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<\/a><\/p>\nAtheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog,\u00a0A Tippling Philosopher<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0His\u00a0\u201cAbout\u201d page<\/a>\u00a0from his former site states: \u201cPearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn\u00a0his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He has encouraged me to visit his site and offer critiques. Before he departed his former site at Patheos, he wrote under\u00a0a post dated 12-14-21<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cI even need to thank the naysayers. Some of them have put up with a lot of robust pushback and still they come. Bravery or stupidity \u2013 it\u2019s a fine line. But they are committed, and there is something to be said for taking that commitment into the lion\u2019s den. Dave, you are welcome at my new place. Come challenge me. All the best to you and thanks for your critiques of my pieces. Sorry I couldn\u2019t get to more of them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Again, at his new site (under\u00a0a post dated 1-27-22<\/a>), after a vicious attack by a commenter, calling for me and indeed\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0Christians to be banned, Jonathan offered an honorable and principled refusal:\u00a0\u201cI do welcome disagreements because I don\u2019t want [my blog] to [be] just an echo chamber. As long as it is good faith . . . someone like Armstrong does give me ammunition for some of my pieces! As long as they aren\u2019t trollish.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n His words below will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n This is a reply to his post, Christian apologetics and defending Matthew\u2019s guards<\/a> (1-31-22), which in turn is a response to my articles,\u00a0Pearce\u2019s Potshots #57: Matthew & the Tomb Guards<\/a> (1-28-22)\u00a0and Pearce\u2019s Potshots #58: Paul & Jesus\u2019 \u201cEmpty\u201d Tomb<\/a> (1-29-22).<\/p>\n There\u2019s something meta going on <\/span><\/p>\n Oooh! More conspiracies<\/em> underfoot?<\/p>\n when a Christian apologist takes aim at a biblical account of mine with some typical apologetics,\u00a0claiming I am making stuff up out of whole cloth when<\/span> I myself accused the Gospel writers (or apologists) of making stuff up out of whole cloth to defend themselves against Jewish accusations 2,000 years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Or perhaps this is not meta, but hypocrisy, as you will see.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes it is not only hypocrisy, but high irony, that Jonathan does what he falsely accuses Matthew of doing, or \u2014 to put it more mildly \u2014 offers no proof or evidence whatsoever that Matthew was doing what he accuses him of doing.<\/p>\n This all concerns a small section of narrative\u2014a pericope\u2014that is only found in one Gospel (Matthew) and looks very much like the author made it up to serve a purpose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Where is the hard historical evidence<\/em> that he did this? And lacking same, why is the hostile claim made in the first<\/em> place? Does Jonathan claim to be able to read the mind and discern the interior motivations of a Jewish writer from 1900+ years ago? If so, I hope he explains to all of us how that works<\/em>. Simply stating something and assuming it is compelling is not an intellectual argument.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure many \u2014 like myself \u2014 are waiting with baited breath to see this revelation of how Jonathan can read minds and motives at a distance. But don\u2019t hold<\/em> your breath, folks, because you\u2019ll be waitin\u2019 a long, LONG time.<\/p>\n Christians don\u2019t like such claims because, of course, it all has to be true!<\/span><\/p>\n Merely silly and useless comment. He believes very strongly what he does; so do I. My view \u201chas\u201d to be true as long as I believe there is sufficient epistemological reason and reason in general (of many sorts) to believe<\/em> it to be true (along with a reason for religious faith itself). That\u2019s how I\u2019ve always lived my life and how I have approached disputes of fact and clashing beliefs: which is why I\u2019ve changed my mind in many major ways throughout my life.<\/p>\n First let me again present the thesis I am proposing which is, just to confirm, constructed from the Gospel data and is drawing on a lot of pre-existent biblical criticism, <\/span><\/p>\n . . . which is itself<\/em> almost always arbitrary and pulled out of thin air. This is a major point I make throughout.<\/p>\n and not pulled out of thin air, my posterior, or constructed from whole cloth:<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, he gets it from theologically liberal or skeptical or atheist academics. Atheist arguments are almost always recycled and regurgitated and parroted from others. Very few of them are brand new. But these arguments from the big-name, fashionable academics among atheists must be substantiated<\/em> on their own, not just accepted because they have an axe to grind that Jonathan also happily wants to grind along with them.<\/p>\n As I wrote at the end of my previous reply to Jonathan<\/a>:<\/p>\n Paul is under no moral, logical, or \u201cliterary\u201d obligation to replicate all that the Gospels have about the empty tomb. They already covered that. Paul did mostly systematic theology, not recounting of events.<\/span><\/p>\n Knocking him for that is yet more of the silly argument from silence. I say that Paul stated pretty much what he should have been expected to say, given his purpose in his writing. The epistles were written for theological instruction and exhortation, not to reiterate the facts of the life of Jesus that Christians were already well familiar with.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n From this perspective, I don\u2019t see why we should \u201cexpect\u201d him to mention it. He referred to the \u201ctomb\u201d once, as I showed last time (Acts 13:29) and to Jesus\u2019 \u201cburial\u201d three more times in his epistles. It\u2019s much ado about nothing. He mentioned it. Because I dared to submit Acts 13:29 for Jonathan\u2019s consideration, he immediately upped the rhetoric and polemics a thousand-fold and melted down in his combox:<\/p>\n Wow, you are being willfully disingenuous. Please show me where Paul mentions the empty tomb or any of the narrative the gospels include about the empty tomb. You are being really dishonest here and skating close to the mark.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Lacking any compelling reason to question to question the authenticity of Acts 13:29 and Luke\u2019s record of what Paul preached in that instance, he immediately did what atheists almost always do when their particular claims are shown to be false: 1) make a huge<\/em> fuss, and 2) arbitrarily and with no provided compelling reason, deny that Acts 13:29 is a truthful accurate record of Paul\u2019s words. How do we know it\u2019s not accurate? As I wrote in my second reply back to Jonathan:<\/p>\n Luke\u2019s trustworthiness as an accurate reporter of all kinds of things in the book of Acts has been rather dramatically verified by archaeology, again and again. . . . This is the criterion for any other ancient historian: are the things they report independently verified or substantiated<\/em>?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s objective, hard evidence: the opposite<\/em> of what Jonathan is offering. One can quibble about how relatively strong each individual instance of this archaeological confirmation is, but it is<\/em> evidence.<\/p>\n 2. Mark, the first Gospel (written 40 years after the death of Jesus and some decades after Paul), mentions the empty tomb. But he adds an odd sequence at the end of his narrative that no other later Gospel writer adds. Indeed, they outright contradict the claim. He and his Gospel (later versions interpolate further details) with the women witnesses to the empty tomb leaving and specifically<\/em> not telling anyone about the empty tomb and what they had seen.<\/span> [five typos corrected]<\/p>\n 3. This very much appears to act as an explanation as to why his audience has not heard about the empty tomb\u2014because the women kept it a secret, of course! After all, we need to explain why he mentions this secret-keeping but all the other Gospels contradict this.<\/span><\/p>\n This is old ground that I have already covered. Word-search for the section \u201cJesus: Resurrection\u201d in my Armstrong\u2019s Refutations of Alleged Biblical \u201cContradictions\u201d\u00a0<\/a> to find fifteen articles about all the alleged \u201cdifficulties\u201d in the biblical accounts.<\/p>\n 4. Matthew admits that Jews had been arguing that a better explanation of the empty tomb was that someone had stolen the body<\/em>: \u201cand this story was widely\u00a0spread among the Jews\u00a0and is<\/em>\u00a0to this day.\u201d (Matthew 28:15)<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s a perfectly plausible thing to believe actually happened. They didn\u2019t believe in Jesus\u2019 Resurrection and so they had to make up an alternate explanation for the empty tomb: precisely as atheists do today: including this very \u201cstolen body\u201d rationalization. We have Matthew\u2019s report. Is it something that seems plausible or not? I think it clearly is. People hostile to one explanation of a purported event provide a contradictory one to explain the same thing. When folks didn\u2019t like Jesus\u2019 miracles, they tried to claim that they were done under the inspiration of the devil and not God (to which Jesus replied with his \u201ca divided house cannot stand\u201d discourse).<\/p>\n 5. Matthew is the next Gospel after Mark, some 15+ years later, and is the only Gospel to include the narrative of their being guards at the door. This is odd, and is part of a slew of good evidence that it was made up by Matthew.<\/span><\/p>\n Saying<\/em> there is \u201cevidence\u201d (hard, concrete, historical evidence) is not the same thing as demonstrating<\/em><\/strong> it. It remains the case that Jonathan has provided no such evidence that Matthew made up a whopper, save the conspiracy theories that emanate from his head and the heads of atheists whose ideas he parrots. The idea underlying this silliness seems to be, \u201cif a nefarious plot to deceive readers is possible<\/em> from the Evangelists, then it must be plausible<\/em> or actual<\/em>.\u201d That doesn\u2019t follow.<\/p>\n [An] eminent Catholic exegete admits that Matthew\u2019s guards are \u201calmost unintelligible\u201d and that \u201cthere is neither internal nor external evidence to cause us to affirm historicity.\u201d (The Death of the Messiah<\/em>, Raymond Brown, 1994, p. 1311)<\/span> [two typos corrected]<\/p>\n I\u2019m delighted that Jonathan brought up Fr. Brown. I\u2019ve been doing apologetics for 41 years: the last twenty as a full-time, published (11 books) Catholic apologist. I have observed a zillion times that the enemies of Christianity always bring up liberal or skeptical scholars who claim the name \u201cChristian\u201d in order to fight against various things in Christianity that they disbelieve. Atheists and cultists like Jehovah\u2019s Witness, and Muslims, all use precisely this same technique. And I\u2019ve debated them all.<\/p>\n But if a person cannot be said to accurately represent historical Christianity, then it is improper to cite them, and it should be noted that their views are heterodox, not orthodox, according to standard, historical Christian theological categories. Fr. Raymond Brown is one of these who is always brought up. He had some good things to say, like almost all scholars do. But he was a Catholic dissident, as I have documented<\/a>:<\/p>\n Fr. Brown . . . cast doubt on the historical accuracy of numerous articles of the Catholic faith. These articles of faith, proclaimed by Popes and believed by the faithful over the centuries, include Jesus\u2019 physical Resurrection; the Transfiguration; the fact that Jesus founded the one, true Catholic Church and instituted the priesthood and the episcopacy; the fact that 12 Apostles were missionaries and bishops; and the truth that Jesus was not \u201cignorant\u201d on a number of matters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not least, though, was Fr. Brown\u2019s exegesis concerning the infancy narratives of Saints Matthew and Luke that calls into question the virginal conception of Jesus and the accounts of our Lord\u2019s birth and childhood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In addition to Cardinal Shehan, such eminent peers of Fr. Brown as Msgr. George A. Kelly, Fr. William Most, Fr. Richard Gilsdorf, Fr. Rene Laurentin, and John J. Mulloy were highly critical of the Brown revisionism of the Catholic Church\u2019s age-old theology of inspiration and inerrancy. (\u201cTraditional Catholic Scholars Long Opposed Fr. Brown\u2019s Theories,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Henry V. King,\u00a0The Wanderer<\/em>, 10 September 1998; reprinted at the\u00a0Catholic Culture\u00a0website)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This guy is supposed to represent historic Christianity? He does not<\/em>! He\u2019s skeptical of Matthew\u2019s guards because he was skeptical even of all kinds of Catholic dogmas<\/em> (things all Catholics are required to believe as a member of the faith). And I\u2019m quite sure that if we examined Fr. Brown\u2019s stated reason<\/em> for doubting the veracity of the guards account, we would find nothing of any evidentiary value. It\u2019ll be \u2014 so I confidently predict \u2014 like peeling an onion: no core. Just because he was famous and wrote a big 1000-page book that atheists like Jonathan are ecstatic about, doesn\u2019t turn a non-argument (bald statements with no substantiation) into an actual argument.<\/p>\n Now Jonathan (with his oft-employed broad brush) will say that I am dismissing Christian scholarship per se, which is nonsense. I am dismissing those who masquerade as orthodox Catholics, but who are not at all: which is fundamentally intellectually dishonest. He himself does exactly the same thing from the opposite perspective. So, for example, Jonathan roundly mocks archaeologist and Egyptologist Kenneth A. Kitchen<\/a>, who is a profound scholar, as if he were some uneducated troglodyte whose opinions are utterly worthless.<\/p>\n And why<\/em> does he do that? Well, it\u2019s because Kitchen is an archaeological \u201cmaximalist\u201d who actually believes the Bible is trustworthy in matters of historical detail, and he is a practicing evangelical Protestant. That\u2019s more than enough reason for Jonathan to immediately dismiss him out of hand. Here is an example of him sarcastically doing this:<\/p>\n He<\/span> [yours truly!] then lists a bunch of Jewish and Christian conservatives, many from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, throwing in archaeologist Kenneth Kitchen for good measure. Always good to see an axiomatic biblical maximalist in there for fair and objective academia.<\/span> (7-3-21<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thus, if he is justified in dismissing a scholar like Kitchen because he actually believes in Christianity and the Bible<\/em>, then by the same token I can dismiss the erroneous opinions of Fr. Brown: a man who was a Catholic priest, but who denied many Catholic dogmas. Goose and gander. Jonathan thinks Kitchen was intellectually dishonest and not a \u201ctrue\u201d archaeologist. I think Fr. Brown was intellectually dishonest and not a \u201ctrue\u201d Catholic (in the full sense of the words, including acceptance of dogmas). It doesn\u2019t mean I would never cite him ever. In cases where he made a true observation, I certainly would.<\/p>\n Atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy<\/em> (which I read many years ago) made a statement to the effect that a Christian (even someone like Thomas Aquinas) cannot truly do philosophy. Jonathan seems to think (with no basis) that an orthodox Christian cannot do theology, either. He or she must disbelieve<\/em> several required tenets of their Christian faith in order to be a \u201ctrue scholar.\u201d This is epistemological madness.<\/p>\n Therefore, because I am an orthodox Catholic apologist, Jonathan must accuse me of \u201cbeing willfully disingenuous . . . being really dishonest\u201d when I defend the notion that Paul mentioned the empty tomb. He seems to be unable to classify me any other way. I actually believ<\/em>e that which I am defending, and so my opinions must be dismissed out of hand.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 6. This looks like a counter-argument against the Jewish counter-arguments that the body was stolen. Matthew even phrases it like it is. Matthew appears to be privy to a private conversation between the guards and the Sanhedrin (Matthew 28):<\/span><\/p>\n I recently dealt with this issue of how the Evangelists could know \u201chidden \/ secret things.\u201d <\/a>In this case, one scenario that could explain it would be that a member of the Sanhedrin privy to such discussions later became a Christian and reported what was talked about. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were two such men. There could have been others. In fact, it could very well have been one of these two men who gave Matthew the information.\u00a0Note that I am simply speculating on possibilities<\/em>: not making foolish \u201ccertain\u201d proclamations of what Matthew must<\/em> have done, with no evidence.<\/p>\n 7. This Christian polemic counter-counter-argument evidences that Mark invented (or communicated a developed narrative) <\/span><\/p>\n Yes, the oral traditions were present right from the time of Christ\u2019s death and could be drawn from.<\/p>\n that did not exist in Paul\u2019s time because otherwise Mark would have had to be dealing with the Jewish counter-arguments. <\/span><\/p>\n Of course it existed before Paul\u2019s time . . .<\/p>\n But he didn\u2019t because those arguments did not exist because no one in the wider community knew about the narrative before Mark\u2019s Gospel.<\/span><\/p>\n Jonathan makes yet another universal negative statement \u2014 he never tires of these! \u2014 for which he has no hard evidence. Did you notice that he gave none<\/em>? He simply spouts his fantasies as if they should be received with the utmost seriousness as unarguable profundities.<\/p>\n 8. This is also supported by the fact that later Gospels did not include the women keeping secret since everyone did\u00a0<\/em>know about the empty tomb as a result of the late (compared to Paul and the events) communication of this part of the story. They had no need to explain the to their audiences why they had not heard of the empty tomb as Mark had to do.<\/span><\/p>\n See my defenses of the scriptural Resurrection accounts, under that category in my collection<\/a>. Much ado about nothing. Groundless tin foil hat conspiracy theories . . .<\/p>\n 9. The later Luke and John did not include the guards polemic. Christians equally need to explain this. I surmise that they saw it for what it was: an obviously ahistorical polemic.<\/span><\/p>\n I am not compelled to enter into a conspiratorial mindset. It\u2019s a non-issue. The four Gospels have different emphases and different intended audiences. The Christian observes that if one of them mentioned something that was unique, so what? It\u2019s in the New Testament somewhere<\/em>, and that\u2019s all that matters. There is no obligation for all four Gospels to be absolutely identical. What would be the point<\/em>?! So all of them have unique things, because that\u2019s what happens when four human beings take up writing about particular historical events.<\/p>\n I did not literally construct anything out of thin air. That is, er,\u00a0literally impossible<\/strong>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Did I even metaphorically do this?<\/span><\/p>\n No. I used data that is in the Gospels, and Matthew even admits to the Jews having a prevailing counter-argument. You cannot make things up out of thin air in proposing a\u00a0coherent\u00a0<\/em>causal theory connecting\u00a0actual<\/em>\u00a0data (Gospel claims). This is how all theories are constructed. Can we test it? Yes, for coherence. No, since we cannot go back in time. Data can disconfirm the theory (but doesn\u2019t), if it could be found to do so. And\u00a0this is the same case<\/em>\u00a0for the Christian thesis.<\/span><\/p>\n The hypothesis of Matthew simply making it up for polemical purposes has no supporting historical evidence. Period. Zero, zilch, zip, nada, nuthin\u2019. The fact that Jonathan thinks it has explanatory value and should be believed because of the NT we have is not<\/em> such evidence. One could \u201cprove\u201d [choke] virtually anything<\/em> by the ridiculous criteria that Jonathan is employing.<\/p>\n Secondly, the fact that it is a hostile interpretation of Matthew\u2019s motives has no connection whatsoever to what can be historically known. There is certainly nothing in the Bible about that. When\u00a0 Evangelist Luke explains his motivation for writing his Gospel (1:1-4) it seems perfectly respectable, honest, and above board. We have no good reason to suspect his stated motivations<\/em>. Likewise, with the other<\/em> three.<\/p>\n But of course, in the conspiratorialist mentality (which always has a quick answer for everything), that is just a ruse<\/em> to fool the folks, you see . . .<\/p>\n This part is pretty egregious: apparently I \u201cconstructed (literally out of thin air) an entire elaborate story of deceit and intent to deliberately lie about the events surrounding Jesus\u2019 death.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Yes! This is his view: Matthew made up a story and pretended<\/em> that it was fact<\/em> when he knew<\/em> it to be fiction<\/em>; a fairy-tale. As I noted today in his combox: that is serious immorality according to Christian ethics. It violates one of the Ten Commandments (not bearing false witness) and is an objectively mortal (grave) sin in Catholic teaching, and a serious sin according to all Christians.<\/p>\n Now Jonathan is trying to make out that he didn\u2019t do what he has stated repeatedly. If I call him on it, he is highly offended. It\u2019s the first part of his recent article (1-27-22) on the Guards at the tomb and Matthew<\/a> (my bolding):<\/p>\n I\u2019ve written before on why the guards at the tomb of Jesus, included only in the Gospel of Matthew, are almost certainly invented<\/strong> by the author of that Gospel. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Suffice to say that Matthew\u2019s guards are a polemic created by the author<\/strong> to answer criticisms . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mark made up the Empty Tomb claim.<\/span> [i.e., this is the basis for the further conspiratorialist claim that Matthew made up the guards story]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Everyone loves a good fairy tale, but this is a bad<\/em> fairy tale.<\/p>\n I am not sure if my claims are deceitful and if I am lying about the events, or whether I claim deceit and lying in the sources I am talking about.<\/span><\/p>\n The latter. I haven\u2019t (and have never) accused Jonathan of being deliberately dishonest or disingenuous. He has accused me<\/em> of that (see the citation above).<\/p>\n Either way, he needs to sort out his rhetoric and walk back the accusation or not mischaracterize or misinterpret my claims.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t need to sort out or walk back anything. I have not misrepresented Jonathan. He thinks the Evangelists are (at least in some<\/em> respects, not all) a pack of liars and that the ends justified the means for them. If they had to lie and deceive to get the story of Jesus Christ out, well, that\u2019s just what they did<\/em>! There\u2019s not the slightest<\/em> historical evidence for such an outrageous charge, but that won\u2019t stop Jonathan from making<\/em> it!<\/p>\n We\u2019re back to the same old desperate Christian defenses that attack me rather than the substance of my arguments.<\/span><\/p>\n I have done no such thing. As always in my apologetics, I make a very vigorous \u201cbulldog\u201d argument against what I believe to be untrue and erroneous opinions<\/em>. It\u2019s ALL<\/strong><\/em> about the ideas, not persons. I think Jonathan is a nice guy who sincerely believes what he does, and that he is sincerely dead wrong on a zillion things, whenever he opines about the Bible and Christianity.<\/p>\n I have reiterated recently that I highly admire his allowing me to comment on his site. I have nothing whatever against him personally. I\u2019m simply disagreeing with him. He\u2019s said some nice things about me, too, but at times he becomes acerbic and makes it personal, and this is counter-productive in terms of good back-and-forth dialogue.<\/p>\n I think he may be too thin-skinned and oversensitive in this particular instance, causing him to \u201csee\u201d things in my critiques that simply aren\u2019t there. He\u2019s a human being. We\u2019ve all done that at times.<\/p>\n Of course, it is worth noting that I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>pull the idea out of my posterior: the late Gospel invention of the empty tomb narrative has been around since Rudolf Bultmann proposed it in the early 20th century, and no doubt before.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course. See my comments about Fr. Raymond Brown above. All this does is send the process of how one manages to believe such conspiracy theories back to Bultmann, who has to explain where it came<\/em> from; what actual evidence there is for it.\u00a0 As we see in the Wikipedia article<\/a> on him, Bultmann was another radical skeptic:<\/p>\n [H]e argued for replacing supernatural biblical interpretations with temporal and existential categorizations . . . This approach led Bultmann to reject doctrines such as the\u00a0pre-existence of Christ<\/a>. [which is blasphemy and rank heresy according to Christianity because it denies the divinity of Christ and the Trinity] . . . Bultmann carried\u00a0form criticism<\/a>\u00a0so far as to call the\u00a0historical value of the gospels<\/a>\u00a0into serious question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Why should I care what such a man thinks? He hasn\u2019t even gotten to first base in Christianity, having rejected Jesus\u2019 divinity. He has no credibility for any orthodox Christian on those grounds alone. So your pride in drawing from him gets a \u201cho hum\u201d \/ \u201cwhat else is new?\u201d from me. Of course<\/em> you will like a guy who has beliefs like that.<\/p>\n Armstrong continues in a way that makes me pretty angry:<\/span><\/p>\n First and foremost, arguments of this type are\u00a0arguments from silence<\/em>\u00a0(the logical fallacy,\u00a0argumentum ex silentio<\/em><\/a>), and as anyone familiar with logic and\/or philosophy, and\/or debating strategies in general knows (and Jonathan calls himself \u201ca philosopher\u201d), they carry little or no force at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Considering he wants me to, I presume, exchange cordially and intellectually with him, he goes about this in a bizarre way. He is intellectually and existentially insulting me with passive-aggressive comments\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Really<\/em>? I have no such passive-aggressiveness. I like<\/em> Jonathan. I have nothing against<\/em> him<\/em><\/strong>; tons of objections to his beliefs<\/em>. Noting that someone used the notorious argument from silence is not<\/em><\/strong> attacking the person who did it. It\u2019s pointing out a logical fallacy. He just doesn\u2019t like having his views vigorously critiqued. Almost everyone is that way. He\u2019s not alone, by any means. And many get angry when that happens, as he now admits he is. But there is not the slightest reason<\/em> to be.<\/p>\n If anyone<\/em> should be angry here, it would be me, seeing what Jonathan is saying, but I\u2019m not, because I have a very even-tempered, easy-going personality and am well-used to people getting angry when their views are critiqued. His task is to prove that he has not<\/em> used the fallacy of the argument from silence. It\u2019s pretty clear that he has, in talking about various Gospel writers who didn\u2019t<\/em> mention things, and then poor old pitiful Matthew, who feels led to construct a lie as a result.<\/p>\n But he is also wrong. This is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0an argument from silence, only a\u00a0part\u00a0<\/em>of it is. The Paul claim is the only\u00a0part<\/em>\u00a0that is, and it is\u00a0valid<\/em>, as I set out in an entire chapter on this in<\/span>\u00a0The Resurrection: A Critical Examination of the Easter Story<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0He can deal with that. This isn\u2019t \u201cpulled out of thin air\u201d but\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0is certainly \u201cskating on thin ice\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not referring to only Paul, but also the other Evangelists. He asserts their silence over and over in his previous related article<\/a> (1-27-22):<\/span><\/p>\n Mark mentions nothing of the guards at the tomb because there is not yet a counter-argument. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yet Mark mentions nothing. There are no Jewish counter-claims, so Mark needs no\u00a0\n
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