Very nice overview of Bayes Theorem and Historical Jesus

[_Philo Sofee]

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/car368023.shtml

(there, I got the URL fixed)
I have just purchased two new books on Bayes Theorem, and though they are technical, they are quite good. But truth be told, the finest expositor in the land on this subject is Richard Carrier. Here is another paper discussing the ramifications and ways to make use of Bayes Theorem.

[_Kishkumen]

Let me decide in advance how likely it is something will happen by spitballing and then tell you how it is effectively impossible. I'll dress it up with impressive looking symbols and my blue-whale-size, fragile ego. I'll tell you how many merit badges I earned in Boy Scouts and share irrelevant details about my sexcapades for no extra charge.

[_richardMdBorn]

Let me decide in advance how likely it is something will happen by spitballing and then tell you how it is effectively impossible. I'll dress it up with impressive looking symbols and my blue-whale-size, fragile ego. I'll tell you how many merit badges I earned in Boy Scouts and share irrelevant details about my sexcapades for no extra charge.

i agree with Kish. Bayes theorem is used by actuaries to weight experience with their a priori assumptions. It might have an application to new archaeological evidence. Its application to the search for the historical Jesus seems farfetched to me.

[_mikwut]

Philo,

Why don't you just show us? Take just one example of the critical method as I'll introduce below and then you apply Baye's probability to it. If Richard Carrier is correct we should have close to unanimous agreement because after all its just math right?

In law the rules of evidence present the adverse witness rule. In history and Jesus studies we would apply this in many ways, but, regarding Jesus' existence we would ask where is the existence of the contrary? The Jews were the adverse and even hostile group towards early Christianity yet they affirmed his existence by accusing the disciples of stealing the body from the tomb. - (Dialogue with Trypho, Tertullian, Mathew) And, the Talmud repudiates him as a criminal. These aren't sources that prove existence but how much easier for such a sophisticated group to simply point out the non existence, and where is such a allegation anywhere found in the ancient record?

Paul Maier says this is the strongest kind of evidence, and that, “you can argue about whether he was the Son of God or not, you can argue about the supernatural aspects of his life, but in terms of the historical character there is absolutely no evidence to the contrary and all the evidence is in the favor.”

So, using the critical method that Carrier decries we are at no evidence to the contrary, how do you turn such an example using Baye's theorem on its head and into low probability?

I'll happily apply such mathematical prowess the next time I am on the wrong side of the adverse witness rule in representing a client in court.

mikwut

[_Mary]

I actually enjoyed reading this article and agree that the criterion used in historical Jesus studies should be held up to scrutiny.What I don't neccessarily agree with is Carrier's assumption that Mark had no access to eyewitnesses. He doesn't know. Neither do we. He also assumes that he knows the author's (the writer of Mark) intentions. He doesn't. Mark may have picked Hebrew writings after the fact because they were relevant to what actually happened. It's a chicken an egg thing. We simply don't know whether Mark was creating a story to fit scripture, or using scripture to explain history as he knew it from eyewitnesses. We don't know and neither does Carrier.

We can say that the stories of Apollonius were around at the time and the Greek influenced writers used these tales in their construction of the Jesus story, but we don't actually know what they did and didn't know.



So, I think Carrier is right to critique historical Jesus criterion, I just don't see how Bayes theorum can be usefully applied to 2000 year old historical studies. If someone could explain that as simply as possible I'll listen.

[_Mary]

Because we can be certain it was not true that God publicly acknowledged his adoption of Jesus immediately after the baptism

As an atheist Carrier claims a 100% certainty that God does not and never will speak to mankind since God does not exist. Here he claims mathematical certainty even where Dawkins fears to tread (99.9% isn't certain, it's almost certain).

I mean, he is right in that God talking at Jesus' baptism is most likely a literary creation - given that it contradicts so much of the close disciples behaviour after the fact that's likely, but we just don't know where the tradition arose. One person, maybe even a woman, could have had the visionary experience hidden from others. We just don't know.

Again, it seems likely that Jesus was part of the Baptist movement at some point, - but Carrier is constructing his theory to explain why Jesus *never existed* and so he looks for literary creation throughout to explain *why* Jesus didn't exist. His own bias leaps from the page.

[_Mary]

TL:DR

What you get out is only as good as what you put in. History has too many unknowns.

[_Analytics]

Let me decide in advance how likely it is something will happen by spitballing and then tell you how it is effectively impossible. I'll dress it up with impressive looking symbols and my blue-whale-size, fragile ego. I'll tell you how many merit badges I earned in Boy Scouts and share irrelevant details about my sexcapades for no extra charge.

i agree with Kish. Bayes theorem is used by actuaries to weight experience with their a priori assumptions. It might have an application to new archaeological evidence. Its application to the search for the historical Jesus seems farfetched to me.

I'll agree with Philo and his link on this one; I can't think of a clear-headed way of examining the historicity of Jesus without evoking Bayes'.

What is the probability Jesus of Nazareth really existed? To answer that, I'd first want to do the following:

1- assemble the basket of all of the evidence we have
2- estimate the probability this basket of evidence would have materialized if Jesus of Nazareth was historical
3- estimate the probability this basket of evidence would have materialized if Jesus of Nazareth was not historical

At that point, we have two calculated probabilities--one for each paradigm. To collapse those two numbers to a single probability, we simply must have an a priori weighing of the two paradigms.

For questions like this, we must evaluate the evidence under the terms of the competing paradigms. Bayes' theorem allows us to do that. Critics might complain that the a priori probability makes the whole process subjective. However, the fact of the matter is that the a priori assumption is a logically necessary artifact of evaluating the evidence under two competing paradigms. We might not like doing this, but that doesn't change the fact that it is logically necessary.

[_mikwut]

Hi Analytics,

I am confused by your use of a priori assumption. What is the assumption that is a priori your referring to? Or an example.

The whole carrier thing is a ruse its a shell game. He uses Baye's theorem in attempt to lift his position's credibility as if he is applying some kind of unique historical criticism. The real reason he does this is to avoid appearing like the Jesus mythers that are so easily debunked like Acharya S. But he actually doesn't do anything different than traditional critical historians once he hits the text.

Does Philo or yourself really believe historians don't weigh evidence in the same rigorous mathematical/logical way Carrier espouses? Take my example above. No matter how you slice it or dice it, if you call it applying Baye's theorem, or if you call it historical criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism etc.. you apply reasoning and weighing of evidence towards the best explanation. That's what historians do. Exactly what you posted.

Take Dan Vogel for example. If we said we are going to apply Baye's theorem to the Joseph Smith puzzle and contrast it with Dan Vogel's work do we do anything radically different from what Dan Vogel does? I don't think so. If I am wrong just apply the Bayesian reasoning to my post above and demonstrate how you turn the reasoning on its head from a traditional historical reasoning to using Bayes because that is what is necessary to show Jesus did not exist.

mikwut

[_richardMdBorn]

I'll agree with Philo and his link on this one; I can't think of a clear-headed way of examining the historicity of Jesus without evoking Bayes'.

What is the probability Jesus of Nazareth really existed? To answer that, I'd first want to do the following:

1- assemble the basket of all of the evidence we have
2- estimate the probability this basket of evidence would have materialized if Jesus of Nazareth was historical
3- estimate the probability this basket of evidence would have materialized if Jesus of Nazareth was not historical

At that point, we have two calculated probabilities--one for each paradigm. To collapse those two numbers to a single probability, we simply must have an a priori weighing of the two paradigms.

For questions like this, we must evaluate the evidence under the terms of the competing paradigms. Bayes' theorem allows us to do that. Critics might complain that the a priori probability makes the whole process subjective. However, the fact of the matter is that the a priori assumption is a logically necessary artifact of evaluating the evidence under two competing paradigms. We might not like doing this, but that doesn't change the fact that it is logically necessary.

We have a P&C actuary (me - light) vs life actuary (Analytics - darkness).
Take an example from P&C. Let's assume that the a priori assumption is that a given line has a 10% frequency based on prior experience. New data is that the frequency is 6%. The claim count for the new experience indicates that it has a credibility of 50%. The Bayes indicated frequency is 8% = 10% x 50% + 6% x 50%. Unless new evidence is uncovered about the historicity of Jesus, I'm not sure how you use Bayes Theorem. Perhaps the evidence for Pilate uncovered in the 1960s could be weighted with prior skepticism about his existence.