Try to imagine the most compelling miracle story possible. Here’s one; tell me what you think:

I met Jesus yesterday. At first, I didn’t believe who he was, but he turned my lawn furniture from steel into gold. I just got back from a dealer who assayed the furniture, confirmed that it was solid gold, and bought it. Over 200 pounds of gold at $1355 per ounce works out to be close to $4.5 million. Guess who’s a believer now!

Compare this story against the gospels

Would you buy this miracle story? I’m sure I’ve convinced no one, and yet, as miracle stories go, this one is pretty compelling. It beats the gospel story, for example. Compare the two:

Taking the claim at face value, the time from event to the first writing was one day. There is no chance for legendary accretion. Compare this to 40 years and more with the gospels.

The time from original document to our oldest complete copy is zero days. Compare this to almost 300 years for the gospels. That’s a lot of time for copyist hanky-panky.

The cultural gulf to cross to understand this miracle claim is nonexistent. Compare this to our Greek copies of the gospels from around 350 CE, through which we must infer the Jewish/Aramaic facts of the Jesus story from around 30 CE.

This story claims to be an eyewitness account. The argument for the gospels being eyewitness accounts is very tenuous.

It uses a well-known and widely accepted deity. Compare this to Christianity, which must imagine that the Jewish god had Jesus in mind from the start and that that whole Jewish thing was just throat clearing before the main event.

Have I convinced anyone yet? If not, then why is the gospel story still convincing when I’ve beaten it on every point?

The Christian response

Let’s consider some responses from skeptical Christians. They might point to important elements of the gospel story: what about the terrified disciples who became confident after seeing Jesus, the conversions of former enemies Paul and James, or the empty tomb?

Okay, so you want a longer story? It’s hard to imagine that simply adding details and complications can make a story more believable, but I can give you that. Let’s suppose that the story were gospel-sized and included people who initially disbelieved but became convinced.

You say Jesus doesn’t make appearances like this anymore? Okay, make it some other deity—someone known or unknown. You pick.

You say that these claims are so recent that they demand evidence—photos, a check from the gold dealer, samples of the gold lawn furniture? Okay, then change the story to make the evidence inaccessible. Maybe now we imagine it taking place 200 years ago. Hey, it’s just words on (virtual) paper. Whatever additional objection you have, reshape the story to resolve the problem.

And yet if you were presented with this carefully sculpted story, you’d still be unconvinced. But why? What besides tradition or presuppositions of the rightness of the Christian position makes that more believable?

Example #2

Let’s make one last attempt with a more historical example to convince the Christian of an ancient miracle story. Imagine that we’ve uncovered a cache of Chinese documents from 2000 years ago. They claim miracles similar to those found in the gospels. Here are the remarkable facts of this find.

Christian response #2

Here again, the claims of our imaginary find trounce every equivalent Christian claim. But our Christian skeptic has several plausible responses.

These Chinese authors were lying, and they actually weren’t eyewitnesses. Maybe they even had an agenda. This is just words on paper, after all. Who knows if they’re true, especially if they’re incredible?

They were confused, mistaken, or sloppy in their reporting. We can’t guarantee that an author from prescientific China recorded the facts without bias. Perhaps they were constrained by their worldview and unconsciously shoehorned what they saw to fit what they thought they ought to see.

We can’t prove that the claims are wrong, but so what? That’s not where the burden lies. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this story simply doesn’t have it.

Gee, I dunno. It’s an impressive story, but that’s all it is. This is implausible, unrepeatable evidence that can’t overturn what modern science tells us about how the world works.

This Christian skeptic sounds just like me. These are the same objections that I’d raise. So why not show this kind of skepticism for the Christian account?

The honest Christian must avoid the fallacy of special pleading—having a tough standard of evidence for historical claims from the other guy but a lower one for his own. “But you can’t ask for videos or newspaper accounts of events 2000 years ago” is true but irrelevant. It amounts to “I can’t provide adequate evidence, so you can’t hold that against me.”

Ah, but we do.

Some Christians will point to Christianity’s popularity as evidence, but surely they can’t be saying that the number one religion must be true. When the number of Muslims exceeds that of Christians, which is expected to happen at shortly after 2050, will you change? Popularity doesn’t prove accuracy.

We need a consistently high bar of evidence for supernatural claims, both for foreign claims as well as those close to our heart.

If Christ has not been raised,

our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

— 1 Corinthians 15:14

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 11/14/12.)

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