D’Souza’s Apologetic Fallacy  I've never been to Israel. I'd like to go. Is it good? >> All right, let's see it. It's well worth going. You have to go with a kind of a mission. And and the mission we went with is we've heard about all these remarkable discoveries in biblical archaeology that thousands of years later are taking people who are only in the Bible. They've been in the Bible for centuries and now they are jumping into the pages of history like via the pathway of archaeology. So an apologetic fallacy that I'm seeing more and more frequently these days and the specific fallacy is the false presupposition or the loaded premise is this notion that there was a person there was a place there was an event that is described in the Bible and for centuries critical scholars said that person didn't exist that place didn't exist that thing didn't happen until some archaeological discovery occurs and now critical scholars all are forced to overturn the consensus and are forced to now acknowledge that the person did exist, the place did exist, the thing did happen. And you can probably count the number of times that that has happened in the last century and a half on one hand. It is very rare when that happens. And usually when apologists bring this up, they're just lying about the notion that this thing was rejected prior to the archaeological discovery. So when you see apologists make that claim, you should be skeptical about the notion that whatever they're going to talk about was rejected by scholars prior to a given archaeological discovery. >> So if you go in search of that, I think you'll find it endlessly fascinating. What's the best example of someone leaping out of archaeology in a scripture? Pontius Pilate was for 2,000 years in the Bible, but he was only in the Bible. there was no extra biblical or non-biblical verification. >> So, here is the false presupposition or the loaded premise, the notion that there is no extra biblical verification of the existence of Pontius Pilate. This is simply not true. Not only do we have Josephus writing in the '90s CE, speaking at length about details of Pilate's tenure in Judea, talking about multiple different episodes. But we even have Pho of Alexandria who was a contemporary of Pilate writing about Pilate in his text embassy to gas which is about an embassy to Caligula to complain about setting up a statue in the temple. Pho Roman ruler who actually acquiesced to Jewish demands showing that even someone like Pilate could recognize the autonomy of the Jewish people. So we have two separate Jewish historians writing in the first century CE who discuss details of Pilate's tenure in Judea and because of that critical scholars have never doubted the existence of Pontius Pilate. We have always had that extra biblical witness to the existence and the rule of Pilate in Judea. So to the degree that Duza here is suggesting that his existence was ever doubted or was doubtful or lacked any kind of extra biblical witness that is false. Now if Duza had said we had no direct archaeological confirmation of pilot that would be more accurate but more in line with the apologetic fallacy Duza is trying to present this as if this was some kind of discovery that overturned our reconstruction of this history that this somehow proved everybody wrong about whether or not pilot existed. That's the way this is being presented and that presentation is entirely false. >> And then while they're digging in the area called Cesaria Maritima, out comes a stone tablet out of the ground and written on it Pontius Pilate, prefect of Israel, a prefect of Judah. But anyway, the point is it made it really clear this was Rome's man in Israel. And in fact, it gave him the exact same title that he was assigned in the Bible. And suddenly, Pontius Pilate is now an accepted historical figure. There it is again. The false presupposition, the loaded premise, the fallacy of this particular apologetic grift. In order for this to be more significant, the apologist has to insist that it changed things. Now, suddenly, because of the discovery of this inscription, Pontius Pilate is now an accepted historical figure. There was never a point during which Pontious Pilot was not an accepted historical figure. This discovery gave us for the first time ever direct archaeological attestation to Pontius Pilate's rule in Judea. But because of the writings of Pho and Josephus, critical scholars have always accepted the existence and the rule of Pontius Pilate in Judea. This is just part of the apologetic grift. And the fit for this video has been Jim Le's X-Men., D’Souza’s Apologetic Fallacy, YouTube, 01kd3naabfsy2yzg9neatnfcp6.