testament that are close approximations, if not exactly what the historical Jesus said. But the overwhelming majority of the words written in red are probably alterations or inventions that came after Jesus's death. And we do not have anything remotely approximating an objective or reliable way of determining which words are which. So when people say Jesus said this and they quote the New Testament, what they really are saying is this author attributed this to Jesus. If Dan's logic works and we can't know what anyone in antiquity said ever. >> So, this is a ridiculous straw man that entirely ignores what I actually said in that video and replaces it with a more ridiculous claim that we can't ever know what anyone in antiquity ever said. And that's just not my claim. You have to look at figures on a case-bycase basis. And in the case of Jesus, we don't have anything that could plausibly be a firsthand account of something Jesus said, written by someone who actually heard him say it. We have no such witnesses whatsoever. At best, we have secondhand accounts written by people who are receiving traditions about what Jesus said, and they have no way of going and verifying the accounts that they have received. And so we can't know for sure the relationship that any of the reportage that comes down to us through the gospels might have had to words that Jesus actually said. We just don't know. But even if we did have firsthand accounts, there could have been alteration. We wouldn't know for sure that they were reporting the actual words that Jesus said as he actually said them. Now, if we had texts that purported to be Jesus's own writings, that would be a slightly different story. There would still be skepticism, but it would be a different kind of evidence. So, what we have in the gospels is a specific type of evidence and we have to treat it a specific way because it is that specific type of evidence. And when it comes to that specific type of evidence, we just don't have anything remotely approximating an objective way to demonstrate that the letters in red actually corresponded to the exact things that Jesus said. There's just not a way to do that. >> We can't know what Socrates taught. We can't know what Augustine taught. We can't know what Alexander the Great said. We can't know what Julius Caesar said because we know about these people from later sources who wrote about them. >> I would say there's a degree to which that's absolutely true and that's how historians approached these figures. However, there are also different kinds of evidence for each of these figures. You mentioned Socrates, Augustine, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar. We don't have any writings that purport to come from Socrates. We have references to Socrates from at least four different major sources. And Plato's writings are the main source for what Socrates might have taught. But they all represent Socrates in slightly different ways. And so I think the majority view, the consensus view of classicists is that Socrates existed. And we get a kind of gist of what Socrates taught from our different sources. And Plato provides the most information, but Plato is also interpreting Socrates and representing Socrates in ways that are rhetorically useful to Plato. And so the majority of what Socrates said that comes down to us through Plato is probably much like what we have about Jesus, literary creation or alteration. Now, Plato likely did know Socrates and so had firthand knowledge of a lot of what Socrates said, unlike what we have with Jesus. But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of classes still treat with skepticism the accounts of what Socrates said that come down to us through Plato. So, the notion that we treat this evidence differently is just not true. Now, when it comes to Augustine, we have a number of very long texts that were purported to have been written by Augustine himself. And so, that's a different type of evidence. Now, the manuscripts that we have are from much later time periods and sometimes later translations. And so, there's a degree to which we have to reconstruct what we think the original text was. But once we get to that original text, there's a pretty close correspondence between that original text and what Augustine actually wrote. So we have a much much much clearer idea of what Augustine actually said because we have the words that are purported to come directly from him, written down by him or at least dictated by him. So that's a different kind of evidence when it comes to Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. While the biographies that we have come from much later, they rely on firsthand accounts of what Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar happened to have done and said. So there is a different type of evidence available to us in those biographies. A type of evidence that the majority of scholars agree is not extant in the text of the New Testament. And so we treat Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar slightly differently. We also have coins from their uh tenurs. We have some inscriptions about declarations that seem to have come from them or from their administrations at least. So we have a lot of different kinds of evidence. And so while I think it is still true that we cannot say we know that every word attributed to these figures is exactly the words that fell from their mouth or from their pen. There are different degrees to which we can say we know what they said. And I think Augustine is the one where we have the strongest case to make for things that he said because we have manuscripts of texts that were written by Augustine. Now does that mean that there's no such thing as a text where we're like maybe Augustine didn't write this or maybe this has been elaborated on? No. That can absolutely be the case. But there is skepticism applied to all of these folks to differing degrees depending on the type of evidence that exists. So the notion that the skepticism changes only because it's Jesus is laughably ignorant. That's just not how this works at all. And this betrays that you really know nothing about the historioggraphical treatment of these figures and how historians and classicists and biblical scholars approach these figures. >> So you're left with two options. You either abandon all ancient history or you acknowledge that the historical methods actually work, which Dan selectively uses most of the time. The notion that these are the two options is just bafflingly stupid because what does it mean to say acknowledge that the historical method most of the time works? I don't think this content creator knows what the historical method is and I don't think this content creator knows what it means for the historical method to work because much of the time the historical method working means we're not sure but we have a better idea and the notion that the alternative is to just say well we're going to throw our hands up and not do history anymore is so just asinine and I don't perfectly apply the historical method. Nobody can, but I think I do a pretty consistent job. And the notion that I'm just imposing skepticism whenever it comes to Jesus and I'm not imposing skepticism when it comes to any other figures is again laughable. That's just not true. Anybody who knows an appreciable amount about my channel knows that that's just not true. I frequently apply skepticism to things where people who would consider themselves on my side of the aisle would prefer I didn't. I get criticism from all across the entire spectrum of belief and non-belief as well as support because I think a lot of people understand I'm trying my best to be consistent and a lot of people don't like that I'm trying my best to be consistent. But the notion that I am selectively applying skepticism uh I think is just ludicrous. You see, his argument is not standard historical reasoning. >> Uh, yes it is. >> And it's actually hypers skepticism. And the majority of historians reject this. >> Yeah, that's just not true. >> The historians actually evaluate things based on this criteria. Multiple independent sources, early dating, embarrassment, enemy attestation, archaeological corroboration, oral cultural reliability, not something was written later, therefore it can't be true. So that's not a criterion that I have applied. However, you'll notice that the second criterion on that list, early dating, is one of the things that points to increased skepticism for the gospel accounts because they come from several decades after the events they purport to narrate. However, that list looks like an AI generated summary of criteria of authenticity which are not that authoritative within historical Jesus research anymore. So, it sounds like this content creator is using outdated criteria and then ignoring the fact that my concerns actually are a direct outgrowth of many of those criteria and then is misrepresenting the only criterion that they imagine I am applying. So this is just an atrocious attempt to try to interrogate the criteria I am applying to the New Testament and to try to represent what actual historians actually do. This content creator is very clearly not a historian and very clearly does not know much about how historians work. If decades of distance makes something unreliable, then Dan can't know for sure what anyone in antiquity ever said. >> I mean, that's not very far off from how historians think about this, but that also misrepresents a lot of the evidence that comes down to us because we do have texts and artifacts that are contemporaneous with the figures that we're trying to interrogate. And we do have texts that were written by those figures. Now, the earliest manuscripts of those texts often have an awful lot of distance. And so, there's text critical stuff that comes into play. But frequently, those texts were actually originally written by the very figures we're trying to interrogate. But even when we trace the texts of the New Testament, or at least their manuscripts, back to when we think those texts were originally written, there still are decades of distance. And remember that early attestation criterion that was on this content creators list means that there is opportunity within the space of those decades for embellishment and for traditions to be altered and to be picked up by different people in different ways and to be passed on in different ways. So none of what's being presented here is actually complicating my position. this content creator is just misunderstanding and misrepresenting not only my position but also the criteria that they have presented. >> Yeah. With so much confidence he tells us what the early Christians taught, what Jews believed, what the scribes intended, what second temple Judaism was about. But he gets that information from the same sources we get our information from. So I would say both parts of this statement are not entirely accurate because I don't talk about what the scribes themselves actually believed. I talk about how the author of the Gospel of Mark or the author of the Gospel of John wanted to represent the scribes. And when it comes to using the same evidence as this content creator, I don't think this content creator uh explores near as much evidence as I and other historians do. But also, as a cognitive scientist of religion, I'm bringing an entirely different type of evidence to the questions as well because there is a gap between what these people believed and what is preserved in the text. Even if those people wrote the text themselves, frequently texts are not perfect reflections, isometric representations of what people believed because rhetorical goals come into play. But with the cognitive science of religion, I think we can cover a little bit of that gap by observing the way that the human mind works in relation to the package of things that we have decided to label religion. So, we can say when it comes to how people think about and talk about divine beings, here are some patterns that result from having to use a human mind that allow us to close a little bit of that gap. So, I'm bringing other types of evidence into these questions that I don't think this content creator uh really has access to or knows much about. But at the same time, the claims they're making about my claims are not actually accurate because I tend to be very very careful in ensuring I am distinguishing what someone might believe from what a text might claim particularly if there is substantial chronological distance or even socio cultural distance between a figure in a text and those actual figures in history. So the question actually becomes why does skepticism answer when Jesus is the topic? >> Uh the skepticism should always be the same. And I think I do a fairly decent job of being consistent about that. Again, I'm not perfect. Nobody can be. But the notion that the skepticism only comes into play when Jesus is in view is absolutely asinine. >> And if we can't know what Jesus said because the sources come decades later, then we can't really know what anyone in antiquity said. So yes and no. There's a degree to which there will always be uncertainty about precisely what somebody said when the best evidence we have is secondhand and comes from much later. But no, it's not just because it comes from much later. We have to look at the type of evidence that we have. We have to interrogate all the different kinds of evidence and we have to interrogate the methods and the theories that we're bringing to bear on the historical questions that we're asking of these sources. So, it's a lot more complex than this content creator is representing, but also, yeah, there's a degree to which that is true. We can't really know for sure most of the time precisely what a historical figure said, particularly when we don't have anything that we can confidently conclude is an actual firsthand account. >> And that is not scholarship. >> This content creator is obviously not in any kind of position to assess what is and isn't scholarship. >> That is Dan's own logic self-destructing on himself. >> Uh, no. This is this content creators sophomoric straw man fallacy betraying their naivity and their ignorance regarding the methods and the standards of an academic field about which they clearly know very little but on behalf of which they are presuming to speak authoritatively. But if you like this video, make sure you hit that like. You share us with a friend of you. Follow me for >> N. I'm good., Am I “Cooked” by My Own Claims?, YouTube, 01kkmebn8h2egzygpkjnnzhw03.