"There were eye-witnesses"

[Zzyzx]

.
Some bible stories are claimed to be truthful "because there were eye-witnesses". Does that establish the truth of the story?

If a person claims to have run a mile in two minutes and says "there were eye-witnesses" does that establish the claim as legitimate – if the witnesses cannot be identified – if no statements from witnesses are available – if credibility of the witnesses is unknown?

If there actually was a witness report of the water-to-wine incident, is there any assurance that what they saw was not an illusion (keeping in mind that illusionists even today can perform "magical" feats that convince many observers)?

If the claim defies what we know of the real world, does witness testimony (or claim "there were witnesses") override real world considerations? Is a two-minute-mile any less believable than "arose from the dead" or "walked on water" or "calmed storms by command?"

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 58 by ElCodeMonkey]
OK, let's focus on Howard M. Teeple. His views have been peer-reviewed, and they're out there for forty and more years. He was never a professor, so academia could (and largely did) ignore him. I'm still unaware of any serious attempt to refute him. The two scholars who were critical (Dwight Moody Smith and Robert Kysar) changed their minds decades later and now speak only well of him.

OK. I did a little checking while trying to find an ebook version. Amazon has 5 reviews, all 5 stars but one. The one was revealing. Here's a bit of the beginning and the last sentence of the review.

By GangstaLawya:

The author is not offering anything new. He merely repacks higher criticism and tries to sell it to his generation. Higher criticism relies on two sources: (1)Hume's argument against miracles; (2)denying the reliability of biblical documents (This book is principally against the reliability of the New Testament). The author repacks these arguments and tries to find the weakest link in Christian tradition, which is its Scriptures. The method employed is higher criticism. With regard to Hume's argument against miracles, I recommend "Hume's Abject Failure" by John Earman or "Miracles" by C. S. Lewis.
....
Don't follow Teeple into hell. It isn't worth it.

Sounds like it could be a fun ride ... er ... read.

[Student]

[Replying to post 62 by Danmark]

Hi Danmark
I think you may be referring to Teeple’s “How Did Christianity Really Begin?: A Historical-Archaeological Approach�, which is not the work to which Korah refers.

Korah referred to Teeple’s “The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John�.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Literary-Orig ... ospel+john

There is only one review on Amazon; 5 stars, by one Dale Adams (aka Korah).

Kysars review of the book, published in the Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol 93, No 2, June 1974, doesn’t give if 5 stars.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 63 by Student]
Thanks, Student,
You are really astute.
Yes, you did find the main review on Teeple's 1974 book by Kysar, supplemented by his 1975 book that also downplayed Teeple. As I said, however, decades later Kysar rescinded his hostility. He wrote Voyages in John in 2005. Dwight Moody Smith's book on Bultmann likewise hindered Teeple, but he too decades later acknowledged he had been wrong about Teeple. Maybe Teeple had an abrasive personality that could only be forgiven after he was dead?

[Korah]

Let's drop the whole 'peer review' thing and focus on the crux of the matter shall we ?

Evidence for eye-witnesses, regardless of the evidential quality of an eyewitness account .

A modest proposal indeed. Quite conducive to a productive discussion.
However, some ground rules would need to be set first.
1. We would need to ask of Christians of more conservative beliefs that they not insist that the four gospels were necessarily originally written basically as they read today nor by the traditional authors.
2. We would need to ask of atheists and other convinced non-Christians that they not dismiss out-of-hand any source texts that speak of events they "know" could not have happened. That is, if a supposed eyewitness tells of miracles that seem to require divine intervention, we still can discuss whether an eyewitness is telling this.

Are we on neutral territory here? 1. Not like Christian Forums where non-Christians are not allowed to debate in apologetics threads. 2. Not like FreeThoughtandRationalismDiscussionBoard (and EarlyChristianWritings.com to some extent as well) where supernaturalism is dismissed.

[Danmark]

Let's drop the whole 'peer review' thing and focus on the crux of the matter shall we ?

Evidence for eye-witnesses, regardless of the evidential quality of an eyewitness account .

A modest proposal indeed. Quite conducive to a productive discussion.
However, some ground rules would need to be set first.
1. We would need to ask of Christians of more conservative beliefs that they not insist that the four gospels were necessarily originally written basically as they read today nor by the traditional authors.
2. We would need to ask of atheists and other convinced non-Christians that they not dismiss out-of-hand any source texts that speak of events they "know" could not have happened. That is, if a supposed eyewitness tells of miracles that seem to require divine intervention, we still can discuss whether an eyewitness is telling this.

Are we on neutral territory here? 1. Not like Christian Forums where non-Christians are not allowed to debate in apologetics threads. 2. Not like FreeThoughtandRationalismDiscussionBoard (and EarlyChristianWritings.com to some extent as well) where supernaturalism is dismissed.

There is some validity to this approach.
But will you agree that for extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence should be produced?

If I line up 20 witnesses who all say that yesterday they observed a man turn a bucket of water into a lamppost, then the lamppost disappeared and no one can duplicate the trick the next day, are we not being fair to give heightened scrutiny to that claim?

If the same 20 witnesses say they saw the sun appear to set at 6:32 in the evening, are we not justified in accepting their testimony [on condition the time for sunset at their location is independently agreed to have been at 6:32?

Particularly when the next day they say the sun appeared to set at 6:33 and this too is predicted and verified by independent sources?

Can't we agree that eye witness testimony that coincides with natural phenomena presents far less of a credibility challenge than does testimony to an event that violates everything we know about how things work in the natural world?