As I slowly make my way through agnostic Bart Ehrman’s latest book, Did Jesus Exist?, I can’t help but to notice the logical fallacies. For instance, about a week ago I posted on Bart Ehrman’s straw man and contradiction against the fundamentalists. Three weeks ago I posted on his fallacy of a false dilemma.
Today’s post will focus on the fallacy of argument from silence.
Ehrman knows that an argument from silence is a fallacy. That’s because he’s able to identify it as a fallacy when others commit it. For instance, in talking about Rene Salm, who denies the historical existence of the town of Nazareth, Ehrman writes
The most recent critic to dispute the existence of Nazareth is Rene Salm, who has devoted an entire book to the question, called The Myth of Nazereth…Like so many mythicists before him, Salm emphasizes what scholars have long known: Nazareth is never mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in the writings of Josephus, or in the Talmud. It first shows up in the Gospels. Salm is also impressed by the fact that the early generations of Christians did not seek out the place but rather ignored it and seem not to know where it was (this is actually hard to show; how would we know this about ‘every’ early Christian, unless all of them left us writings and told us everything they knew and did?).” (Page 193)
A Slam Dunk on Salm. After all, silence only proves…silence. And don’t forget the difficulty of proving a universal negative. Note how Ehrman calls out Salm that he does not know what every early Christian have done in their lives and therefore Salm can not establish his premise that no early Christians ever looked for Nazareth.
Does Ehrman commit the same fallacy?
Here’s an example of Bart Ehrman’s argument from silence in Did Jesus Exists? :
Before the Christian movement, there were no Jews who thought the messiah was going to suffer.” (Page 173; emphasis not in original)
No Jews? To apply Ehrman’s own refutation quoted earlier against himself: “this is actually hard to show; how would we know…” “unless all of them left us writings and told us everything they knew and did?” (Page 193).
The same problem applies to the following:
According to Luke’s story, a tax was imposed on ‘all the world’ by Caesar Augustus, and everyone had to register for a census. Since Joseph’s distant ancestor David was born in Bethlehem, that is where he had to register. While he was there his betrothed, Mary, gave birth. There is no way this can be historically correct. There was no worldwide (or even empire-wide) census in the days of Augustus…” (Page 184; emphasis not in original)
And:
So too it is completely implausible that when Jesus was put on trial at the end of his life, Pilate offered to release one of his two chief prisoners Barabbas or Jesus, as was allegedly his custom at Passover (see Mark 15:6-15). We have no historical record of any such custom being carried out by Pilate or anyone else.” (Page 184)
Again, an argument from silence to prove a claim. Ehrman should realize the difficulty of his position with the realities that he admitted earlier in the book that the Romans did not keep a detailed complete record of everything they did and that we should not interpret that to mean that something couldn’t have been historical if it’s cited elsewhere (see pages 44 through 46). Keep in mind that an argument from silence here is further problematic when one consider the fact that the majority of the Roman imperial record did not survive the passage of time.
Can you spot other arguments from silence in Ehrman’s book?
Great points. It is sad that such a “scholar” and his editors put forth such fallacious arguments — and more sad that people believe them!
Indeed. I hope and pray that God will use this series for people to find it online who are falling for Ehrman’s attack on Christianity in order for them to be more critical and cautious by realizing he does make blunders in his reasoning.
Thanks for defending (?) my work. I have one (important) corrective regarding a statement of Ehrman mirrored above: “Before the Christian movement, there were no Jews who thought the messiah was going to suffer.” (DJE? p. 173). This is untrue and it is sad that a distinguished scholar such as Ehrman has not done his homework better. See
http://www.mythicistpapers.com/torrey-part-four-slain-by-the-gentiles/
for an article by C. Torrey describing the expectation of a slain messiah in Second Temple Judaism.
I’m going to have to look more carefully at the article you posted after Sunday
Thanks for stopping by my blog and liking “It’s Saturday, but Sunday is coming.” Great review on Erhman’s book. I haven’t had the chance to pick this one up yet, although it is on my list, as is “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. I find it valuable to study these types of works in order to help myself better understand the other viewpoint, as well as my own, but my time is limited. However, you’ve piqued my interest.
It amazes me that works like this make it to the bookshelves when they have so many fallacious arguments that essentially amount to “you can’t prove it, so it must not exist.” Especially considering that the crux of science is based on the fact that there is still so much more to learn and discover. I think it was Socrates who said “a wise man knows he knows nothing,” or something like that.
You’re welcome! And thanks for dropping by. I agree with you on your point that “It amazes me that works like this make it to the bookshelves when they have so many fallacious arguments,” I wonder about that recently myself.
God bless you and I hope you had a good Resurrection Sunday.
Reblogged this on Rise And Transform and commented:
Attacks continue yet God still stands. 🙂
Thanks for the reblog!
[…] Eight days ago we saw some of agnostic Bart Erhman’s fallacious argument that he committed in … Apparently documenting some of the obvious problems in Ehrman’s book has led to enough materials to make a blog series. In our fourth installment I want to look specifically at a claim he made concerning First-Century Judaism. Beginning on page 271 Ehrman describes what are the beliefs “among Jews in the days of Jesus,” leading him to state the following on page 272: […]
I would like to read this book one day. Thank you.
Im hoping to write a full review next week.
[…] Bart Ehrman’s Fallacious Argument from Silence in his book, “Did Jesus Exist?” […]