The Lydia McGrew Podcast

Lydia McGrew Podcast
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Weekly

The goal: To take common sense about the Bible and make it rigorous. I'm an analytic philosopher, specializing in theory of knowledge. I've published widely in both classical and formal epistemology. On this channel I'm applying my work in the theory of knowledge to the books of the Bible, especially the Gospels, and to apologetics, the defense of Christianity. My aim is to bring a combination of scholarly rigor and common sense to these topics, providing the skeptic with well-considered reasons to accept Christianity and the believer with well-argued ways to defend it.

  1. 2d ago

    The RIGHT way to use multiple attestation--illustrated

    After weeks of talking about the wrong way of trying to use multiple attestation after "giving away the farm" on Gospel reliability, this week I'm going to illustrate the right way to use multiple attestation concerning one of Jesus' alleged resurrection appearances.Hint: You start by assuming that it's at least *possible* to confirm real, conscientious reportage.Here is the video on errancy and a witness in court:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS9pFGV8l8w

  2. Oct 26

    More on Bad and Good Multiple Attestation Claims

    Even when we have multiple accounts saying the same thing, each account must have *some* credibility for what it narrates. Conjoining multiple individually worthless accounts of an event does not magically create powerful testimonial evidence by mere multiplication. That point follows from the very nature of testimonial evidence, as John Earman pointed out. While multiple attestation can be a very powerful tool, once you have stripped the individual attestations of *all* force, you can't go back and fix matters just by saying that you have more than one.Moreover, when accounts are so changed that we really don't know what we mean by attesting to the same event, multiple attestation also doesn't work, because there is no "it" that is multiply attested. For example, the account of the saying, "I thirst" doesn't attest to the saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And the account in Luke 5 of Jesus making a great catch of fish at the beginning of his ministry, before he has even died, doesn't attest to a post-resurrection appearance.Here on the Wayback Machine is Licona's response to Bart Ehrman in which he makes a bad argument that the authors of the infancy stories would be reporting secure core facts, due to "multiple, independent attestation," even if they were engaging in wholesale invention of incidents.https://tinyurl.com/LiconavsEhrmanHere is an article I published in the journal Themelios on some of these issues:https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/finessing-independent-attestation-interdisciplinary-biblical-criticism/

  3. Oct 26

    Entanglement and Minimalism 4

    More on bad methods and false premises that underlie non-conservative scholars' acceptance of premises that the minimalist wants to use. It's assumed that if C. H. Dodd and/or Dale Allison accepts that the disciples had some kind of group experience, this must be something they are forced to by strong reasons. So maybe we can dig back down to those reasons and finally find something unentangled.But no. Dodd uses form criticism, an epistemically bankrupt method, to try to find "concise" snippets of "early tradition" embedded invisibly in the Gospels' otherwise made-up resurrection accounts. That he thinks some sort of group experience happened (tho' even the "concise" narratives contain, according to him, apologetic "expansions") is a result of his assumption that this method has objective value--a false premise that we shouldn't treat as legitimate.Similarly, Dale Allison uses a completely faulty notion of multiple attestation (really, multiple embellishment, to the point of unrecognizability) to conclude that the disciples had some kind of group experience. But he almost gleefully emphasizes that the changes are probably so radical that not much is left to be affirmed.For more on Habermas's misunderstandings of Dodd, see this series:https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2024/05/gary-habermass-misunderstandings-of-c-h.htmlFor more on misuses of multiple attestation, see these videos:https://youtu.be/I5fuHkEqOZ4https://youtu.be/EGVlEhtv0Zo

  4. Oct 11

    Entanglement and Minimalism 3

    Can the minimalist support the bodily resurrection by using the *reasons* that non-conservative scholars are relying on to conclude that the disciples had resurrection appearance experiences? Does this provide a fallback position for the minimalist idea that we can grant that the Gospels are unreliable while still having a strong argument for the bodily resurrection?No, because the reasons themselves are also entangled. Here I discuss the use of the I Corinthians 15 creed *against* Jesus' bodily appearances, which shows that the supposedly exciting grant that this passage is old actually is used by a number of critical scholars in a negative way, by setting it against the Gospel accounts and assimilating the phenomenology of the disciples' experiences to that of Paul's.Here is the video I mention in which I point out Habermas's really egregious misreading of the Jesus Seminar as granting that group appearances are multiply, independently attested: ttps://youtu.be/HZHrW06bXn0

  5. Oct 4

    Entanglement and Minimalism 2

    Does it make it okay to use an acknowledgement of an "appearance fact" by a non-conservative scholar, even if he means something different by it than is needed for the argument, if we know that his different meaning is a result of his bias?Nope. Entanglement problems don't go away even if you know that the person would think differently if he weren't biased against a particular conclusion.

  6. Sep 27

    Entanglement and Minimalism 1

    Why is it not illicit (per se) to use a premise that an opponent grants, even if he doesn't agree with your conclusion, but illicit for minimalists to say that a scholar grants that "the disciples had resurrection appearance experiences" when the scholar doesn't mean the same thing by the phenomenology of such experiences? Aren't these argumentative moves the same thing? Wouldn't my scruples about minimalist uses of "experiences" and "group appearances" rule out *all* use of a granted premise by an opponent?The answer is no, and over the next few weeks, I'll be spelling out why.Here is the blog post version of today's content:https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2026/08/entanglement-concerns-dont-rule-out-use.htmlHere is an earlier video I did on entanglement:https://youtube.com/live/MUIJ97i--ic

  7. Sep 20

    An Undesigned Coincidence in 9/11 Testimonies

    Contrary to what I say at the very end, I decided to share this video on September 13 instead of the 20th, to put it closer to 9/11 itself.I will complete the miniseries on Kamil Gregor's naturalistic theory of the resurrection evidence next week.Are undesigned coincidences just (wave hands) some weird apologetics thing? Not at all. We find them in ordinary witness testimony in secular contexts as well. In this case, the interlocking occurs between two testimonies from 9/11 first responders---Captain Mark Stone and Lt. Rene D'Avila.Lt. D'Avila's testimony here:https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110075.PDFCaptain Stone's testimony here:https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110076.PDFThumbnail photo by Michael Foran, used from Wikipedia under Creative Commons license.

  8. Sep 13

    Gregor's Weak Explanation 3

    Here I wrap up my discussion of Kamil Gregor's pareidolia explanation of the resurrection evidence.I first ask whether Gregor is fairly representing the claims of Christian scholars like Michael Licona and Craig Evans concerning Greco-Roman history. Unfortunately, his use of their claims is not all that far off, despite the fact that they would no doubt want to disclaim the extent to which he takes them. But the allegedly comforting "limits" on sheer invention, including invention of whole incidents, which they place on their ideas of Greco-Roman historical conventions, are far from apparent in their own work, and they appear to be more of a sop to calm down conservative audiences than a principled stance. On the other hand, I have argued that it is all wrong anyway to say that it was part and parcel of ancient history to make stuff up, so not only is Gregor wrong about that, so are Licona and Evans.Then I turn to the more interesting question for this mini-series: Does Gregor's invocation of alleged ancient norms which permitted sheer invention salvage his explanation of the Gospel stories we have? Nope. He's still dragged down by his initial claim, discussed last week, that the disciples thought they only saw Jesus appearing from heaven, not on earth.And then there's the whole "fake points don't make points" issue. It's an odd thing: Why are some skeptics squeamish about saying that the Gospel authors lied?Here's Gregor's appearance on Mythvision:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FWyZRnI4e8

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About

The goal: To take common sense about the Bible and make it rigorous. I'm an analytic philosopher, specializing in theory of knowledge. I've published widely in both classical and formal epistemology. On this channel I'm applying my work in the theory of knowledge to the books of the Bible, especially the Gospels, and to apologetics, the defense of Christianity. My aim is to bring a combination of scholarly rigor and common sense to these topics, providing the skeptic with well-considered reasons to accept Christianity and the believer with well-argued ways to defend it.

Information

  • Creator
    Lydia McGrew Podcast
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    105
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Lydia McGrew Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Lydia McGrew Podcast

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