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Category Archives: Apologists
Numismatic Evidence that Corroborates Suetonius’ Life of Otho and Contradicts the Gospels
To follow up on my previous review of Christian scholar Craig Keener’s “Otho: A Targeted Comparison” in Biographies and Jesus, I’d like to briefly discuss the relevance of numismatic evidence in evaluating Suetonius’ Life of Otho in comparison to the NT Gospels. … Continue reading
Nicholas Covington Reviews “The Case for Christ: The Movie”
Nicholas Covington, who blogs at Hume’s Apprentice, has recently written a review on Amazon of the new The Case for Christ movie edition. Covington’s review discusses issues such as the preponderance of post-mortem hallucinations in religious movements, the growing legendary … Continue reading
“Follow the Money”: Guest Blog by Michael Alter on Faith-Based Education and Publishing
Below is a guest blog by Michael Alter, author of The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry, which is a 912 page tome offering one of the most important contributions to challenging historical apologetics for the resurrection. During his research, Alter learned a … Continue reading
Bayesian Analysis of Craig Keener, “Otho: A Targeted Comparison”
Recently I received feedback from ancient historian Richard Carrier about my previous review of Craig Keener’s article–“Otho: A Targeted Comparison of Suetonius’ Biography and Tacitus’ History, with Implications for the Gospels’ Historical Reliability”–which is chapter 6 of Biographies and Jesus: What Does … Continue reading
Posted in Ancient Biography, Ancient Novel, Apologists, Classics, Guest Blogs, Historical Jesus, History, Philosophy, Reviews
Tagged Bayes' Theorem, Craig Keener, Richard Carrier
3 Comments
Review of Craig Keener, “Otho: A Targeted Comparison,” with Emphasis on the Citation of Eyewitness Sources and Textual Independence of Historical Biographers
While doing research on my dissertation, which works to situate the NT Gospels within the generic spectrum of Greco-Roman biography, one recent publication (October 2016) that has popped up on my radar is Craig Keener and Edward Wright’s new volume … Continue reading
Posted in Ancient Biography, Ancient Novel, Apologists, Classics, Historical Jesus, History, Reviews
Tagged Ancient Biography, Are the Gospels biographies?, Are the Gospels eyewitness accounts?, Are the Gospels historically reliable?, Are the Gospels like Plutarch?, Biographies of Jesus, Craig Keener, Historical reliability of the Gospels, Jesus
16 Comments
Dialogue with Vincent Torley over the Probability of Jesus’ Resurrection
Yesterday I wrote an extended response to apologist Vincent Torley’s OP–“Evidence for the Resurrection”–which was discussed recently in a post on John Loftus’ blog. In his OP, Torley argues that there is about a 60-65% subjective probability that Jesus rose … Continue reading
Posted in Apologists, Historical Jesus, Historical Paul, History, Philosophy, Replies to Critics, Resurrection
Tagged Apostle Paul, Bayes' Theorem, Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Christian Origins, Gospels, Hallucinations of Jesus, Historical Jesus, Jesus' Resurrection, Paul's Epistles, Post-Mortem Visions
24 Comments
Review of Craig Keener, “Miracles,” Continued: Why Is There a Greater Frequency of Miracles in the Gospels than in Greco-Roman Biographies and Historiography?
As we close the year 2015, I will be writing the third installment of my review of Craig Keener’s Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts here on Κέλσος. After this part I will also probably take a break from writing this … Continue reading
Review of Craig Keener, “Miracles,” Continued: Keener’s Complaints about the “Bias” of Biblical Scholars
As I stated in my previous post, I will be writing a multi-part review of Craig Keener’s Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts here on Κέλσος. Since Keener’s two volumes are very long, and there are a lot of issues that … Continue reading
Review of Craig Keener, “Miracles,” Part 1: What Evidence of Miracles Are Skeptics Searching for?
Over the last couple years I have been asked by multiple apologists and skeptics alike to take a look at Craig Keener’s Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Keener published his 1200+ pages, 2 volume set in 2011, … Continue reading
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