It seems Craig is using his own compressed adaption of seven criteria for evaluating competing hypotheses that were proposed by Christopher Behan McCullagh,
The theory is that one is rationally justified in believing a statement to be true if the following conditions obtain:
(1) The statement, together with other statements already held to be true, must imply yet other statements describing present, observable data. (We will henceforth call the first statement ‘the hypothesis’, and statements describing observable data, ‘observation statements’.)
(2)The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory scope than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must imply a greater variety of observation statements.
(3) The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory power than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other.
(4) The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly any other.
(5)The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs.
(6) It must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, when conjoined with accepted truths it must imply fewer observation statements and other statements which are believed to be false.
(7)It must exceed other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject by so much, in characteristics 2 to 6, that there is little chance of an incompatible hypothesis, after further investigation, soon exceeding it in these respects.
a well-known Australian philosopher of history. His website describes him as being recently retired as a Reader and Associate Professor of Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and he is currently an Honorary Associate at La Trobe University Philosophy Program.” See McCullagh's bio.
McCullagh describes himself as a Christian, but he offers mostly pragmatic, rather than historical or scientific, reasons for affirming a belief in the resurrection. This position has been rendered even clearer in his article: C. Behan McCullagh, "The Resurrection of Jesus: Explanation or Interpretation?"
Southeastern Theological Review, 3.1 (2012) 41-53.
McCullagh's article is mainly a critique of Michael Licona’s
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Account (2010), a defense of the resurrection. McCullagh reiterates that he does not believe that the resurrection of Jesus is a superior explanation of the data, and he opts for a pragmatic reason to believe in that event (e.g., it has good consequences for modern believers).
McCullagh further clarifies that “a theological account of the disciples’ experiences of the risen Jesus is better understood as
an interpretation, not an explanation, of those experiences” (McCullagh, “Resurrection,” p. 42; my underlined emphasis).
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.c ... se-to.html
Adultering and twisting the ideas expressed by others to better express one's own ideas is something I accused J D Crossan of doing with the sociological theories of Gerhard Lenski (
.
What Crossan says: |
The rest of the story: |
Crossan adopts what he call the "Lenski-Kautsky model" of class, drawing on Gerhard Lenski's Power & Privelige and John Kautski's Politics of Aristocratic Empires. |
However, the definition of social class is that of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix ("Karl Marx and the History of Classical Antiquity", Arethusha 8, 1975), not that of either Kautski or Lenski. |
On pg 153 of BOC, (Marked Social Inequality), Crossan quotes Lenski to establish your three distinctive features causing the increase of social inequality, to support his contention that 1st century Galilee was feeling such pressure. |
Crossan leaves out the context of Lenski's statement, which is when an agrarian society replaces an advanced horticultural society, and not the situation we have in 1st century Galilee, which Crossan says is the commercialization of an advanced agrarian society. |
Crossan quotes Lenski, pg 199, to illustrate the mushrooming process of urbanization in newly agrarian societies. |
Crossan does not mention that Lenski elsewhere on the same page of his book indicated that these "fairly large" cities were more often than not national capitals, with perhaps five hundred thousand permanent residents at the very most, with the vast majority of towns being much more modest in size, leaving the vast majority of the population unaffected by mushrooming urbanization. |
In support of the feature of monetization, Crossan quotes Lenski, pg 207, to the effect that the introduction of money in agrarian societies offered aristocrats the opportunity to use it to indebt and consequence exploit the peasants. |
However, Lenski also says on the same page that "in the rural areas especially, the use of money was an infrequent experience, especially for peasants," so in other words, while money lending could be "highly rewarding", it appears also to have been the exception rather than the rule. |
On page 155, Crossan quotes Lenski (pg 271) to the effect that "[t]he Peasant Class, that vast majority of the population, was held "at, or close to, the subsistence level." |
Crossan ignores the fact that all Lenski's examples are drawn from medieval Europe, China and Japan. |
Crossan adds the comment "so that their appropriated surplus could support elite conspicuous consumption". |
While the phrase "conspicuous consumption" is based on a passage elsewhere in Lenski's book, the comment is not relevant to the kind of situation he is analyzing, and thus seems inserted to score an ideological point. |
At pg 157 (Agrarian Commercialization), Crossan begins to quote John Kautsky, pg 25, note 31, to the effect that “ ‘ancient Athens and Rome ... are commercialized’ agrarian empires.” |
However, Crossan leaves out the rest of note 31, "To be sure, the term 'traditional' has also been applied to empires existing up to the emergence of modern states, like the Chinese, Russian, and Ottoman empires into the nineteenth century ... not to mention ancient Athens and Rome -- all of which are commercialized and hence *modern*" societies, not advanced Agrarian. |
On pg 158 Crossan emphasizes that Kautsky represents aristocrats as living off peasants surplus in a one sided manner with no reciprocity involved for the Peasants. |
However, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, who Crossan earlier cited approvingly for a definition of "class", published The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981, a year before Kautsky), takes a far more lenient view of the exploitative relationship between aristocrats and peasants than does Kautsky. |
Crossan does not cite de Ste Croix's 1981 book in the bibliography of BOC. |
This gives the impression that Crossan should have been aware of this publication with a far more lenient view, but chose not to present that view, and thus left to wonder why de Ste. Croix is so reliable when he defines "class" but not so reliable when he defines economic relationships between classes. |
On page 158 Crossan discusses (localized) peasant revolts as characteristic of commercialization of agrarian empires (relying on Kautsky alone in this matter, although representing it as inherent in both Lenski & Kautsky. |
However, Lenski speaks only of "inconsistent status" individuals as leaders of revolutions, and only on pp 88 & 409, and Crossan again ignores de Ste. Croix who indicated that crushing levels of economic exploitation did not characterize the Roman empire until the 4th century CE. |
On pg 166 Crossan asks a rhetorical question: "What if priests, prophets, scribes, bureaucrats, or retainers, acting institutionally or charismatically, instigate an *ideological* revolution?" |
Crossan is essentially endorsing an ideological perspective by presuming an "ideological revolution" rather than the political revolution such sociological changes might normally be expected to produce. |
Just as Crossan managed to gut and bowdlerize both Lenski and Kautsky, making the use of these authors invalid since they really did not say or even imply what Crossan said (or wanted to believe) they did, so does Craig with McCullagh.
Edit 7/23/2022: Due to now broken link, added the table comparing Crossan's statements about "the Kautsky-Lenski" model to what John Kautsky & Gerhard Lenski actually said.