“P(resurrection) ~= P(gospels true) ~= 1 - [P(people make stuff up about Jesus) * P(they don’t get called on it)]
So what is the probability that, given some historical tradition of Jesus, it will get embellished with made-up miracles and people will write gospels about it? Approximately 1: both Christians and atheists agree that the vast majority of the few dozen extant Gospels are false, including the infancy gospels, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Peter, et cetera. All of these tend to take the earlier Gospels and stories and then add a bunch of implausible miracles to them. So we know that the temptation to write false Gospels laden with miracles was there.”
But don’t the gnostic gospels serve as a sort of control case for the true gospels? That is, becuase everyone, starting with the early church, agrees that, say, Gospel of Thomas was just made up by the Gnostics, then wouldn’t that imply that P(gets called on it I made up a random gospel) ≈ 1, or at least is very high, which would imply that P(makes up gospel, doesn’t get called on it) is low?
“P(resurrection) ~= P(gospels true) ~= 1 - [P(people make stuff up about Jesus) * P(they don’t get called on it)]
So what is the probability that, given some historical tradition of Jesus, it will get embellished with made-up miracles and people will write gospels about it? Approximately 1: both Christians and atheists agree that the vast majority of the few dozen extant Gospels are false, including the infancy gospels, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Peter, et cetera. All of these tend to take the earlier Gospels and stories and then add a bunch of implausible miracles to them. So we know that the temptation to write false Gospels laden with miracles was there.”
But don’t the gnostic gospels serve as a sort of control case for the true gospels? That is, becuase everyone, starting with the early church, agrees that, say, Gospel of Thomas was just made up by the Gnostics, then wouldn’t that imply that P(gets called on it I made up a random gospel) ≈ 1, or at least is very high, which would imply that P(makes up gospel, doesn’t get called on it) is low?