The Lydia McGrew Podcast

Than and I continue our detailed rebuttal to Brian Blais and Paulogia, who claim to be telling us what Bayes' Theorem says about the resurrection. One topic is a set of truly dreadful items of evidence against the resurrection via arguments from silence. Here is Timothy McGrew's published paper on arguments from silence:https://timothymcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/The-Argument-from...

Happy Easter, 2026!Here Than and I discuss three alternative "explanations" for the resurrection evidence which Brian Blais claims are just as good as the actual resurrection for explaining the data. These are Kamil Gregor's pareidolia suggestion:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FWyZRnI4e8James Fodor's RHBS theory:https://jamesfodor.com/2017/04/02/the-resurrection-of-jesus-explai...

Than and I continue to discuss objections to the resurrection case. Here we talk about the technical question of whether Tim and I overestimated the Bayes factor (a mathematical expression meant to represent the force of the evidence) in favor of the resurrection in our 2009 resurrection article in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. That article, with a few updates, is available here:htt...

The first techy topic here: Why you need to use a partition when talking about Bayesian arguments in history. Here is an earlier video I did on this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7umQEVtbx4&t=2sThe next techy topic here: Independence! This is a big and important topic for the resurrection case. In this video I mention Brian Blais's attempt to model independence to critique Tim's and...

The topic here: The Bible tells me so jingleThan and I discuss the abuse of the jingle "The Bible Tells Me So" by skeptics to trash the legitimate historical use of material in the canonical documents. Why is it wrong to throw out data because we have it only in a single source/Here is Timothy McGrew's article, published in Acta Analytica, on the argument from silence in history:http...

Than Christopoulos and I continue discussing the resurrection, the max data case, and skepticism. In this video our topic is the fact that Brian Blais and Paulogia simply dismissed all the evidence for the historical reportage model of the Gospels despite its relevance to the resurrection. Here is their video which we're responding to:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6QenX4Oo78Here is a long v...

Several months ago Than Christopoulos and I got together to record a *lot* of material on Bayes's Theorem and the Resurrection. Our intention was to respond to this video by Youtube skeptic Paulogia and physicist/statistician Brian Blais, which claims to tell you what Bayes *really* says about the resurrection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6QenX4Oo78The topic we discuss here: How are munda...

In this second-to-last video in my series on the authorship of the 4th Gospel, I discuss a collection of forceless arguments from such things as John's emphasis on Jerusalem, not having "enough" unique stories about Galilee, and not mentioning some people who aren't mentioned in the Synoptics. The argument from not "enough" Galilee stories involves not even accurately c...

In this last video of the series I turn to the question, "Who was at the Last Supper?" If only the twelve were present with Jesus, and if the author of the Gospel is the Beloved Disciple and was named "John," then he must be John bar Zebedee. Commentators have long emphasized the fact that it's a natural interpretation to take from the Synoptic Gospels that only the twelve...

Here I discuss a second much-used line of argument that the author of the 4th Gospel can't be John the son of Zebedee--namely, that Mark (and the other Synoptics) don't mention his presence at the cross. Richard Bauckham admits that this argument is used to claim that the entire idea that the Beloved Disciple was present at the cross is fictional. He rightly rejects that conclusion but tri...

Could the son of a Galilean fisherman have been "known to the high priest"? Sure, why not?!Here I argue against what is taken to be one of the strongest arguments against authorship of the Fourth Gospel by John the son of Zebedee. I argue that the argument is a combination of over-reading the meaning of the word "known" and a priori history about who couldn't possibly have...

According to Richard Bauckham, the church father Irenaeus of Lyon believed that the author of the fourth Gospel was the Beloved Disciple but was not the son of Zebedee. Yet in his urgency to find some way to interpret Irenaeus's works as compatible with this view, Bauckham has robbed Irenaeus of terms that would otherwise make it clear whom he is speaking of. Bauckham says that you needed spec...

Does Irenaeus maintain a distinction between John the evangelist who wrote the fourth Gospel and John the son of Zebedee who led the early church with Peter in the first chapters of Acts? I argue that there is no reason at all to think that he distinguishes these and some reason to think that he is treating them as the same person. I answer Richard Bauckham's claims on this point and show that...

Does the Muratorian Canon imply that John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, was not a member of the twelve? Here I reply to Richard Bauckham's strained argument to that effect. I briefly mention the "orthodox Johannophobia" thesis at the beginning of the video. Here is Charles Hill's (unfortuately expensive) book that addresses it: https://www.amazon.com/Johannine-Corpus-Early-Ch...

Did Irenaeus, or a mid-second-century compiler, invent the authorship of John to help oppose Gnosticism? Nope. Turns out, the debate with the Gnostics was over the interpretation of John, not its authorship.

Everybody who's interested in the authorship of John would like to know what the early church father Papias said about the subject. But alas! We have no unquestionable statement from Papias about who wrote John. Though probably he did say something explicit, this is another illustration of the way that the chances and changes of this mortal life leave us missing a lot of things written in the...

A blessed Christmas to all my listeners and viewers. Here we pause in discussing authorship for a Christmas reflection: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. John's Gospel emphasizes truth because literal truth is, in John's view, inherently bound up with the Incarnation of God. The true anachronism is not holding John to this literal, historical standard. The real anachronism is co...

Here I talk about the earliest evidence we have about the authorship of John. as it happens, the author isn't named as "John" in this evidence, but it is still very valuable. It's very important to remember that "the earliest evidence that has come down to us" isn't "the earliest evidence that ever existed." Many ancient writings have simply been lost. See...

Today begins a series on the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. In this introduction I explore what one might mean by authorship and what assumptions you shouldn't make when hearing that someone affirms traditional authorship. And just how important is authorship, anyway? Get more content on the Gospel of John in _The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage_:https://www.a...

Recently Dr. William Lane Craig has claimed that what we "should be talking about" is how great it is that Dale Allison acknowledges "the appearance to the twelve" and Allison's arguments for it. Craig earnestly urges that we should accentuate the positive when it comes to Allison, emphasizing how very impressive it is that a person who thinks the Gospels have many legendar...

Dale Allison admits that there are apparition accounts in which not everybody present can see the apparition. (Ya think?) But despite his insinuation that this has some connection with the "recurrent notice of doubt" in the Gospel accounts, this is actually a strong *dissimilarity* with the Gospel accounts, in which it is strongly implied that everybody present can see and interact with...

How do bereavement apparitions (assuming that they occur) typically end? *Not* with something like the ascension scene as described in Acts 1. Here again I'm investigating whether the bereavement apparition literature, even taken on its own terms, provides a good fit for what is *claimed* in the canonical Gospels and Acts. Dale Allison frequently implies or even states that there are significa...

Dale Allison asserts that reports of tangible apparitions create "real ambiguity" concerning the evidential force of the Gospel stories about Jesus being tangible and eating. Is this true? I argue that it isn't. Even aside from the quite uncritical approach that Allison takes to modern apparition reports, the reports as he recounts them are evidentially far less clear than the Gospel...

In his book on the resurrection, Dale Allison claims that, in the canonical Gospels, the post-Easter Jesus does not approach but just appears suddenly at once. He also claims that he cannot be followed. But there are specific counterexamples to both claims. If you're going to claim that there are significant parallels between your favored non-bodily explanation and the canonical Gospels, you n...

I'm continuing to go through telling admissions that Dale Allison makes (without realizing that they are telling admissions) about the apparition literature. These show that there is no significant similarity to what we find in the Gospel accounts, even though Allison suggests that there is. Yes, he also thinks the Gospel accounts are embellished...at just the points where they don't resem...