Probability about Jesus (Christ) existence on earth

[MrMacSon]

• they are independent from each other, because if you eliminate one, that does not change the others.

Kind of, Bernard.
The information in many of those premises are aligned to each other (they come from the same place). Yet most are unverified beyond biblical assertions.

[Bernard Muller]

to timhendrix,

Your last example with the 83.22% is equivalent to the horse-race example I posted above which (hopefully) illustrate why that inference does not hold in general.
If you prefer not to discuss this subject with me because you are already discussing it with several other that is fine, however, I just wished to make you aware of it.

Your examples are not equivalent to mine. Actually they are very different.
Please read my two last posts.
However, I can say that over 5 races, each of the 4 horses (with a 20% probability to win at any of the 5 races) has a 67% probability to win one race out of the five:
P = 1 - [(1 - 0.2)^5]
Of course the 20% would come from the mind of the ones who bet on a particular horse and the expected result after 5 races would be according to what these persons thought about that horse.
But from a more mathematical stand point, the 4 horses of equal chance to win a race should be rated a 25%:
Then the overall result after 5 races would be 76% probability to win one race out of the five.
That's under the condition that each horse had all good races at the upper limit of its capability.

Of course we can look a dependency: such as if a gambler betting on the same horse might lower his probability rating for his horse if it did not win the first race. Lowering even more if his horse did not win also the second race. But another gambler can stay steady on the probability to win for the same horse. There is no general rule.
The reverse is the same, except the first gambler might increase the probabilty on his horse if it won the first race.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to MrMacSon,

The information in many of those premises are aligned to each other (they come from the same place). Yet most are unverified beyond biblical assertions.

Actually my 13 points do not come from the same place, but four different ones: Paul (the earliest Christian writer we know of), the author of Hebrews, Tacitus & Josephus. That means it is fairly verified, not only from their epistles but also outside them.
Furthermore, I made a case that the first gospel reacted against eyewitness(es) whose testimony was not favorable to Christian beliefs: http://historical-jesus.info/28.html

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

13 out of 4 places means they can't be independent.

Being from those sources doesn't mean verified. Jesus genealogy varies between Luke & the other gospel (Mark?)

[timhendrix]

to timhendrix,

Your last example with the 83.22% is equivalent to the horse-race example I posted above which (hopefully) illustrate why that inference does not hold in general.
If you prefer not to discuss this subject with me because you are already discussing it with several other that is fine, however, I just wished to make you aware of it.

Your examples are not equivalent to mine. Actually they are very different.
Please read my two last posts.
However, I can say that over 5 races, each of the 4 horses (with a 20% probability to win at any of the 5 races) has a 67% probability to win one race out of the five:
P = 1 - [(1 - 0.2)^5]
Of course the 20% would come from the mind of the ones who bet on a particular horse and the expected result after 5 races would be according to what these persons thought about that horse.
But from a more mathematical stand point, the 4 horses of equal chance to win a race should be rated a 25%:
Then the overall result after 5 races would be 76% probability to win one race out of the five.
That's under the condition that each horse had all good races at the upper limit of its capability.

Of course we can look a dependency: such as if a gambler betting on the same horse might lower his probability rating for his horse if it did not win the first race. Lowering even more if his horse did not win also the second race. But another gambler can stay steady on the probability to win for the same horse. There is no general rule.
The reverse is the same, except the first gambler might increase the probabilty on his horse if it won the first race.

Cordially, Bernard

Hi Bernard,

I tried to read your last posts (and earlier I have been following this thread) and I feel I understand what you are getting at and why this conversation is frustrating. What you are doing is true in some circumstances and false under other circumstances. What I hope we could do is to make it clear what those circumstances are and then you can decide if you feel they are met? (what I think Peter is telling you is that those circumstances are less general than you might think). That is why I am talking about the horserace because it is easier to illustrate the problems under idealized situations.

Going back to your example, the formula you gave is not quite what I think you have in mind (the formula you gave is better used as the probability that horse A wins AT LEAST ONE race -- however I think you have switched around on the number of horses and races), however let's focus on your example:


But from a more mathematical stand point, the 4 horses of equal chance to win a race should be rated a 25%:
Then the overall result after 5 races would be 76% probability to win one race out of the five.

Try for a moment to forget about the math and focus on your intuition. Imagine the example where we are not considering horse races, but rather which horse is heavier (a "heavyrace"). Assuming you do not know anything more about the horses, you will have to conclude horse A, B C or D each have a 25% chance of winning any of the five "heavyraces", exactly as in your example.
However, the chance that horse A wins exactly ONE "heavyrace" is 0%: Either it wins all five, or it wins zero. That is because there is an underlying factor, how heavy the horse is, which decides if it wins or not. Do you agree with me on these probabilities?

In an actual horse race there is also such a factor, namely how good the horse is, because we know (from our knowledge about horses) that not all horses are equally good. That there is still randomness (the best horse might still not win) does not invalidate the conclusion that we can't simply multiple the probabilities: Imagine in the "heavyrace" that we introduce a small random weight that we add to each horses weight. The heavyrace is now more or less random depending on how large that weight is, and that shows that presence of randomness does not overturn the overall conclusion if it is small: we cannot simply multiply the probabilities when we are dealing with an underlying factor.

IF there is such an underlying factor, you have to use the formula for conditional probabilities, and that is why Peter keeps bringing those up. I will be happy to discuss the above example symbolically or in the context of the interpolations, however, I hope we can first agree that the above example is valid?

[Peter Kirby]

Thanks for these posts, Tim. I appreciate it.

I think you understand this already, but I'd like to emphasize that there's no risk of error from using the formula that is framed in terms of conditional probability. It works for independent events too. In fact, simply using it across the board is a good way to start thinking about whether or not the events are actually considered to be independent.

[Bernard Muller]

to timhendrix,
I think I made mistakes on my earlier posting to you. You were right in suggesting problems in it.
Scrap everything except:

Your examples are not equivalent to mine. Actually they are very different, even incompatible.
Please read my two last posts.

Try for a moment to forget about the math and focus on your intuition. Imagine the example where we are not considering horse races, but rather which horse is heavier (a "heavyrace"). Assuming you do not know anything more about the horses, you will have to conclude horse A, B C or D each have a 25% chance of winning any of the five "heavyraces", exactly as in your example.
However, the chance that horse A wins exactly ONE "heavyrace" is 0%: Either it wins all five, or it wins zero. That is because there is an underlying factor, how heavy the horse is, which decides if it wins or not. Do you agree with me on these probabilities?

On your new post, I answer:
If horse A got heavy, then that would handicap it and make it less likely to win any race. After thorough detailed evaluation, its probability for that horse to win any race against the 3 other ones may be reduced to 10% from originally 25%. The other horses then would have a probability to win any race at 30% from originally 25% if they don't have a weight handicap.
So for 5 races, horse A would have a probability to win 0.5 times, the three other horses 1.5 times for each.
If we have 10 races instead of 5, then horse A would have a probability to win once, the three other horses 3 times for each one.

With 4 horses with equal probability to win, for 10 races, the 4 horses would have a probability to win 2.5 times for each one. Practically, some are likely to win 3 times and others twice.

And of course, in each race one of the 4 horses will be a winner.

The more races between these 4 horses, the more likely the result will match the probabilities (that is if we were correct about these probabilities before the start of the racing), that is if the horses stay in top condition.

No need to use any probability equation in this case.

I still do not see any equivalence or similarity between my examples (above all about the historicity of Jesus) and these racing horses.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to MrMacSon,

13 out of 4 places means they can't be independent.

Why not?

Being from those sources doesn't mean verified. Jesus genealogy varies between Luke & the other gospel (Mark?)

Even if these points are not verified as much as we would want, that does not mean they are false. BTW, the genealogies are in gLuke & gMatthew. They definitively have been concocted.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

to timhendrix,
Actually, I do not see anything wrong with my first post to you:

Your examples are not equivalent to mine. Actually they are very different.
Please read my two last posts.
However, I can say that over 5 races, each of the 4 horses (with a 20% probability to win at any of the 5 races) has a 67% probability to win one race out of the five:
P = 1 - [(1 - 0.2)^5]
Of course the 20% would come from the mind of the ones who bet on a particular horse and the expected result after 5 races would be according to what these persons thought about that horse.
But from a more mathematical stand point, the 4 horses of equal chance to win a race should be rated a 25%:
Then the overall result after 5 races would be 76% probability to win one race out of the five.
That's under the condition that each horse had all good races at the upper limit of its capability.

Of course we can look a dependency: such as if a gambler betting on the same horse might lower his probability rating for his horse if it did not win the first race. Lowering even more if his horse did not win also the second race. But another gambler can stay steady on the probability to win for the same horse. There is no general rule.
The reverse is the same, except the first gambler might increase the probability on his horse if it won the first race.

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

to MrMacSon,

13 out of 4 places means they can't be independent.

Why not?

The texts were primarily selected for their theological themes. This selection process would have involved selecting features, aspects, and themes that those people doing the selection would have wanted to confirm. Those 4 places are the subject of confirmation bias. Those 13 themes reflect that selection process.

As I have pointed out to you, many of these 13 themes or points are also inter-related [as you admitted in your post quoted at the bottom of this post of mine]

Being from those sources doesn't mean verified. Jesus genealogy varies between Luke & the other gospel (Mark?)

Even if these points are not verified as much as we would want, that does not mean they are false.

Nor does it mean they are true. Saying they might be true would be a combination of an argument-from-ignorance fallacy (= "not proven false, therefore true") and a 'possibiliter' [possibility] fallacy (= "possible, therefore probable")

BTW, the genealogies are in gLuke & gMatthew. They definitively have been concocted.

Cheers. If they have definitely been concocted, the likelihood of them being true is reduced.


from http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 575#p61575 -

they are different ways for implying Jesus had been an earthly human being. Sure, in that way they are related.
And in the same way, they are also related to the others, referring to my updated list of evidence from Paul's epistles, that is 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10:

1) 90% Descendant of Abraham (Gal 3:16) http://historical-jesus.info/18.html
2) 80% Descendant of Israelites (Ro 9:4-5) http://historical-jesus.info/25.html
3) 80% Descendant of Jesse (Ro 15:12) http://historical-jesus.info/60.html
4) 70% Descendant of David (Ro 1:3) http://historical-jesus.info/70.html
5) 85% Having brothers by blood, one of them being James (1 Cor 9:5, Gal 1:19). See Notes 1 and 2
6) 90% becoming from a woman (Gal 4:4) http://historical-jesus.info/18.html
7) 80% "poor, in poverty" (2 Cor 8:9) (can anyone be poor in heaven?) http://historical-jesus.info/21.html
8) 70% "The first man out of the earth, earthy; the second man the Lord out of heaven;" (1 Co 15:47)
9) 80% "the one man Jesus Christ" (Ro 5:15)
10) 60% The crucifixion happening in the heartland of the Jews http://historical-jesus.info/19.html

11) 80% From the tribe of Judah (Heb 7:14) http://historical-jesus.info/40.html

12) 60% "... For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham.
Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, ..." (Heb 2:14-17) http://historical-jesus.info/40.html

13) 50% "In the days of his flesh," (Heb 5:7) http://historical-jesus.info/40.html

14) 30% Tacitus' Annals 15.44 (low because possibly heard from Christians then, which would make it dependent on the gospels)

15) 80% Josephus' Antiquities XX, IX, 1