Let's say we give 50% probability that the following shows that Jesus called Christ existed as a man on earth:Ben C. Smith wrote:
Maybe the numbers themselves were not the point of Bernard's post. Maybe the whole thing was just a heuristic device designed to show how, though each individual datum might not mean much on its own, they combine to create an overall probability that the event in question happened. Historians use a sort of procedure like this sometimes, which Gilbert J. Garraghan calls "cumulative evidence" on page 305 of A Guide to Historical Method:
I am not sure how valid any given numbers would be for such an exercise.Cumulative or converging evidence is virtually circumstantial. It is "a heaping up" (L. cumulus) of bits of evidence, individually never more than probable, and often only slightly so, until they form a mass of evidence, the net result of which is certainty. But, as already noted, the resulting certainty does not issue directly from the mass or cumulus of probabilities, since no number of mere probabilities added together can logically produce certainty. To produce such effect, one must invoke the "principle of sufficient reason," by arguing that the only possible explanation why so many bits of evidence point to the same alleged fact, is that the fact is objectively true.
To me it seems that the use of numbers would best involve a heavy use of statistics. For example, one might accumulate data until it becomes apparent that 85% of the time, when an ancient author uses term X, s/he fails to also use term Y, a synonym to X. But this or that Pauline letter uses both term X and term Y, so perhaps one of those terms belongs to an interpolation. Even here, though, I am not sure what that number, 85%, would mean. Would it mean that there is an 85% chance that Paul penned only one of those terms, and thus only a 15% chance that the other term is not part of an interpolation? Would it be that direct? It does not seem so to me, but my experience with statistics is pretty limited.
1) Descendant of Abraham (Gal 3:16)
2) Descendant of Israelites (Ro 9:4-5)
3) Descendant of Jesse (Ro 15:12)
4) Descendant of David (Ro 1:3)
5) Having brothers by blood, one of them being James (1 Cor 9:5, Gal 1:19)
6) becoming from a woman (Gal 4:4)
7) From the tribe of Judah (Heb 7:14)
8) Tacitus' Annals 15.44
9) Josephus' Antiquities XX, IX, 1
The probability being lowered to 50% would be in consideration that:
1) The epistle verses in question might be part of interpolations and (or the whole epistle) written after one or several gospels were "published".
2) Mythicists (or others) arguing (far-fetched) interpretations showing otherwise (that is not showing the past existence on earth of a man Jesus called Christ)
Then, according to the equation P = (1 - p)^N = (1 - 0.5)^9,
the overall probability (P) that Jesus called Christ existed as a man on earth would be 99.8%.
Even with only three of these points, the overall probability would still be at 87.5%.
Note: If assigning different probabilities for each point, the equation becomes: P = 1 - [(1-p1)*(1-p2)*...*(1-pN)]
Cordially, Bernard
