WHERE WE ARE
In Part #10 of this series, I analyzed Kreeft's chain of reasoning that constitutes his Objection #4 against the Myth Theory. Here is my understanding of Kreeft's argument:
1. In first-century Judaism, women had a low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses.
A. In first-century Judaism, men had a higher social status than women and a legal right to serve as witnesses.
Therefore:
B. In first-century Judaism, men were considered to be significantly more reliable than women as witnesses of events.
Therefore:
2. IF the stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty were a legend or myth invented by the writers of the Gospels, THEN the writers of the Gospels would NOT write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men.
C. But the writers of the Gospels DID write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men.
Therefore:
D. The stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty by women are NOT a legend or myth invented by the writers of the Gospels.
Therefore:
F. The writers of the Gospels were simply reporting what they saw and did not invent legends or myths about Jesus.
Therefore:
E. The Myth Theory is FALSE.
EVALUATION OF THE FIRST SUB-ARGUMENT IN OBJECTION #4
Here is the first sub-argument in Kreeft's Objection #4 against the Myth Theory:
1. In first-century Judaism, women had a low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses.
A. In first-century Judaism, men had a higher social status than women and a legal right to serve as witnesses.
Therefore:
B. In first-century Judaism, men were considered to be significantly more reliable than women as witnesses of events.
The premises (1) and (A) are plausible; they are correct as far as I know. The inference to (B) is NOT VALID. This is not a VALID DEDUCTIVE inference. It could be that this is just a straightforward example of domination. The men who held the power in first-century Judaism might simply have excluded women from serving as witnesses in order to maintain their power and domination over women. They might not have felt any need to rationalize this unfair treatment of women by claiming that women were UNRELIABLE as witnesses. So, it is possible for premises (1) and (A) to be true, and yet for (B) to be FALSE. Since this is a logical possibility, the inference to (B) is not a VALID DEDUCTIVE inference.
However, Kreeft might reasonably argue that this inference should not be taken to be a deductive inference. The truth of these premises, he might say, makes the conclusion (B) very likely to be true, but does not make the truth of (B) certain. That seems like a reasonable reply in defense of this first sub-argument. So, I will accept this first sub-argument as being a good argument, so long as we understand the argument only makes (B) very likely (at best).
EVALUATION OF THE SECOND SUB-ARGUMENT IN OBJECTION #4
Here is the next sub-argument in Kreeft's Objection #4 against the Myth Theory:
B. In first-century Judaism, men were considered to be significantly more reliable than women as witnesses of events.
Therefore:
2. IF the stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty were a legend or myth invented by the writers of the Gospels, THEN the writers of the Gospels would NOT write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men.
Once again, this is NOT a VALID DEDUCTIVE inference. Premise (2) does not follow from premise (B). There is, at the very least, a missing premise here about the MOTIVATIONS of the writers of the Gospels:
G. The writers of the Gospels were strongly motivated to convince their readers of the truth and accuracy of the stories that they presented in their Gospels.
Given such a motivation, the writers of the Gospels would, other things being equal, prefer telling stories about miraculous or supernatural events where MEN are witnesses of the event rather than WOMEN, in order to convince their readers (who were prejudiced against the reliability of women as witnesses) of the truth and accuracy of those stories about miraculous or supernatural events.
Nevertheless, even with this additional premise about the MOTIVATIONS of the writers of the Gospels, the inference to premise (2) is still NOT a DEDUCTIVELY VALID inference. One problem here is that the writers of the Gospels have more than just ONE motivation. Because they have multiple motivations, some other motivation might well override their motivation to convince their readers of the truth and accuracy of the stories they present in the Gospels.
In the Gospel of Mark, the male disciples abandon Jesus, and only some of the women who followed Jesus were present at his crucifixion and burial. The twelve male disciples apparently flee north to Galilee, while a number of women who followed Jesus remain in Jerusalem. Given this context, it makes sense for the discovery of the empty tomb to be made by some of the women who followed Jesus. So, the writer of Mark might have chosen to make women the discoverers of the empty tomb, because, in his view, many of the men had abandoned Jesus and fled to Galilee. It is more logical to have the women discover the empty tomb, and it also emphasizes the idea that Jesus' male disciples abandoned him when he was arrested and condemned to be crucified.
Because the Gospel of Mark was the first Gospel to be written, and because the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used Mark as a primary source of information about the life and death of Jesus, the writers of Luke and Matthew might have chosen to stick with the way that Mark told the story of the discovery of the empty tomb, because changing the discoverers from women to men would (a) show that they did not trust the accuracy and reliability of the Gospel of Mark (which was one of their main sources), and (b) likely lead many Christian believers to reject or doubt the accuracy and reliability of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke because they contradict the existing and generally accepted Gospel of Mark on the important question of who discovered the empty tomb.
So, the writer of the Gospel of Mark could have invented the legend or myth of the discovery of the empty tomb and chosen to have this discovery made by women, because that was more logical given that his story has the eleven male disciples abandon Jesus and flee to Galilee, and because that emphasizes the idea that the eleven male disciples abandoned Jesus in his hour of need. Then the writers of Matthew and Luke, who used Mark as one of their main sources of information about the life and death of Jesus, might well have felt constrained to follow along with Mark's version of this story, rather than blatantly contradict Mark, in order to avoid creating doubt and suspicion about the accuracy and reliability of their own Gospels.
Given this plausible scenario, premises (B) and (G) could be true even though the sub-conclusion (2) was FALSE. In other words, the story of the discovery of the empty tomb could be a legend or myth invented by the writer of Mark, even though women were viewed in first-century Judaism as significantly less reliable than men as witnesses and even though the writers of the Gospels were strongly motivated to convince their readers of the truth and accuracy of the stories they presented in their Gospels.
Not only is it that case that the inference from (B) and (G) to (2) is an INVALID DEDUCTIVE inference, but it is also simply a BAD or WEAK inference. There is a plausible scenario (not just a logically possible scenario) in which the premises would be TRUE but the conclusion would be FALSE. Thus, the second sub-argument in Objection #4 is a BAD argument that we should reject. Therefore, Objection #4 against the Myth Theory FAILS, just like the previous three objections by Kreeft against the Myth Theory FAILED.
EVALUATION OF THE THIRD SUB-ARGUMENT IN OBJECTION #4
Therefore:2. IF the stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty were a legend or myth invented by the writers of the Gospels, THEN the writers of the Gospels would NOT write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men.
C. But the writers of the Gospels DID write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men.
D. The stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty by women are NOT a legend or myth invented by the writers of the Gospels.
Because Kreeft's argument in support of premise (2) was a BAD argument, we already have reason to believe that premise (2) is DUBIOUS. Strictly speaking, premise (2) is FALSE, because it is logically possible for it to be the case that "the stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty were an invented legend or myth" and yet for it to be the case that "the writers of the Gospels would write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men."
However, Kreeft might reply that premise (2) should not be interpreted as making the strong claim that the empty tomb story being an invented legend LOGICALLY IMPLIES that it is CERTAIN that the writers of the Gospels would NOT write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than men. Kreeft might claim that the empty tomb story being an invented legend just makes it VERY UNLIKELY that the writers of the Gospels would write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty by women rather than by men.
This is a reasonable reply to the objection that premise (2) is, strictly speaking, FALSE. However, because we have seen that there is a plausible scenario in which the antecedent of (2) is true but the consequent is false, even the weaker claim that the empty tomb story is an invented legend just makes it VERY UNLIKELY that the writers of the Gospels would write that the tomb of Jesus was discovered by women rather than by men is DUBIOUS. Therefore, although we should accept the proposed interpretation of premise (2) which makes a weaker claim, that weaker claim is still DUBIOUS.
I accept premise (C) as being true, or true for the most part, because it is correct concerning Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but is DUBIOUS in the case of the Gospel of John. But that is sufficient for the purposes of Kreeft's objection.
Given that premise (2) should be interpreted as making a weaker claim, the inference from premise (2) and premise (C) to (D) is no longer a DEDUCTIVELY VALID inference. It is logically possible for both (2) and (C) to be true, and yet for the sub-conclusion (D) to be false. At most, this argument would show that (D) is VERY LIKELY to be true. But we have noted that (2) itself is DUBIOUS, so there are now two significant weaknesses in this sub-argument: Premise (2) is DUBIOUS, and the truth of premise (2) would only make (D) very likely. The combination of two such weaknesses makes this sub-argument INADEQUATE to PROVE anything, and inadequate even to show that (D) is very likely.
Suppose that there is a 70% chance that (2) is true. Suppose that IF (2) were true, there would be an 80% chance that (D) would be true. This is generous because we are assuming that it is likely that (2) is true, even though this premise is DUBIOUS, and we are assuming that if (2) were true that would make it very likely that (D) would be true. But the truth of (D) depends on BOTH of these conditions, and in this scenario there is a 30% chance that (2) is false, and if (2) is true there is still a 20% chance that (D) would be false. We need to multiply the two probabilities to determine the probability of the conclusion (D):
.7 x .8 = .56
The probability of (D) being true on these assumptions is about .6, and the probability of (D) being false is about .4. So, there are about 4 chances in 10 that (D) is false, based on these assumptions. Thus, this sub-argument clearly falls short of PROVING that the conclusion (D) is true. Therefore, Kreeft's argument for Objection #4 falls short of proving that the Myth Theory is false. In other words, Kreeft's argument for Objection #4 FAILS.
But we are only partway through the argument at this point, and there are other serious problems and errors in the rest of the argument for Objection #4.
EVALUATION OF THE FOURTH SUB-ARGUMENT IN OBJECTION #4
Here is the fourth sub-argument in Objection #4:
D. The stories in the Gospels about the tomb of Jesus being discovered to be empty by women are NOT a legend or myth invented by the writers of the Gospels.
Therefore:
F. The writers of the Gospels were simply reporting what they saw and did not invent legends or myths about Jesus.
Kreeft's argument for Objection #4 is a chain of reasoning, and like a physical chain, the argument is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. We have already pointed out problems and weaknesses in the second and third sub-arguments in Kreeft's chain of reasoning. There is also a very serious problem with the fourth sub-argument in Objection #4.
The inference from (D) to (F) commits the fallacy of HASTY GENERALIZATION. So, this argument is a BAD argument. The inference from (D) to (F) is clearly INVALID if taken to be a deductive inference. But even taking this inference to be inductive does not save the argument. The Gospels include many stories containing many elements and they include many sayings or teachings of Jesus. So, showing that one particular story in a Gospel is not a legend or myth does not show that ALL of the other stories and elements in those stories are accurate historical reports. The presence of just ONE true story in a Gospel does NOT prove that ALL of the stories in that Gospel are true and accurate historical accounts.
Furthermore, (D) only states that this story about some women discovering the tomb of Jesus to be empty was NOT an invented legend or myth. This negative claim does NOT imply the positive claim that the writers of the Gospels were "reporting what they saw". Most mainstream NT scholars conclude that the Gospels were NOT written by eyewitnesses of the events they describe. The authors of the Gospels passed along stories about Jesus and sayings of Jesus that they obtained from earlier written sources and oral traditions. They were writing decades after the events in question. If we assume that the writers of the Gospels did not themselves invent this story about the discovery of the empty tomb, it is still probably the case that none of them were eyewitnesses to any part of the events described in that story.
For the above reasons, the inference from (D) to (F) is not just INVALID, it is unreasonable. So, the fourth sub-argument in Objection #4 is a BAD argument, and we should reject this argument. Therefore, Objection #4 FAILS, because the fourth sub-argument in Kreeft's chain of reasoning is a BAD argument.
EVALUATION OF THE FIFTH SUB-ARGUMENT IN OBJECTION #4
Here is the fifth sub-argument in the chain of reasoning constituting Kreeft's Objection #4:
F. The writers of the Gospels were simply reporting what they saw and did not invent legends or myths about Jesus.
Therefore:
E. The Myth Theory is FALSE.
Because of the problems with the previous sub-arguments, Kreeft has FAILED to show that (F) is true. So, premise (F) remains DUBIOUS.
The fifth sub-argument contains a serious error in its reasoning. This is the same error that caused each of Kreeft's previous three objections to FAIL. The inference from (F) to (E) is ILLOGICAL and INVALID. Even if we assume that the writers of the Gospels were simply reporting what they saw and did not invent legends or myths about Jesus, it does not follow that the Gospels are accurate and reliable accounts of the life and death of Jesus. There still could be false and inaccurate stories and elements in the Gospels even if the writers did not invent any legends or myths about Jesus.
Most importantly, the Myth Theory is NOT ABOUT THE GOSPELS. The Myth Theory is about the preaching and teaching of the eleven apostles about the death and resurrection of Jesus, and it is about the intentions of the eleven apostles concerning that preaching and teaching. Here is a definition of the "Myth Theory" based on Kreeft's own characterization of that theory:
The Myth Theory is true IF AND ONLY IF: (a) the apostles created the story that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday morning less than 48 hours after Jesus had been crucified, and (b) their intention was for others to take this story to be a myth, not a literal account of an actual historical event.
Mark was NOT one of the eleven apostles. Luke was NOT one of the eleven apostles. Matthew is the name of one of the eleven apostles, but most mainstream NT scholars don't believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew the apostle. John is the name of one of the eleven apostles, but most mainstream NT scholars don't believe that the Gospel of John was written by John the apostle.
At most, only two of the eleven apostles wrote Gospels (Matthew and John), but it is unlikely, based on the scholarly study of the Gospels, that ANY of the Gospels were written by one of the eleven apostles. Thus, the stories contained in the Gospels might well not accurately represent what the eleven apostles preached and taught about the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the intentions of the authors of the Gospels concerning their stories about the death and alleged resurrection of Jesus might well be different from the intentions of the eleven apostles concerning their stories about the death and alleged resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, the contents of the Gospels are not relevant to determining whether the Myth Theory is true or false.
The final sub-argument in Kreeft's chain of reasoning constituting Objection #4 is ILLOGICAL and INVALID, and the premise of this sub-argument is DUBIOUS, so this fifth sub-argument should be rejected, and thus Kreeft's Objection #4 against the Myth Theory FAILS.
EVALUATION OF KREEFT'S OBJECTION #4
Kreeft's reasoning in support of Objection #4 is a chain of reasoning consisting of five sub-arguments. The strength of the argument can be no greater than the strength of the weakest link in the chain of reasoning. Because there are a number of weak or broken links in this chain, the argument for Objection #4 FAILS.
The first sub-argument is OK, so long as we understand that it shows at most that premise (B) is very likely, and does not prove that (B) is true.
The second sub-argument has a serious problem because the inference from (B) and (G) to sub-conclusion (2) is a BAD or WEAK inference. This problem is sufficient by itself to show that Objection #4 FAILS.
The third sub-argument provides some support for the sub-conclusion (D), but since the premise (2) is DUBIOUS, and since the truth of (2) would only make it very likely that (D) is true, this argument falls significantly short of proving (D), and might well only show that (D) is probably true and thus that there is a significant chance (perhaps 4 chances in 10) that (D) is FALSE. Thus, the problems with the third sub-argument are sufficient to conclude that Objection #4 FAILS.
The fourth sub-argument in Objection #4 has a very serious problem. The inference from (D) to (F) commits the fallacy of HASTY GENERALIZATION, so not only is that inference INVALID, it is also a WEAK or BAD inference, in addition to the fact that premise (D) is DUBIOUS. So, these problems with the fourth sub-argument provide good reason to conclude that Objection #4 FAILS.
The fifth sub-argument contains the final inference in the chain of reasoning that constitutes Kreeft's Objection #4. This inference is ILLOGICAL and INVALID, because the premise is about the content of the Gospels, but the conclusion is NOT about the Gospels but is rather about the preaching and teaching of the eleven apostles. So, the conclusion (E) does NOT follow from premise (F). This serious problem with the final inference in Kreeft's chain of reasoning gives us a good reason to conclude that Objection #4 FAILS.
Because of there being significant or serious problems with four out of five of the sub-arguments that constitute Kreeft's Objection #4, it is very clear that this argument should be rejected. Therefore, Objection #4 against the Myth Theory FAILS.
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