Amateur Hour #13

2 thoughts on “Amateur Hour #13”

1. 

   Anonymous 12 Dec 2024 — 7:30 am

   On a similar note, I’ve seen apologists and other advocates explicitly cite NT scriptures as support for the historicity of the Exodus, the Flood, the Fall, etc. As historiography goes, this is a non sequitur. What people believed centuries (or millennia!) after a purported event is poor evidence for the historicity of that event.

   The thinking seems to be more-or-less along the lines of:

   1. Key NT figures, especially JC, made statements indicating belief in the historicity of X.
   2. Statements made by key NT figures, especially JC, are inerrant.
   3. If X did not really happen, then statements about X attributed to key NT figures, especially JC, would be in error.
   4. Therefore, X happened.

   It’s essentially the fallacy of arguing from consequences. This might work theologically, based on a presupposition of inerrancy, but it’s not intellectually rigorous and consistent epistemology or historiography.

   -Lex Lata

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   1. (Post author)

      The Amateur Exegete 12 Dec 2024 — 7:33 am

      Agreed. It’s akin to the argument that because the NT writers interpreted a text in this or that way then that must mean that is how the original author of that text intended it. (E.g., Isaiah 7:14, etc.) What later writers thought about a text, though important, is not necessarily vital to understanding the original text. Reception history isn’t authorial intent.

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