The Logic of Jesus and Paul is Flawed
Look at how Jesus argued on behalf of the resurrection: “And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spoke unto him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.” (Mark 12:26-27)
How this argument of Jesus’ is suppose to lead to the belief that the dead do in fact arise, is convoluted to say the least. This OT text, taken in its original context, is merely identifying the God that was speaking to Moses from out of the so-called burning bush. No one today, using our own contextual understandings, would ever conclude that God was proclaiming anything about a resurrection from the dead, even if Jesus and his contemporaries may have thought so.
Look at how Paul argued on behalf of the general resurrection of the dead:
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Christ has been raised. Therefore, there is a resurrection of the dead. (I Cor. 15:13).
Why does it follow merely from the fact that Christ arose that there shall be a general resurrection of the dead? There seems to be nothing in the belief that Jesus arose that would lead me to think that there is a general resurrection. It just might be the case that Jesus arose because he’s special and that’s it.
The answer for Paul is that Christ is the head of those who believe, just like Adam is the head of humanity (vs. 21-22). And what is true of the head will likewise be true of his followers. But this kind of inferential argument makes no sense in today’s world, no matter what Christian scholars say people believed in the past. Paul’s logic is flawed here. It could equally be argued by this same logic that since Jesus ascended into heaven, so also will all believers, since what is true of the head will likewise be true of his followers. But of course that logic doesn’t work because even in Paul’s day some Christians had already died and didn’t ascend into heaven as Jesus purportedly did from Mt. Olivet.
My position is that these ancient standards of reasoning are laughable in comparison to today's standards. So to continue believing what they tell us, when we know this about their standards, is utter foolishness. Furthermore, if we can determine from logic that the doctrines that result from their inadequate reasoning are incoherent, completely far-fetched, or even inconsistent, then their historical conclusions should be rejected.
Now here’s the rub. If I misapplied an OT text, or misquoted it to make a point, or if I used pesher, midrash, typological or allegorical methods today to understand the OT, or the Bible as a whole, Christians today would be the first ones to jump down my throat based upon the grammatical historical method.
Christians would say I do not have the authority to do what they did. Jesus could do it because he was God incarnate, and Matthew and Paul could do it because Jesus authorized them to do so. But I cannot, and neither can any other Christian today.
I simply argue that if the logic of NT people is so flawed, then we should not believe them when they go on to claim Jesus was an incarnate God who arose from the dead. If one is flawed, then so is the other. Both stem from a faulty and inadequate way of understanding the world and of assessing the evidence for or against any historical claim, much less a miraculous one.
To my argument here, James Patrick Holding, a self-proclaimed internet apologist, said: “What happened is that they knew from fact and history that Jesus was born of a virgin, etc, and then, to normalize it for those who respected the OT as Scripture, they sought out passages that could be read typologically to verify that such events were kosher. Events called out the texts, not vice versa.”
But this is the very question I’m asking; that is, how do we know “events called out the texts, not vice versa?” Based on the reasoning skills of these early founders of Christianity, and the whole lack of a historical consciousness, it is much more likely that OT texts called out the events that were to be told, not vice versa.
The NT writers made Jesus' life fit the details of their flawed understanding of the OT, and they arbitrarily used the OT to argue for their superstitious beliefs about Jesus.
Look at how Paul argued on behalf of the general resurrection of the dead:
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Christ has been raised. Therefore, there is a resurrection of the dead. (I Cor. 15:13).
Why does it follow merely from the fact that Christ arose that there shall be a general resurrection of the dead? There seems to be nothing in the belief that Jesus arose that would lead me to think that there is a general resurrection. It just might be the case that Jesus arose because he’s special and that’s it.
The answer for Paul is that Christ is the head of those who believe, just like Adam is the head of humanity (vs. 21-22). And what is true of the head will likewise be true of his followers. But this kind of inferential argument makes no sense in today’s world, no matter what Christian scholars say people believed in the past. Paul’s logic is flawed here. It could equally be argued by this same logic that since Jesus ascended into heaven, so also will all believers, since what is true of the head will likewise be true of his followers. But of course that logic doesn’t work because even in Paul’s day some Christians had already died and didn’t ascend into heaven as Jesus purportedly did from Mt. Olivet.
My position is that these ancient standards of reasoning are laughable in comparison to today's standards. So to continue believing what they tell us, when we know this about their standards, is utter foolishness. Furthermore, if we can determine from logic that the doctrines that result from their inadequate reasoning are incoherent, completely far-fetched, or even inconsistent, then their historical conclusions should be rejected.
Now here’s the rub. If I misapplied an OT text, or misquoted it to make a point, or if I used pesher, midrash, typological or allegorical methods today to understand the OT, or the Bible as a whole, Christians today would be the first ones to jump down my throat based upon the grammatical historical method.
Christians would say I do not have the authority to do what they did. Jesus could do it because he was God incarnate, and Matthew and Paul could do it because Jesus authorized them to do so. But I cannot, and neither can any other Christian today.
I simply argue that if the logic of NT people is so flawed, then we should not believe them when they go on to claim Jesus was an incarnate God who arose from the dead. If one is flawed, then so is the other. Both stem from a faulty and inadequate way of understanding the world and of assessing the evidence for or against any historical claim, much less a miraculous one.
To my argument here, James Patrick Holding, a self-proclaimed internet apologist, said: “What happened is that they knew from fact and history that Jesus was born of a virgin, etc, and then, to normalize it for those who respected the OT as Scripture, they sought out passages that could be read typologically to verify that such events were kosher. Events called out the texts, not vice versa.”
But this is the very question I’m asking; that is, how do we know “events called out the texts, not vice versa?” Based on the reasoning skills of these early founders of Christianity, and the whole lack of a historical consciousness, it is much more likely that OT texts called out the events that were to be told, not vice versa.
The NT writers made Jesus' life fit the details of their flawed understanding of the OT, and they arbitrarily used the OT to argue for their superstitious beliefs about Jesus.