Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Recent Trends in Scholarship Favorable to Christianity

 This post will cover various topics. Some will be broad, some will be more specific. As the title of this post suggests, I'll be linking to some material in contemporary scholarship that I think is important for the apologist to have in their arsenal. 

If I linked a paper that you can't access, send me an email - which is available on my blogger profile. 


Sunday, April 24, 2022

Divine Christology in 1 Peter

There are a few passages in 1 Peter that subtly present a very high Christology. While the evidential implications of this for the development of Christology are limited given the tendency to date 1 Peter into the 80's AD or later, it remains relevant in the debate over early Christology and serves to complicate unitarian readings of Scripture. I plan to write soon on the authorship of 1 Peter, which will be relevant for dating the epistle and thus for the evidential import of the high Christology. That post will be linked here when it becomes available. Note that the author of 1 Peter will be referred to as Peter for ease of reading; I think that the traditional attribution of authorship is probably correct.

1 Peter 1.2
"...according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you."

In this salutation, Peter invokes God the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ, emphasizing an inter-working between the three. Craig Keener notes that this may reflect a "trinitarian or triadic, prototrinitarian understanding", as in 2 Cor 13:13 ("The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.") (1 Peter: A Commentary, 59). A similar triadic formula is found in Matthew 28:19 and in other places in Scripture (Keener lists Romans 15.30, 1 Corinthians 12.4-6, Galatians 4.6, and Ephesians 4.4-6; also consult the accounts of Jesus' baptism in Mark 1.10-11, Matthew 3.16-17, and Luke 3.21-22). The three persons are again mentioned in close proximity in 1 Peter 4.14.

While this verse does not equate either the Son or the Spirit with God the Father, the linking of all three in the same place presupposes that they share some special identity. The consistency with which this understanding permeates various New Testament writings suggests it was a common view in early Christianity.

1 Peter 2.3-4
"...
if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by people, but is choice and precious in the sight of God..."

As Craig Keener notes (ibid., 126), the first part of the verse "if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord" (egeuasthe hoti chrēstos ho kurios) is a quotation from LXX Psalm 33.9 (ET Ps. 34.8): "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (geusasthe... hoti chrēstos ho kurios). He goes on to say:

"The accusative pronoun hon in the Greek text of 2:4 refers back to the psalm allusion in 2:3; 'coming to' him evokes a line in that psalm's context (LXX Ps. 33:6 [missing in ET 34:5]). Yet whereas the Lord in the psalm is clearly YHWH, Peter refers in 2:4 to Jesus (to whom he applies the quotation in 2:6)." (ibid. 128)
The similarity of the wording leaves little doubt that Peter is invoking the Old Testament and the grammatical structure makes the most sense if Peter is applying the Psalm to Jesus. This would entail giving Jesus the divine name YHWH, meaning that he shares in the divine identity. Jesus is not equated with God the Father, as Peter's language elsewhere implies a distinction between the two (e.g. 1.3, 3.22). This similarity and yet distinction between Jesus and God the Father is quite consistent with the Trinity.

1 Peter 3.14-15a
"
But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be in dread, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts..."

Similar to the previous example, this verse also applies an Old Testament passage about YHWH to Jesus in a way that strongly suggests a divine identity. The passage in question is Isaiah 8.12b-13: 

"And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.
It is the LORD
of armies whom you are to regard as holy.

And He shall be your fear,

And He shall be your dread."

After quoting the first part of this passage as it stands, Peter continues right into the second part but applies it to Christ. Christians are to "sanctify" (e.g. "regard as holy") Christ, whereas Isaiah exhorts us to regard YHWH as holy. This suggests a divine Christology. 

Conclusion
A strong case can be made for the divinity of Jesus from 1 Peter. If it is agreed that the latter two texts teach that Jesus is God, we can reexamine the trinitarian formula from the beginning of the letter and infer that the Holy Spirit is probably divine as well, as the strict parallelism and consistent grouping makes it unlikely that only two of these three persons have a shared identity. Thus, the texts found in 1 Peter lend ample credence to the divine mystery later termed the Trinity.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, No, It's...the Flying Man Thought Experiment

 The atheist youtuber Pinecreek (Doug) is well-known for his cross-examinations with theists and his psychoanalysis of Christians who are bold enough to come onto his show. Most notably is his institution of the “flying man” thought experiment. Taking a page from John Loftus’s playbook [1], the gedanken experiment is an outsider test for faith meant to demonstrate the inconsistency of the Christian in affirming the resurrection of Jesus while denying the legitimacy of miracles in other contexts despite given ample evidence.

I have recapitulated a variation of the Flying Man as follows,


"Suppose that you were walking in a forest and found a book. The anonymous work mentions that decades ago a young man named Myron flew over the Grand Canyon in a single leap. You and I would both probably express skepticism towards the alleged feat and disbelieve it. Now let us suppose that we turn the page and find that this was allegedly witnessed by a group of people (let’s say 12 fisherman) who the text claims saw this. We would still be skeptical. The next page states that a group of 500 allegedly saw Myron float over the canyon (though we don’t have 500 individual accounts, only one source claiming that they all saw this). The last page concludes that the author of the work claims to himself have been an eyewitness who saw Myron levitate 20 years ago, but also implies that he received the information of the other witnesses through a creed circulated a few years after the event. Thus we have one firsthand account, and the same witness claims other reports second or third hand. We would still not believe such a story.”





The analogy is not difficult to draw. The Flying Man scenario is meant to mirror the minimal facts approach taken on by apologists such as Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, and parodies the creed found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. Paul is our only firsthand witness in the epistles, reporting his own experience only vaguely and stating that other people saw this as well, through a tradition he (may have) received second-hand from Jesus’s brother and a disciple in Jerusalem a few years after his conversion (per. Galatians 1 and 2). 


Though quite silly to conceive, there are elements of the thought experiment that are commendable. It demonstrates that the minimal facts approach that prioritizes Paul and 1 Cor. 15 is too vague and inadequate to truly bolster a claim as extraordinary as levitation. One source giving vague details about a miracle that is mostly reported second hand is not the highest form of evidence. Even if potential persecution is factored in, it is difficult to rule out the idea that Paul was honestly mistaken; he could have theoretically converted through some kind of guilt-induced hallucination. This is not that implausible when compared to the resurrection hypothesis. 


One could counter this by taking a moderate or maximal data approach, arguing for the historicity of specific elements within the Gospel narratives or through the high reliability of the sources themselves. Doug usually counters this by adding onto the Flying Man thought experiment by adding on the idea that “decades later, through oral tradition, four anonymous books written by devotees of Myron give elaborate details of his flight over the Grand Canyon. We would still not consider this good evidence that said event occurred.”


This is true if one takes the large agreement in higher criticism that the Gospels are anonymous, apologetically motivated, contradictory, literary in their motifs, and rely on long chains of tradition reported at least second hand. One should be suspicious of details in sources of this nature if they report highly improbable events. Yet many scholars do not make these concessions, arguing that some in certain cases traditional authorial attribution may be correct [2]. Add this eyewitness testimony with sincerity through persecution and a history of reliable reportage, and only two options expound if lying is ruled out: either the witnesses were sincere but mistaken or they were accurate in their relaying. If the nature of the event is such that hallucination, misperception, and false memory could not realistically be applied (through over a month of eating, touching, and conversing with Jesus for hours at a time on repeated occasions), then reliable recounting is our last man standing. 


None of this is to say that the Gospels do or do not fit these standards; that is a topic worthy of far more discussion elsewhere. It is only to say that there are hypothetical scenarios in which affirmation of a miracle (in this case the Flying Man) could be epistemically justified.


I have discussed the criterion needed for investigation into miracles in other posts. In brief, one could affirm that such a thing happened given certain conditions. We would need multiple firsthand witnesses reporting soon after the time of the event, and it would be helpful if some of these witnesses were originally opposed or hostile, rather than sympathetic and already prone to believe. This is especially true if this was proclaimed in an environment where such claims would be highly scrutinized. If we were then convinced that something happened and that the witnesses were sincere, we would then evaluate whether mistakes in perception could have been made. Did this event occur once or multiple times? Did the flight happen quickly and suddenly or did it last for long enough where normal perception could not be mistaken? Were the witnesses already familiar with Myron as a person, or was he a stranger to them? Did this occur in bad lighting or from a far distance, or did the witnesses have a good view where optical illusions couldn't easily overcome them? Were the descriptions consistent and rich in detail, or are they too vague and/or contradictory? All of this is relevant, yet it is all hypothetically possible once these controls are in place.


Another relevant detail is the context in which this occurred. Did this happen within a religious context, or was this just some strange superpower Myron seemed to have? At least in the case of Jesus, the Nazarene claimed to be a prophet and God’s agent, performing deeds which people thought were miracles and predicting He would rise again. Gary Habermas attempted to bring up this detail during his interview with Doug, albeit not communicated as articulately. If the person already associates themselves with God, that provides ample context for the conditions that God may potentially intervene in this scenario. In performing a miracle, God deliberately goes against the normal regularities of nature in order to stand out, so that He may communicate a message. With the resurrection and other Christian miracles that succeed it, there is the context of Christianity spreading to all corners of the globe and becoming the most prominent religion in human history. The miracle of the resurrection, if true, would certainly have a profound effect. One would need to add such an auxiliary hypothesis to Myron if his levitations occurred independently of a religious context, especially a religion whose message is already wide-spread. Why would God bother raising Myron to the clouds if its impact in the world was nil?


The Real Life “Flying Man”


There is, strangely enough, a real-life case study directly parallel to Doug’s proposed aviator. Joseph of Cupertino spent most of his childhood being told that he was a "good-for-nothing" peasant who would never accomplish anything.[3] The boy was notoriously clumsy, constantly dropping and breaking things and being unable to keep a job. Eventually, Joseph became a servant to the clergy, where he would spend his days in the stables taking care of stallions. Here he began to show potential, and after a long process of education and training, the man became a priest in 1628.

The priest would spend much of his time in prayer, and would constantly receive ecstatic visions of Christ and the Virgin Mary. These visions began to gain attention when they resulted in the Catholic levitating high in the air for extended periods of time. During mass he would sometimes be seen in a trancelike state, where he would suddenly fly over the heads of several people and land on the alter. On one occasion, workers attempted to plant a large stone cross into a socket, and Joseph was lifted up in the air, grabbed the cross, and supplanted it into the ground for them. There are more than 70 recorded instances of these feats, from a collection of hundreds of witnesses. The sheer number of first hand testimonies, alongside the contemporary sources about Joseph, make the priest's miracles better attested and more credible than almost any other saint in history, "[Joseph's feats][are] not paralleled in the reasonably authenticated life of any other saint."[4]

Painting of Joseph's levitations


Despite his popularity, the Church was actually very irritated with these levitations as they would constantly (and understandably) distract people from prayer and devotion during church services. Though the Inquisition found him innocent of any demonstrable heresy, they made great efforts to mitigate the friar's public demonstrations of flight, requiring the clergy to move him to different locations in order to hide him from the general public eye. This effort largely failed; Joseph of Cupertino's fame only escalated as the talk of the town would attract religious pilgrims and political officials of all walks of life to witness him fly through the air. Perhaps his most well-known levitation was in front of Pope Urban VIII, where Joseph was suspended in the air when he attempted to kiss the Pope's feet in devotion. He was stuck floating until the Minister General of the Order commanded him to to descend back down, to which Joseph complied. Likewise was his backwards levitation in the presence of John Federeich, the Duke of Brunswick, which converted the Lutheran to Catholicism. The Duke himself was notable for his affiliation with the famed Christian philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who in his writings briefly mentions Federich's conversion to the Catholic Church while visiting Joseph of Cupertino, though Leibniz fails to expound on any further detail to the event.

During the canonization process of the saint, well over 100 accounts from people various walks of life (politicians, Popes, cardinals, military leaders, medical doctors, etc.) claimed that they had witnessed Joseph levitate, sometimes outside and sometimes inside, often in broad daylight, and in various cities over a thirty-five year period.[5] Prospero Lambertini, the Devil's Advocate in the case against Joseph's canonization, eventually became impressed with the descriptions of "prolonged levitations" and "frequent elevations" at the attestation of "unexceptional witnesses".[6] The Church would eventually go on to canonize Joseph as a saint in 1767 due to two recognized miracles of healing that occured through his post-mortem intercession. Due to his alleged ability of flight, he is now fittingly considered the Patron Saint of pilots and astronauts.

Are these incredible claims far removed legend and rumor, or can they be grounded in eyewitness testimony? Claims of the friar's flights were officially discussed during his 1638 Inquisition in Naples when Church authorities expressed concern that Joseph's ecstasies were disrupting of clerical procedures. After his death in 1663, these claims became no less prevalent. Various written statements from eyewitnesses to Joseph's levitations began to be produced only a few months following his death. The earliest biography of Joseph was completed only a few years following the friar's death before being officially published 1678, about 15 years following the end of Joseph's life. This biography, written by Joseph's friend Roberto Nuti, uses primary sources from witnesses who at the time claimed to have witnessed the priest's levitations. Another contemporary of the priest named Don Areangelo, writing in an unknown year, recounts his own experiences and records 70 instances of Joseph's levitations derived from contemporary testimonies (he claims to have stopped at 70 because his book would become too long had he recorded the very numerous accounts of the time). Most well-known is the 1722 vita of Joseph written by Domenico Bernini, which cites previously signed affidavits and depositions from named eyewitnesses first produced during the start of Joseph's canonization inquiry. The vita remains an invaluable source for its "its copious transcription of eyewitness testimony based on the earliest documents." [7] To date, the most extensive record of Joseph's life derives from Gustavo Parisciani's San Gieseppe Da Copertino; the 1963 tome by the scholar spans well-over 1,000 pages and discusses at length all prior biographies of the Saint. Notably, Parisciani's work emphasizes its subtitle of Alla Luce dei Nuovi Documenti (In Light of New Documents), whereby the author discusses never-before published primary documents recently discovered in several monasteries and church archives across Italy.

Indeed, the documentation for these alleged miracles is quite extensive, and despite much of the original documentation being lost to time, the sources that we have access to are numerous, "The sources of sworn eyewitness testimony are found in the various trials (processi), which are listed, described, and quoted at length in the books of Bernini, Nuti, Rosmi, Parisciani, and others." [8] All in all, an estimated 150 signed depositions from eyewitness over a 35 year period mention Joseph of Cupertino levitating to various degrees. As Michael Grasso lays out, we have countless independent testimonies from a large number of geographic areas, all of which were consistent in describing Joseph as a mystic who could levitate, [9]


"we have multiple witnesses [to Joseph's flights]…observations in daylight, letters, diaries, records from the Inquisition, numerous written depositions, and a thirty-five-year-long career….The primary sources…include thirteen volumes in the Vatican Archives, trial records, biographies, diaries, letters, and official church documents originating in the different cities and convents Joseph lived in or visited, like Grottela, Naples, Rome, Assisi, Pietra Rubbia, Fossombrone, and Osimo."


What are we to do with such accounts? How can we assess these with our aforementioned filters? The accounts of Joseph’s miracles are contemporary with him, with the reports being given by known witnesses who were alive at the time. The sheer number of witnesses makes deliberate deception unlikely. Joseph's flights into the air are so well documented that few are able to deny their historical reality. Carlos Eire, a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University, comments as to the mystifying nature of these levitations, and the difficulty in explaining them historically,[10]

 

We have numerous accounts of levitators and we have not just accounts from peasants who think they saw somebody fly, but we have accounts from all sorts of different people at all different social levels, including crowned monarchs who would testify that they saw [Joseph] hovering. And how do you explain this? How do you explain all these testimonies? What can we make  [of them]? And of course, we put that in brackets. We can’t say, Joseph Cupertino actually flew. No. We can’t say that. But we need to explain why hundreds, if not thousands, of people claimed to see him floating in the air. Not inside a building, but outside where it’s very difficult to pull off a magic trick...I’m talking about writing a history of the impossible. How do we approach the impossible? How do we write about it?

 

Additionally, even enemies of the Catholic Church reported seeing Joseph’s flights in the air, such as protestant officials visiting Cupertino at the time. Along with the excessive number of eyewitnesses, Joseph's flight is notable for its potential embarrassment. Unlike other Catholic miracles, the Church was not supportive of the priest's miraculous acts and saw them as greatly distracting when they occurred during mass. A cult of personality quickly formed around Joseph, so much so that the Church attempted to hide him from the public and frequently moved him from one location to the other. Such action is indicative of discomfort, and its initial controversy raises the probability that the miracle was not merely Catholic propaganda, but rather an attempt to cover up a real phenomenon from the public eye. This is furthered by the fact that Joseph was canonized not for his famous flights but for his healing miracles; though no one doubted that the priest could fly, the Church did not see the acts as theologically significant.[11] All of this reduces the probability of outright fraud on the part of the witnesses; the high number of reports, the attestation of enemies, and the disapproval and investigation by the Catholic Church who attempted to downplay such reports strongly rules against intentional deception.

We are down to two options: either the witnesses were sincerely mistaken, or they are relaying their witness accurately? The hypothesis of being sincerely mistaken seems highly implausible given the nature of the descriptions. William Lane Craig, in describing the resurrection appearances of Jesus, unknowingly evokes a sentiment that is applicable to Joseph’s levitations, “The appearances [in our case, of Joseph flying] were experienced many different times, by different individuals, by groups, at various locales and under various circumstances, and by not only believers, but also by unbelievers.” Hallucinations and optical illusions will be difficult in accounting for this.

Taking up this challenge, some skeptics have proposed that Joseph was a sort of gymnast, able to leap great heights and then land on the ground,[9] since Joseph's levitations were often proceeded by a great yell before a brief leap into the air. Joe Nickell, a skeptic who holds to the "gymnast" theory of Joseph's levitations, argues that "Joseph did not hover in the air but, after rapidly ascending, he then rested on some support such as a tree limb or held onto some fixed object such as a statue."[12]

Of course, this theory has issues if Joseph's levitations were sustained for more than a few seconds at a time, which some accounts do report. Nickell does admit that there are accounts where Joseph is described as staying in the air for an extended period of time; as an example, Dr. Jean Andino of Arizona State University records a few instances from Joseph's biographies where he apparently remained in the air for long stretches of time, "On October 4th, 1630, the town of Cupertino held a procession on the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi. Joseph was assisting in the procession when he suddenly soared into the sky, where he remained hovering over the crowd." Author Michael Grosso also argues that Joseph's levitations were "sustained floating" that could sometimes last around 15 to 30 minutes, and that this detail “seem[s] to point to the reality of an unrecognized force of nature...enough to render implausible the claim that they were tricks of perception.”[13]

Such instances of "sustained floating" are quite frequently mentioned in our primary sources. Of the more fantastic accounts are those that mention Joseph remaining suspended high in the air for hours at a time,[14]

"One Sunday, he [Joseph] was in the kitchen-garden with some other brothers when he saw a lamb belonging to the monastery and, wishing to have a look at it, one of the young friars took it up and put it into Joseph's arms. He clasped it to his breast and then took it by the legs and flung it across his shoulders. Becoming gradually more and more agitated, Joseph began to run through the garden, followed by his companions, anxious to see what was going to happen. Having thrown the lamb into the air, Joseph flew after it high up above the trees in the garden, and remained kneeling in space, as it were, for more than two hours (per piu di due ore) speaking with the Good Shepherd and adoring that Lamb the counterpart of which he had thrown into the air.

Or what of the famous account, mentioned earlier, of Joseph flying atop a church to plant a metal cross into its roof?[15] The cross itself was 36 feet high and required 10 men to lift; Joseph with great ease flew 70 yards and landed on the roof, and with a single motion supplanted the cross in its place as if the structure were nothing more than straw. If reported accurately, this cannot possibly be accounted for via mere acrobatics.Clearly then these durations make such a natural hypothesis practically unsustainable.[16]


Depiction of St. Joseph supplanting the cross


The most impressive reports of Joseph's flights, most of which derive firsthand from sworn eyewitness testimony recounted under oath, include but are not limited to the following:[17]

  • Joseph, upon seeing a large Madonna atop the chapel, quickly flew up to grab onto the structure, "At the sight of her [the statue], [he] gave a huge scream and flew about thirty meters [about 98 feet] in the air, embracing her." This is generally considered the highest height of Joseph's purported levitations on record.
  • Several shepherds testified that they had seen Joseph, at the sound of pipes, began to dance to the sound of the music as he "flew up in the air like a bird, halfway to the ceiling, where he continued dancing above the main alter".
  • Joseph once granted another friar temporary suspension from gravity, "he lifted [one of the friars] off the ground with great vigor of spirit, using only one hand under the arm, and swinging him around as though he weighed nothing, even though he was surely stronger, taller and heavier than [Joseph] himself."
  • A man with a mental illness was brought to Joseph for healing, and was suddenly lifted up into the air with Joseph before being cured, "he went into a rapture, rising from the ground up high, and bringing the madman with him. They were both suspended in the air for almost ten minutes....[afterward] [the man]seemed perfectly sound of mind and went home."

Let us not forget that on more than one occasion, such purported levitations occurred under relatively controlled conditions by which others checked to see if any sign of trickey could be detected. In one account involving the maestro Antonio Cossandri, we read the following: [18] 

"One of his biographers, Roberto Nuti, records the fact that on one occasion during the singing of the canticles it was noticed that Joseph was apparently kneeling in space, although part of his habit [robe] still touched the ground. Wishing to be certain of his complete levitation, one of those present passed his hands beneath him, thus assuring himself that Joseph was completely raised from the ground."

Nickell believes this incident was an illusion created by Joseph, who secretly lifted by the soles of his toles while raising his knees to give the appearance of flight. Nickell pushes back against accounts such as these, arguing that the three boys that attempted to feel under Joseph's robe would have been "compliant" and "not aggressively skeptical", though this attempt to poison the well hold little water. [19] If such witnesses were as credulous as Nickell claims, why attempt to check under his garments at all? Nickell describes the boys as being "invited" to feel under his robe, though the original text he cites gives no indication of this and rather implies that the witnesses did this of their own volition. The skeptic also forgets that this levitation, and others like it, involved Joseph in a state of ecstasy and unable to communicate with the boys as to potentially misdirect them as to where they ought to feel. If Joseph maintained this feat for several minutes in a dazed state where he was not speaking, how could he guarantee that they not feel around in the wrong places? A good magician makes sure to properly control any potential features of the illusion open to audience examination.

This likewise is not the only account where investigation of this sort is said to have occured. The surgeon Francesco Pierpaoli, in accompaniment with Dr. Giancino Carosi, testified to seeing Joseph levitate while being operated on in 1663. The doctors were operating on Joseph's leg, which was extended out onto the surgeon's lap; Joseph then fell into a trance with his arms spread out and his face gazing towards heaven. He floated a few inches (a "palm's length") out of the chair, staying suspended for around eight minutes. Surprised by this, the two medics got on their knees to better observe the levitation and confirmed that he truly was floating out of his chair unaided. No gimmicks to the chair or robe were to be found, and it was evident that a space a few inches in length separate Joseph's body from the surgical chair. His leg remain extended out, unable to be moved down even when pressure was applied by the medics. Eventually, they called his name to come down, and Joseph fell back in the chair. Joseph did not seem to have any recollection of the event while he had been in his dazed state.[20]

The fact that these reports mention Joseph levitating for very long periods of time, high above the ground, unaided, and in broad daylight, on several different occasions, fit none of the conditions for misperception or false memory. Had Joseph only been in the air for a few seconds, certainly such frantic details recollections could prove to be errant. It is however nearly impossible to imagine misremembering a man levitating several feet in the air and remaining there for tens of minutes at a time, especially when such acts of flight occurred not just once but countless times amongst hundreds of different people. It is not conceivable that one could still be mistaken given these details.


 
A Final Evidentiary Consideration

It may considered good historical practice to consider unintentionally shared details between two independent accounts to be potentially indicative of a shared memory. In Domenico Bernini's vita of Joseph, we find a rather strange and unexplained description of Joseph's flights causing his clothes to remain rather firm while in the air,[21]

"His priestly robes or his daily tunics, always remained very composed, both as he flew from the air or as he fell to the ground as though dead, thrown by the force of the Spirit that moved him. It in fact appeared as if an invisible hand wrapped itself around him and shaped the clothes appropriately...every part of his dress was as it should have been (as if he were motionless), a thing that seemed miraculous, given the way his body thrashed during the ecstasies and raptures"

This detail is not only peculiar but likewise counterintuitive; one would think that those flying through the air would see their garments blown by the excessive movement and wind, with their robes hanging loosely from their bodies as gravity pulls them to the ground. Though a definitive answer is given in Joseph's biographies, some scholars have noted striking parallels to this detail when consulting accounts of the levitation of demon-possessed individuals in Antiquity. Jerome of Stridon recounted in 404 AD an incident in which a witness described female demoniacs who, while visiting the tombs of saints, happened to levitate upside-down without their clothes falling on their face, "for she [Paula] saw demons screaming under different tortures before the tombs of the saints…They twisted their heads and bent them backward until they touched the ground; women too were suspended head downward and their clothes did not fall off [over their head]."[22]

Is this shared description of levitators maintaining gravity-defiant clothing a mere coincidence? Perhaps, though the unintuitive nature of said detail begs for an answer outside the realms of happenstance. Is it instead a product of intentional design, with Catholics using the writings of the earlier Church Patriarchs to shape their theology of levitations? This is possible, though one would think that advocates for Joseph's sainthood would want to strive away from paralleling the friar's levitations to those of demons. The levitations were already controversial enough during his canonization hearings due to their strangeness, so suggesting that they may have been caused by demon possession would do little to help his case. A third option, and perhaps the simplest, remains: the details of the sturdy clothes come neither from chance nor deliberate invention but from genuine memory of the witnesses who purported to have seen it.


Concluding Remarks

Whatever one may believe about Joseph of Cupertino, it is undeniable that he was a memorable figure whose alleged levitations easily supersede other similar reports.[23] One may digress with Eire's forecited contention that, historically, "we can't say Joseph of Cupertino actually flew." Why such a stipulation should be made escapes me. A better statement would be to say that we can establish that, in all probability, Joseph of Cupertino was seen in the air for extended periods of time by hundreds of people. Joseph may have actually "flew", but the explanation as to how such a thing is possible is something that history would have difficulty answering. Indeed, it is for that reason that some historians have conceded that the friar did in fact levitate, but that it was through some strange physiological or biological mechanism that we have yet to understand. Such a hypothesis is taken on by New Testament scholar Dale Allison, "My verdict is that, if the saint levitated, the explanation is some ill understood, rarely exhibited human ability." [24]

I will let the reader make what they will of Joseph of Cupertino. Regardless, it is a case far more interesting than Doug's hypothetical "Myron the Flying Man", establishing the conditions in which we would be more justified in arguing that something truly supernatural occurred.

Body of St. Joseph, resting in the titular Basilica in Osimo, Italy 




References:


[1] Loftus, John W. The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion is True. Prometheus Books, 2013.

[2] Most notably Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2008. Other authors like Tim and Lydia McGrew have argued for the resurrection from the alleged firsthand testimony of the Gospels, see McGrew, Timothy, and Lydia McGrew. "The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth." The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (2009): 593-662.

[3] The following information is discussed in Pastrovicchi, Angelo. St. Joseph of Cupertino. (St. Louis/London: B. Herder Books), 1918; Dingwall, Eric John. Some Human Oddities- Studies in the Queer, Uncanny, and Fantastical.  (Seacaucus, NJ: University Books),1962, pg. 9-37; Grosso, Michael. The Man Who Could Fly: St. Joseph of Copertino and the Mystery of Levitation. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield). 2016; and Lord, Bob and Penny Lord. St. Joseph of Cupertino. Journey of Faith, 2010. The most extensive modern works on Joseph's life, which collect all available primary documentation from the time, are the series of books produced by Gustavo Pariscini. The work expands well over 1,000 pages; see Parisciani, San Gieseppe Da Copertino 1603-1663: Alla Luce Dei Nuovi Documenti, Pat Ex Bonum. 1964.

[4] Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints (New York: Harper Collins), 1991.

[5] Allison Dale C. The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History. (New York: T&T Clark), 2021., pg. 348.

[6]  Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, pg. 80

[7] Ibid, pg. 70

[8] Ibid, pg. 220-221.

[9] Ibid, pg. 70.

[10] Eire, Carlos. "Icons and Iconoclasm." The Presidential Election and a Nation in Crisis: Polarization, Pandemic, Prejudice, pg. 16. https://institute.stolaf.edu/files/2020/11/FINAL-TRANSCRIPT-Carlos-Eire.pdf

[11] Vidal, Fernando, "Miracles, Science, and Testimony in Post-Tridentine Saint Making." Science in Context 20 no. 3. (2007) 481-508. The discussion of Joseph is on pg. 484, 490-491.The reason the levitations were not used in the canonization is in part because Joseph would levitate in non-religious contexts, like to the sound of music. Thus it was difficult in their eyes to attribute the strange phenomenon to supernatural agency.

[12] See Nickell, Joe. "Secrets Of ‘The Flying Friar’: Did St. Joseph Of Copertino Really Levitate?" Skeptical Inquirer, Vol 42 (4), 2018. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/07/secrets-of-the-flying-friar-did-st-joseph-of-copertino-really-levitate/. A similar theory was given by Robert D. Smith in Comparative Miracles. Herder Books, 1965.

[13] Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, pg. 80

[14] Dingall, Human Oddities, pg. 25.

[15]  Butler in Lives of the Saints suggests that the cross story derives from Bernini's account and is thus not from an eyewitness, though as Grasso points out, like Baring-Gould's parallel work, this characterization is "inaccurate in the descriptions" (Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, pg. 88) of the levitations. Bernini's work did in fact utilize signed depositions from the processi, which are thoroughly reproduced in the book.

[16] Joe Nickell attempts to get around this by saying that the narratives actually do describe a gymnastic feat, but just don't include the details needed to support his theory, "In other accounts, such details [like landing onto objects] may have been left out because the narrator was simply relying on his impressions." Nickell's hypothesis is then made unfalsifiable, because the accounts that would contradict his theory are simply dismissed as embellishments or lacking in the detail needed to prove his response wrong. He justifies such dismissals by arguing that "eyewitnesses are fallible." Few would deny they are. Per contra to Nickell, eyewitness testimony is certainly unreliable under certain conditions, but eyewitness testimony can be accurate if it is an event occurs slowly, is repeated, etc. which is the same kind of testimony used by scientists during experiment. Nickell is selective of his sources and the evidence within them; he criticizes Grasso for primarily using Bernini's biography written around 60 years after Joseph's life, yet most of Nickell's cited examples of Joseph latching onto objects are also derived from the same work. This is just scholarship by convenience. Let us not forget that Bernini's work, though not itself written by an eyewitness, extensively documents earlier eyewitness accounts that were written only a few years following the Saint's death

[17] All of the following accounts are cited from their primary sources in Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, Ch 3.

[18]  Dingall, Human Oddities, pg. 26 and Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, pg. 72.

[19] Nickell in "Flying Friar" posits that "Because of Joseph’s station, the boys would have been compliant, not aggressively skeptical. Note that the friar’s feet are never mentioned, indicating that he rose while still apparently kneeling...Joseph could subtly move from kneeling to a pre-crouch position by placing the bottoms of his toes flat on the floor. As he then moves slowly into a crouch using his well-developed muscles...the still-apparently kneeling friar is witnessed rising upward—or rather his knees are seen to rise, giving that illusion. The rest is child’s play, literally. The boys are invited to place their hands between the tunic and the floor. It would probably not occur to them to reach far back and search for the actual placement of Father Joseph’s feet."

[20] DingallHuman Oddities, pg. 26-27

[21]Bernini, Vita di Ven Giuseppe da Copertino, pg. 152, cited in Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, pg. 77.

[22] Jerome of Stridon, Epistle 108.13

[23] Along with the alleged levitations of the Catholic mystic Padre Pio, a possible parallel to Joseph's levitations could be the 19th century medium Daniel Douglas Home. Home was occasionally reported to be able during seances, sometimes several inches off the ground; this can be explained rather easily via a magician's trick known as the Balducci levitation. On one occasion he was allegedly seen able to levitate from one balcony to another in the presence of three witnesses, though the lighting was poor and the distance between the two balconies was only a few feet. This is further discredited by the fact that other witnesses caught Home using fake limbs and other forms of trickery during his seances. Home's "ability" to levitate a few inches in dark lighting in front of a handful of witnesses pales in comparison to Joseph's feats, which involved levitations for dozens of minutes several feet in the air, in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of witnesses.

[24] Allison, Resurrection, pg. 348. Likewise with Grasso, Man Who Could Fly, pg. 80: "[Joseph's abilities] seem to point to the reality of an unrecognized force of nature." This is surprisingly the view taken by the inquisitors overseeing Joseph's canonization: the priest's levitations were probably some unknown human ability, rather than a miracle.


Sunday, April 17, 2022

Don't Be Intimidated by Michael Alter's Book on the Resurrection

In 2015, Jewish autodidact Michael J. Alter published a 900+ page "scholarly" critique of the resurrection. Alter explains that the book was the result of many years of research on Jesus' resurrection, sparked by a challenge from a unitarian to investigate the matter. It cites hundreds if not thousands of sources and takes a very skeptical stance on the resurrection. It has been met with glowing reviews, even from Christians, asserting that the book represents the definitive critique of the resurrection. The back cover claims that it "refutes Jesus' purported physical, bodily resurrection". From the size, scope, and scholarly veneer of the text, one might reasonably assume that it succeeds in its task, or at least presents a strong case against the foundation of the Christian faith. In this post, I will argue that this is not the case. I won't offer a full critique of Alter's text but rather a discussion of some of the consistent problems that plague the book. I will also provide a few examples of bewildering takes and the ease with which they can be refuted.

Full disclosure: I have only read half of the book, but the consistency of the terrible argumentation has led me to doubt that the second half of the book suddenly delivers the promised refutation of Jesus' resurrection. I may continue to read it in the future, at which point I may write a follow-up post or add some material in the comments section here.

And of course, I mean no disrespect toward Alter as a person. From what I've seen, he seems like a nice individual. Nevertheless, his work is quite poor, and needs to be called out as such.

Some Preliminary Remarks

The main portion of the book is structured around 113 "issues", each dealing with a specific aspect of Jesus' crucifixion, burial, resurrection, or appearances that Alter deems suspect. Each of these issues is divided into various "contradictions" and "speculations". For example, Issue 2, "The Last Supper as a Passover Meal" contains two contradictions and thirteen speculations, numbered continuously from the beginning of the text. In total, 120 contradictions are asserted. This immediately encourages a healthy skepticism that Alter was able to identify this many disagreements between four versions of just a few chapters of text. This skepticism is confirmed, in fact, upon closer inspection of the contradictions, but that will be discussed later.

My first complaint is the lack of proper editing. Many sentences are worded improperly, containing such lackluster phrasing as, for example, three consecutive synonyms, and sounding more like a grade school paper unimaginatively meeting rhetorical requirements than the work of a competent scholar. While this is not a problem for the quality of the arguments, it does make it harder to take the text seriously.

Throughout the book, Alter relies on unreasonable standards of historiography. He frequently remarks that we don't have "incontrovertible evidentiary proof", or something similar, for a specific proposal, and chalks up any apologetic response to his arguments as "mere speculation", ignoring the difference between blind speculation and plausible conjecture. Furthermore, he gives too much weight to obsolete objections from many decades ago that don't hold up to any scrutiny, and have thus been dropped from modern discourse, such as the claim that Jerusalem lacked palm trees (see here). Similar examples will be given later.

I don't mean to imply that the book is without merit, as there are reasonable objections presented that need to be thoughtfully considered. The value of the book will be discussed near the end of this post. Before that, there are three categories of argumentation of which I want to provide examples: terrible takes, arguments that sound convincing to the casual reader but are easy to refute, and robust arguments that are more compelling than the others, even if they aren't ultimately successful.

Example: Terrible Takes

Many, many of these "terrible takes" can be found throughout the book. I don't want to waste time on the numerous small issues, like when Alter calls William Lane Craig a "fundamentalist". Rather, I want to highlight some larger "contradictions" or "speculations" proposed by Alter that should convince no one. 

For example, in discussion of the Johannine burial account, Alter comments, "Perhaps the author of John wrote part or all of his burial account based on Gamaliel, that is, a copycat attempting one upmanship. The similarities are striking: ..." The similarities (listed in Table 23) are as follows: both Jesus and Gamaliel were "A Jewish leader", "A rabbi (teacher)", buried with 100 (per the KJV, Alter's perplexing translation choice) and 86 pounds of spices, respectively, and they "died during a time under Roman rule." This is a ridiculous parallelism. We have four broad parallels, all of which are already plausible in burial accounts. And the problem is compounded when we note that Jesus being a Jewish "leader", a rabbi, and dying under Roman rule can be established historically on independent grounds. Thus, the only relevant similarity is that both individuals were buried with spices (a common practice), and the amounts of spices don't line up. To claim that this is sufficient evidence to show literary dependence between the accounts is absurd.

Another example from Alter's discussion of the burial accounts is where he suggests that Luke and Acts might have different authors. The following excerpt is found in Contradiction #42. 

"The burial narrative of the writer of the Gospel of Luke is assumed also to be the author of Acts [sic], yet he records conflicting accounts. Luke 23:52-53 declares that Joseph alone buried Jesus: 'This man went unto Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.'... 

"To the contrary, Acts 13:29 records the word they (plural), referring to those who had culpability, who had participated in Jesus' guilty verdict and execution and who had also assisted in his burial: 'And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.' In his preface, Luke claims to have investigated all the sources of his day. Yet the narrative in Acts contradicts Luke. How then could these works be by the same person?"

Where does Luke say that only Joseph of Arimathea took place in the burial? He doesn't. It's as simple as that. The Gospel of John records that Nicodemus helped, and there may have been others. Reading contradictions into the text where there are none is a frequent tendency throughout the book.

But more can be said. Let's look at the context in Acts 13.27-29: "For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the declarations of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no grounds for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. When they had carried out everything that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb."

If we adopt Alter's hyper-literalism, we must conclude that Luke thinks everyone who lives in Jerusalem participated in the burial of Jesus, as well as in removing him from the cross. More likely, Luke is probably using the law of agency, and referring to "those who live in Jerusalem", specifically the Jews who wanted to crucify Jesus, as the group responsible for everything. Thus, everything accomplished by them or through their agency, such as the burial of Jesus, is attributed to them. The only way you get a contradiction here is to employ a ridiculous hermeneutic.

By employing this hermeneutic, Alter ends up suggesting that Luke and Acts may have different authors, which is extremely unlikely. The radical skepticism required to assert that two volumes with the same writing style, addressed to the same person, with the second referring to the first as "the first volume" and continuing its story, were written by different authors, would render unknowable most of ancient history.

I wish I could say that these strange takes were the exception, but unfortunately, they are extremely prevalent throughout the book. A good editor could have removed them and made the book far shorter than it is now.

Example: Sounds Convincing but Doesn't Hold Up

The next category of objections in Alter's book are those that sound convincing when first reading them but quickly unravel under minimal scrutiny. This is often due to misrepresenting or cherry-picking different Bible verses. It serves as a reminder that whenever anyone, Christian or not, cites source material, it is always worth looking it up. It's easy to note, mindlessly, that a scholar has a few references to support their case, and thereby assume that they've sufficiently established their thesis. This is far from the truth.

This specific example is from the beginning of the book, under Topic 10. Alter claims "When read chronologically, the gospel narratives exemplify continual enhancement." He gives two examples; the first of which, pertaining to the women watching Jesus' crucifixion and burial, will be discussed here. Here are the relevant texts for ease of reference:

Mark:

Mark 15.40-41: "There were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women followed him and took care of him. Many other women had come up with him to Jerusalem."

Mark 15.46-47: "After he bought some linen cloth, Joseph took him down and wrapped him in the linen. Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid."

Matthew:

Matthew 27.55-56: "Many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him were there, watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons."

Matthew 27.59-61: "So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, and placed it in his new tomb, which he had cut into the rock. He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were seated there, facing the tomb."

Luke:

Luke 23.49: "But all who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things."

Luke 23.55: "The women who had come with him from Galilee followed along and observed the tomb and how his body was placed. Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment."

John:

John 19.25-27 "Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there, he said to his mother, 'Woman, here is your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his home."

Alter notes that Mark merely says the women were watching, Matthew reports this as well as that they were facing the tomb, and Luke reports these in addition to saying that the women beheld "how his body was placed". John adds in the scene with Mary at the foot of the cross. This is supposed to demonstrate a legendary development. However, it's remarkably easy to make anything look like a developing legend by cherry-picking details (Bart Ehrman does this too. See Lydia McGrew's discussion here). Reading the entire texts gives a much fuller picture:

Mark:

  • Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses and Salome see the crucifixion. Mark spends slightly more time discussing them than later accounts; only he mentions Jerusalem.
  • Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses see the burial.
  • The women see where Jesus was laid.

Matthew:

  • "Many women", including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons see the crucifixion. A few less words are written about it than Mark. No mention of Jerusalem.
  • Mary Magdalene and the other Mary see the burial.
  • The women are said to be seated there, facing the tomb. No mention of what they see.

Luke:

  • A group of unnamed women see the crucifixion. Even less time is spent discussing them (progressive exaggeration is going backwards!).
  • A group of unnamed women see the burial.
  • They see his tomb and how the body was placed. There is no mention of where they are in relation to the tomb.
  • The women obtain spices.

John:

  • Longer conversation with the women at the cross (Jesus' mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.)
  • No mention of women observing the burial.

When all the accounts are lined up, we have instances of both exaggeration and contraction. Some notable examples of contraction are that the women in Luke's accounts are unnamed: this is unexpected on the hypothesis of progressive exaggeration. Also in Luke, we aren't told how close the women are in relation to the tomb, though this information is supplied in the previous accounts. In John's Gospel, the women drop completely out of the burial account. Any other examples of apparent exaggeration can be accounted for by mere coincidence—with enough details distributed randomly across four accounts, some will invariably line up randomly as if to suggest progressive exaggeration.

An individual merely reading through Alter's summary of the accounts could well be convinced that progressive exaggeration exists across them all. All it takes is a glance at the source material to defuse the objection.

The Better Objections

Gasping for breath beneath the weight of all the filler are stronger objections that should be taken seriously. This is not to say such objections are insurmountable but rather that responses to them require more thought to devise. Dr. Timothy McGrew responds to three such objections here, here, and here. Another example is the timing of the crucifixion in John's Gospel, an objection which I have discussed here.

The Value of the Book

Despite the poor quality of much of the book, it is not without value. Alter has done a herculean feat in compiling so many skeptical objections into one place, providing a great reference work for looking up various objections, good and bad, to the passion and resurrection narratives. The book is meticulously sourced and is thus a good starting point for further research. It raises many issues that are worth thinking about. Thus, I am not saying you shouldn't read the book—I'm merely saying that you shouldn't be intimidated by it. Despite its hundreds of pages and thousands of footnotes, The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry is no insuperable challenge to the Christian faith.