The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Habermas and Licona - Part 7: Why (C2) Has a Low Probability

THIS POST IS STILL IN WORK - Please come back in a few days to read the completed post.

WHERE WE ARE

The conclusion of Phase 1 of the case for the resurrection of Jesus presented by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona is this:

(C2) Jesus rose from the dead.

They claim that they can show this conclusion to be at least somewhat more likely than "Somewhat Certain".  In Part 5 of this series, I argued that this means that (C2) can be shown to have a probability of at least .70. 

In Part 6 of this series, I argued that it is doubtful that they can show that (C2) has that degree of certainty or probability.  The problems I pointed to were these:

• Because the Standard of Evidence used by most NT and Jesus scholars might well be weak (i.e. the Preponderance of Evidence Standard or the Twelftree Historicity Standard), the probability of their key historical claims might well be significantly lower than .70.
• Because their inference to (C2) requires the truth of multiple key historical claims and assumptions, the probability of (C2) will require the multiplication of the probabilities of those key historical claims and assumptions, thus resulting in a probability of (C2) that is lower than the probabilities of the key historical claims. 

I realize that it is possible to formulate a correct inductive argument for a conclusion where the probability of the conclusion is higher than the probabilities of the premises, but the primary inference supporting (C2) is the conjunction of these two historical claims:

DOC: Jesus was crucified and died on the cross. 

JAW: Jesus was alive and walking around a few days after he was crucified.

Both of these claims must be true in order for (C2) to be established.  That means that the probability of (DOC) must be multiplied times the probability of (JAW) in order to determine the probability of (C2). Thus, the probability of (C2) must be lower than the probabilities of those two key historical claims.

The probability of (DOC) based on the assumption that "nearly all scholars who study the crucifixion of Jesus accept (DOC)" will only be about .51, if most such scholars use the Prevalence of Evidence Standard, and will only be about .60 if most such scholars use the Twelftree Historicity Standard. 

The second historical claim (JAW) is based primarily on this argument:

JDB:Jesus' disciples sincerely believed that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them sometime after he had been crucified.

IF Jesus' disciples sincerely believed that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them sometime after he had been crucified, THEN...