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2016-07-25
Importance: 

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Part 19)

Fortunately, skeptics of Christ's resurrection often do some of the early leg work for us, in that they compile lists of purported people who have been said to be like Christ for one reason or another. We'll look at a representative sample from such lists.

First, let us consider Apollonius of Tyana, who is sometimes compared to Christ because they were both philosopher/preachers in first century Rome, to whom miraculous powers are attributed. Wikipedia has a list of similarities between Jesus and Apollonius, which includes a wondrous birth, the ability to heal the sick and raise the dead, a condemnation by Rome, and an ascension into heaven. That sounds pretty similar, no? So how does the evidence for Apollonius's "resurrection" hold up?

Pathetically. Most of the information on Apollonius comes from Philostratus, who was paid to write a biography of Apollonius well over a hundred years after Apollonius's death, and after Christianity was already a thing. This biography only "implies" that Apollonius underwent heavenly assumption. Furthermore, the chief primary source for this biography is one Damis, a disciple of Apollonius, who is unknown outside of this biography. And to top it off, Philostratus specifically writes that Damis had not recorded anything about Apollonius's death. The stories of his death and supposed heavenly assumption are in a part of the biography that are filled with 'some say this, some say that' stories, which, by the author's own admission, he wrote because he felt that his story needed to have a natural ending.

So, the evidence for Apollonius's "resurrection" comes down to one author, who wrote more than a hundred years after the event, who says that he's getting his information second-hand from a Damis that nobody else has heard of, who then says that the "resurrection" bit - which is only implied - doesn't even come from Damis.

Compare that to the evidence for Christ's resurrection, in the form of the testimony of his disciples. 1 Corinthians 15 was written within a couple decades of the event, and it contains a creed that was formulated mere years after the resurrection. We have the personal, first-hand testimonies of the people who have seen the risen Christ. They clearly say that it really happened, and that it transformed their own lives. Each of these disciples appear in multiple other sources, and bear the same witness about Christ's resurrection in those sources.

So... now I'm suppose to compare the strength of the evidence between these two? Well, let's see. Remember our previous criteria, about what it would take to "match" 1/6th of the evidence in 1 Corinthians 15. Can we say that maybe that Damis's testimony about Apollonius's resurrection matches the testimony of Peter, James, or Paul? Well, no. Damis never made that testimony, nor is he anything like those three individuals on the quality of historical information we have on him. So then, all that's left as evidence is "some say that Apollonius rose from the dead", stated more than a hundred years after the fact?

That is essentially no evidence. But since I have to give a numerical estimate, I would be generous and say that Damis's "testimony" counts as an order of magnitude less than that of Peter, James, or Paul. I will also generously grant the "some say..." part of the story as being a order of magnitude less than that of the 500 witnesses that Paul mentions. So, that comes to:

1/6 (matching a single element in 1 Corinthians 15)
× 1/10 (an order of magnitude less)
× 2 (two such instances),
= about 1/30th of the evidence that we have for Christ's resurrection.

We will continue with other personages in the next post.


You may next want to read:
What is "evidence"? What counts as evidence for a certain position?
Christianity and falsifiability
Another post, from the table of contents

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