Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Recently Capturing Christianity suggested that the maximal data case for the Gospels is burdensome because (he alleged) you have to defend *all* these different things, including traditional authorship and undesigned coincidences, and if any of these arguments don't work, the case is "weakened."
I argue that this is backwards. These things are conduits for data that really is there and that really does raise the probability that the Gospels are reliable. Therefore, the more such conduits we have, the better. To say that the case is "weakened" if some part of a massively strong case were to fall through is, at best, a pointless tautology: If you had less evidence you'd have less evidence. Or it's like saying that if you had one less good friend than you in fact have, you'd have fewer good friends than you do have. But of course that doesn't mean that it would be less burdensome to have fewer good friends to begin with, because then you'd have fewer that you could (in principle) lose and you wouldn't have to worry about losing some of them.
Here's the "burden" comment on CC's stream:
youtu.be/n5wxSrxFzz0?si=QBr1WRJW5_5CtmJM&t=284
Here is the stream with Jonathan McLatchie and Tony Costa. Jonathan mentions this issue around minute 4:55.
youtube.com/watch?v=q3xlT0HXjmw&t=357s
Here is a closeup of the chart:
lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-chart-that-i-used-in-my-youtube.html
Recently Capturing Christianity suggested that the maximal data case for the Gospels is burdensome because (he alleged) you have to defend *all* these different things, including traditional authorship and undesigned coincidences, and if any of these arguments don't work, the case is "weakened."
I argue that this is backwards. These things are conduits for data that really is there and that really does raise the probability that the Gospels are reliable. Therefore, the more such conduits we have, the better. To say that the case is "weakened" if some part of a massively strong case were to fall through is, at best, a pointless tautology: If you had less evidence you'd have less evidence. Or it's like saying that if you had one less good friend than you in fact have, you'd have fewer good friends than you do have. But of course that doesn't mean that it would be less burdensome to have fewer good friends to begin with, because then you'd have fewer that you could (in principle) lose and you wouldn't have to worry about losing some of them.
Here's the "burden" comment on CC's stream:
youtu.be/n5wxSrxFzz0?si=QBr1WRJW5_5CtmJM&t=284
Here is the stream with Jonathan McLatchie and Tony Costa. Jonathan mentions this issue around minute 4:55.
youtube.com/watch?v=q3xlT0HXjmw&t=357s
Here is a closeup of the chart:
lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-chart-that-i-used-in-my-youtube.html
