Seven Facts About Biblical Slavery Prove that It Was Not Chattel Slavery

Update: see here for the numerous debunk attempts on this post 

These 7 facts prove that slavey as outlined in the Bible was indebted servitude, not chattel slavery.

Definitions

Chattel slavery - allows people to be bought, sold and owned, even forever

Indentured servitude - a form of labor where a voluntarily person agrees to work without pay for a set number of years

The seven facts

1) Ebed - The English word "slave" and "slavery" come from the Hebrew word Ebed. It means servant, slave, worshippers (of God), servant (in special sense as prophets, Levites etc), servant (of Israel), servant (as form of address between equals.; it does not necessarily mean a chattel slave in and of itself, thus it is incumbent upon those who say it does to provide the reasons for that conclusion if they are going to use.

Whether "ebed" mean indentured servant, chattel slave, or something else would have to be determined by the context.

2) Everyone was an Ebed - From the lowest of the low, to the common man, to high officials, to the king every one was an Ebed in ancient Israel, since it means to be a servant or worshipper of God, servant in the sense as prophets, Levites etc, servant of Israel, and as a form of address between equals.

It's more than a bit silly to think that a king or provincial governors were chattel slaves - able to be bought and sold.

3) Ancient Near East [ANE] Slavery was poverty based - the historical data doesn’t support the idea of chattel slavery in the ANE. The dominant motivation for “slavery” in the ANE was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--not by the "owner"--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects). 

The definitive work on ANE law today is the 2 volume work (History of Ancient Near Eastern Law - HANEL). This work surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period) and includes sections on slavery.

A few quotes from HANEL: 

"Most slaves owned by Assyrians in Assur and in Anatolia seem to have been debt slaves--free persons sold into slavery by a parent, a husband, an elder sister, or by themselves." (1.449)

 "Sales of wives, children, relatives, or oneself, due to financial duress, are a recurrent feature of the Nuzi socio-economic scene…A somewhat different case is that of male and female foreigners, who gave themselves in slavery to private individuals or the palace administration. Poverty was the cause of these agreements…" (1.585)

"Most of the recorded cases of entry of free persons into slavery are by reason of debt or famine or both…*A common practice was for a financier to pay off the various creditors in return for the debtor becoming his slave.*" (1.664f)

"On the other hand, mention is made of free people who are sold into slavery as a result of the famine conditions and the critical economic situation of the populations [Canaan]. Sons and daughters are sold for provisions…" (1.741)

"The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement [Neo-Sumerian, UR III] was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy…There are also examples of self-sale. All these cases clearly arose from poverty; it is not stated, however, whether debt was specifically at issue." (1.199)

[If interested, HANEL is available for download for free at academia.edu - see here - though you might have to resister]

Quotes from other sources  

Owing to the existence of numerous designations for the non-free and manumitted persons in the first millennium BC. throughout Mesopotamia in history some clarification have the different terms in their particular nuances is necessary the designations male slave and female slave though common in many periods of Mesopotamian history are rarely employed to mean chattel slave in the sixth Century BC in the neo-babylonian context they indicate social subordination in general [Kristin Kleber, Neither Slave nor Truly Free: The Status of Dependents of Babylonian Temple Households]

Westbrook states: At first sight the situation of a free person given and pledged to a creditor was identical to slavery The pledge lost his personal freedom and was required to serve the creditor who supported the pledges labor. Nevertheless the relationship between the pledge and the pledge holder remained one of contract not property. [Rachel Magdalene, Slavery between Judah and Babylon an Exilic Experience, cited in fn]

Mendelshon writes: The diversity of experiences and realities of enslaved people across time and place as well as the evidence that enslaved persons could and did exercise certain behaviors that would today be described as “freedoms”, resist inflexible legal or economic definitions. Economic treatises and legal codes presented slaves ways as chattel while documents pertaining to daily life contradict this image and offer more complex picture of slavery in the near East societies. Laura Culbertson, Slaves and Households in the Near East

Some of the misunderstanding of the biblical laws on service/slavery arises from the unconscious analogy the modern Western Hemisphere slavery, which involved the stealing of people of a different race from their homelands, transporting them in chains to a new land, selling them to an owner who possess them for life, without obligation to any restriction and who could resell them to someone else. Weather one translates “ebed as” servant, slave, employee, or worker it is clear the biblical law allows for no such practices in Israel [Stewart Douglas, Exodus - NAC]

So, it would seem that there was no need to go through the trouble of capturing people to enslave them since a lot of people were willing to work in exchange for room/board. 

But it gets worse for an Israelite if he wanted to make one a chattel slave because of the...

4) Anti-Kidnap law - Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” [Exodus 21:16, see also 1 Tim 1:9-10]

This is clear that selling a person or buying someone against their will into slavery was punishable by death in the OT.

5) Anti-Return law - “You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages he prefers; you must not oppress him.” [Deuteronomy 23:15–16]

Some dismiss DT 23:15-16 by saying that this was referring to other tribes/countries and that Israel was to have no extradition treaty with them. But read it in context and that idea is nowhere to be found; DT 23 Verses 15-16 refers to slaves, without any mention of their origin.

I'll quote from HANEL once again, Page 1007: "A slave could also be freed by running away. According to Deuteronomy, a runaway slave is not to be returned to his master. He should be sheltered if he wishes or allowed to go free, and he must not be taken advantage of. This provision is strikingly different from the laws of slavery in the surrounding nations, and is explained as due to Israel's own history as slaves. It would have the effect of turning slavery into a voluntary institution.

**The importance of Anti-Kidnap law & Anti-Return law**

These laws very explicitly outlaw chattel slavery. With the anti-kidnap law, one could not take anyone against their will, sell or possess them, nor could they be returned. LV25:44-46 is the main verse critics use to argue for chattel slavery, but given these two laws, it's reasonable to read that passage through the lens of indentured servitude.

6) Anti-Oppression law- “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:33-34]

You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt [Exodus 23:9]

The fact is Israel was not free to treat foreigners wrongly or oppress them; and were, in fact to, commanded to love them. 

In two most remarkable texts, Leviticus 19:34 and Deuteronomy 10:19, Yahweh charges all Israelites to love ('aheb) aliens (gerim) who reside in their midst, that is, the foreign members of their households, like they do themselves and to treat these outsiders with the same respect they show their ethnic countrymen. Like Exodus 22:20 (Eng. 21), in both texts Israel's memory of her own experience as slaves in Egypt should have provided motivation for compassionate treatment of her slaves. But Deuteronomy 10:18 adds that the Israelites were to look to Yahweh himself as the paradigm for treating the economically and socially vulnerable persons in their communities." [Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. Campbell, Ken  (ed).  InterVarsity Press: 60]

7) The word buy - the word buy - The word transmitted “buy” refers to any financial transaction related to a contract such as in modern sports terminology a player can be described as being bought or sold the players are not actually the property of the team that has them except in regards to the exclusive right to their employment as players of that team - [Stuart, Douglas K. Exodus: (The New American Commentary)

The verb buy/acquire [qanah] in Leviticus 25:39–51 need not involve selling or purchasing foreign servants. For example, the same word appears in Genesis 4:1 Eve’s having “gotten a manchild and 14:19 - God is the “Possessor of heaven and earth” Later, Boaz “acquired” Ruth as a wife (Ruth 4:10). So you are trying to force a narrow definition onto the word. And as noted earlier, "buy" can refer to financial transactions, as in "work for x amount of time for x amount of debt to be paid off".

Objections

A) The Anti-Kidnap law has Nothing to do with slavery

The response: in order to enslave someone, you must take and hold them against their will. So, Exodus 21:16 does apply to slavery

B) Exodus 21:4 says that a woman and her children are slaves for life!

The verse: "If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone.

The response: Ex 21 was for protection of the rights of both worker and employer. The provisions for what you refer to is: if an already married servant contracted for a term of service, that servant should have built into the contract some provisions for the keeping of a spouse (i.e., the boss had to figure in the costs of housing, food, and clothing for the spouse as well). But if a boss allowed a woman already serving him to marry the servant he had hired while single, there had to be a compensation for the boss's costs incurred for that woman servant already serving him. Her potential to provide children was also an asset—considered part of her worth—and had to be compensated for as well in any marriage arrangement. Therefore, as a protection for the boss's investment in his female worker, a male worker could not simply “walk away with” his bride and children upon his own release from service. He himself was certainly free from any further obligation at the end of his six years, but his wife and children still were under obligation to the boss (“only the man shall go free”). Once her obligation was met, she would be free. [Stewart Douglas, Exodus - NAC]

C) Deut 20:10-15; if you sack a city you can enslave them!

The verse: ″when you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.”

The response: 

The surrounding text makes clear that these nations live at some distance outside the territory of Israel. Israel was allotted the land, but the boundaries were quite clear and quite restricted by God. Their dominion (via vassal treaties) could extend further, but their ownership could not. There was almost zero-motive, therefore, for Israel to fund long-distance military campaigns to attack foreign nations for territory, or for the economic advantages of owning such territory.

Dominion could be profitable since it left people to work the land for taxes/tribute; but war always siphons off excess wealth, thus reducing the 'value' of a conquered country, but displacement, ownership, colonization was much more expensive. These cities (not nations, btw) are enemies of Israel, which can only mean that they have funded/mounted military campaigns against Israel in some form or been key contributors to such.

"...the verse indicates that the Israelites were to offer to the inhabitants of such cities the terms of a vassal treaty. If the city accepted the terms, it would open its gates to the Israelites, both as a symbol of surrender and to grant the Israelites access to the city; the inhabitants would become vassals and would serve Israel." [New International Commentary on the Old Testament]

"Offer it shalom, here meaning terms of surrender, a promise to spare the city and its inhabitants if they agree to serve you. The same idiom appears in an Akkadian letter from Mari: 'when he had besieged that city, he offered it terms of submission (salimam).' In an Egyptian inscription, the prostrate princes of Canaan say shalom when submitting to the Pharaoh. The same meaning is found in verse 11, which reads literally "If it responds 'shalom' and lets you in," and in verse 12, where a verb derived from shalom (hislim) is used for 'surrender'" [Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary]

"Literally, as 'forced laborers.' Hebrew mas refers to a contingent of forced laborers working for the state. They were employed in agriculture and public works, such as construction. In monarchic times, David imposed labor on the Ammonites and Solomon subjected the remaining Canaanites to labor...see 2 Sam 12:31; 1 Kings 9:15, 20-22; cf. Judg. 1:28-35. When imposed on citizens, such service took the form of periodic corvee labor. [corvee means unpaid labor - as toward constructing roads - due from a feudal vassal to his lord] Solomon, for example, drafted Israelites to fell timber in Lebanon; each group served one month out of three (1 Kings 5:27-28). It is not known whether foreign populations subjected to forced labor served part-time or permanently." [Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary]

"The likely meaning is that the city, through its people, was to perform certain tasks, not that individual citizens were to be impressed." [The Torah, A Modern Commentary, Union of American Hebrew Congregations]

"Israel must give its enemy an opportunity to make peace. Those who accepted this offer were required to pay taxes, perform national service, and, if they were going to live in the Land, to accept the Seven Noahide Laws." [Tanaach, Stone Edition] 

This forced, or corvee labor (cf. Gibeonites in Josh 9), but this would hardly be called chattel slavery since it is also used of conscription services under the Hebrew kings, cf. 2 Sam 20.24; I Kings 9.15). 

So, no Deut 20:10-15 does not support/endorse chattel slavery

D) Deut 20:14 says the Israelites could rape women since they are plunder

The verse: See above.

The response:

Notice that nothing is said about rape, and no reference to sexual intercourse is made in the text. However, in the next chapter this is not true. 

When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her. (Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NASB)

The captives in Deuteronomy 21:10 are the women and children in Deuteronomy 20:14. The event of chapter 21 is an example of case law. That is, in the event that one of the captives pleases the male who took them. It is not the case for every female whom he captured. The Scripture concerns one man and one woman. Some critics presume that because the text says the Israelite has “a desire for her” (the woman POW) that he already has raped her, but this isn’t so. At least the Hebrew cannot be made to indicate that he raped her. The Hebrew word (H2836) means to love, be attached to, or long for. The word is used eleven times in the Old Testament, and never used for raping a woman.

"The position of a female captive of war was remarkable. According to Deuteronomy 20:14, she could be spared and taken as a servant, while Deuteronomy 21:10-11 allowed her captor to take her to wife. While the relationship of the Hebrew bondwoman was described by a peculiar term (note: concubine), the marriage to the captive woman meant that the man 'would be her husband and she his wife.' No mention was made of any act of manumission; the termination of the marriage was possible only by way of divorce and not by sale." Hebrew Law in Biblical Times.  Falk, Ze'ev 127]

E) Exodus 21:7- a father can sell his daughter into sex slavery!

The verse: 7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

The response: Most critics stop reading at verse 7 but if they continued, they'd see that this is about marriage not sex slavery. If the family was poor and needed money, they could give her away in marriage to an interested suitor (v. 8) where there was a dowry.

This ensured that the woman was to be cared for in a family system that had enough, and that the family could be cared for by the dowry. Even today the dowry system exists in many cultures, and it has its benefits. 

But if the new husband found her to be bad or evil (the meaning of “displeasing” in the text v. 8), then he was not to divorce her and give her away to someone else for a dowry of his own. That would be evil as already he is “acting treacherously” towards her. But the family could get their daughter back and return the dowry if she was found to be bad/evil.

If the man got her as a wife for his son, then the man must deal with her as full rights and provisions of a daughter. He is not to deal with her any other way. She has the full privileges of family.

And if the man (or his son presumably) takes another wife, in no way was he to reduce his care for her. He is to make sure she has equal food, clothing and marital rights as the first wife. If he does not provide fully in these areas for her, she is free to leave and return home and the family is under no obligation to return the dowry money.

Verse 11 states “she shall go free for nothing, without payment of money.” The husband and his family cannot invoke the card of her being formerly a servant and therefore she’s obligated to stay and work for them. This is where the normal protocol of marriage is important mentioned in verse 9. In the instance where she has the right to leave her husband under the conditions of verse 10 and 11, since there are the normal customs of marriage back then, she can go back to her family who have the dowry from the husband and thereby she can survive - she has more protection than a male servant!

F) Leviticus 25:44-46: says you can buy foreign slave and you can bequeath them to your children!

The verse: 44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

The response:  First one would have to ignore points 1-7 above to reach that conclusion. One must assume, without any rational basis, that “ebed” must mean “chattel slave”.  But as argued above the passage can mean, and most likely does mean "servants". As Stuart notes [fact 7 above] "buy" means financial transaction related to a contract. And note that vs 45 and 46 say that they may be your property and bequeath them to your sons. It doesn’t say must or will, it wasn't required or nor could it be imposed by force. Given that, this passage loses all of the bite that critics assume it has.

They were not considered property in the same sense as an ox or coat because escaped slaves were not to be returned (Deut. 23:15-16) but an ox or coat was to be returned (Exodus 23:4; Deut. 22:1–4). Since they were not considered strict property nor chattel slaves, it must be that the work these inherited slaves produced was considered the property of the master.

Furthermore, Leviticus 25:47 states that the strangers living within Israel could “become rich.” In other words, a foreign slave could eventually get out of poverty, become self-sustaining, and thus wouldn’t have to be a slave anymore. While foreigners in Israel could serve for life, serving multiple generations if they wanted (just like an Israelite slave could), the Torah didn’t require that. Third, except for automatic debt cancellation in the seventh year, foreign slaves were afforded the same protections and benefits as Israelite slaves, including protection if they decided to leave at any time.


To properly evaluate passages Leviticus 25, we have to look at the regulations God gave previously as a foundation and they completely destroy any idea that Leviticus 25 is talking about chattel slavery.

First would be the anti-kidnap law: “*Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death*” in Exodus 21:16,

Second the anti-return law in Deuteronomy 23:15–16, “You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages he prefers; you must not oppress him.”

Critics ignore these two foundational laws and try to interprete the practice in Lev 25: 44-46 sans this foundation. That is their error.

What Lev 25: 44-46 is saying is, peoples from other nations were going to volunteer themselves into the hands of the Israelites - it was permissible to only "purchase" men and women who voluntarily sold themselves into indentured service, which is a big difference from being held against one’s own free will. Voluntary service doesn't equal chattel slavery.

And remember, any bond-servant purchased from the Gentiles had the right to flee their master, and receive the protection of the Law of Moses if they did so:

But yes, one could make a debt slave permanent if that was the desire of both sides. One side gets an experienced servant and the other gets security.

G) Slaves could be beaten

The verse: "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money. – Exodus 21:20-21

The response: 

Corporal punishment has nothing to do with the slavery question since free persons could be beaten as well. You have moved the goalposts from chattel slavery is condoned/endorsed in the Bible to the question of whether corporal punishment is bad.

The law allowed disciplinary rod-beating for a servant (Ex 21.20-22), apparently under the same conditions as that for free men:

If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed. If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property (ksph--"silver"; not the normal word for property, btw).

Free men could likewise be punished by the legal system by rod-beating (Deut 25.1-3; Prov 10.13; 26.3), as could rebellious older sons (Prov 13.24; 22.15; 23.13). Beating by rod (shevet) is the same act/instrument (flogging (2 Sam 7.14; Ps 89.32). This verse is in parallel to verses 18-19. If two people fight but no one dies, the aggressor is punished by having to 'retributively' pay (out of his own money--"silver", ksph) for the victim's lost economic time and medical expenses. If it is a person's slave and this occurs, there is no (additional) economic payment--the lost productivity and medical expenses of the wounded servant are (punitive economic) loss alone. There was no other punishment for the actual damage done to the free person in 18-19, and the slave seems to be treated in the same fashion. Thus, there doesn't seem to be any real difference in ethical treatment of injury against a servant vs a free person.

H) Scholar X or the consensus of scholars say the Bible endorses/condones chattel slavery

The response: 

First, scholarship disagrees on almost every subject.

Second, to accept a claim merely because a scholar says so is not critical thinking - one must examine the arguments presented.

Third, this objection presumes that a scholar or a scholarly consensus cannot be wrong, this is most assuredly wrong.

Fourth, the "consensus of scholars" isn't how scholarship works; it's who has the Best Explanation of the Data

Fifth, I cited multiple scholars in my argument. I don't mean to imply a tit-for-tat scholar v scholar, just that my view is supported by scholarship.

I) I can't believe yet another Christian is trying to defend slavery!

The response: No, what I am doing is defining slavery. "Slavery" can mean different things: chattel slavery, indentured servitude, a hired servant, etc,  I'm arguing that forced, involuntary labor [i.e. chattel slavery]  is outlawed in the bible. 

J) Indentured servitude is evil!

The response: 

So, one should not work to pay off a debt? this seems likely to encourage people to incure a debt that they know they won't have to pay back. 

K) Your argument is full of "disingenuity, red herrings, obfuscation, false comparisons, and fallacies"

The response: 

I asked if they would specify where exactly where the "disingenuity, red herrings, obfuscation, false comparisons, and fallacies" were; they replied "No" - So this can be dismissed as a baseless accusation 

It's an easy thing to say that my argument was "dissected and destroyed"; much more difficult to prove it. But it sould be easy for you since all you have to do is copy/paste wha you think refutes it.  

L) Lev 25:46 says "...but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly".  This seems to imply that God is okay with being ruthless to others just not your fellow Hebrews. 

The response: 

You are reading too much into the verse. The Bible says treat one's wife with respect - does that imply that we can be dis-respectful to all others? No.  The Bible says not to exasperate our children, does that imply that we can be exasperate all others? No. 

In context the prohibtions are: Do not make him work as a indentured servant. Do not take interest of any kind from him, You must not sell him food at a profit. [Lev 25:35-46]

Conclusion: History shows that chattel slavery was rare in the ANE, there were so much poverty that there was no need to go out and capture another for forced labor as people were willing to work for food to pay a debt or simply for food and shelter.

The word translated as slave or slavery has a wide range of meaning that doesn’t necessarily mean “chattel slave”. One would have to show from the text what that meaning is.

The Biblical text is clear that kidnaping/buying/selling/possessing someone is punishable by death. And that if a slave escapes they are not to be returned, and all slaves are not to be oppressed. The word “buy” doesn’t have to mean buying a person, but can mean buying one’s services/labor.

Thus, it is clear that the Biblical text and history do not support the idea that the Bible or God endorsed, sanctioned, or condoned chattel slavery. In fact, God and the Bible outlawed chattel slavery

The theory of evolution is untrue

Evolution that I examine here is commonly understood to be a natural process - i.e. a purposeless, unintentional unguided goalless process.

Microevolution vs Macroevolution

Microevolution is a small-scale change that affects a few genes within a population over a short period of time; bird beak size, moth wing color, etc. Macroevolution is a large-scale change that occurs over a longer period of time and can result in the formation of new species and groups; fish to amphibian transition.

While we have good reason and evidence for the former the latter is lacking.

Does natural selection guide evolution?

This is how it happens, but nothing there means guide as in "leads or directs the way", "steadying or directing the motion of something", "to direct, supervise, or influence, usually to a particular end". So, no natural selection doesn't guide evolution. 

Gradualistic evolution

I admit that Gradualistic evolution does sound plausible; I used to believe it was true, as the reasons for that conclusion were sound: Given enough time, random mutations coupled with random environmental stresses can produce new sub-species that was better adapted to the environment. And this process could eventually bring forth all the diversity of life. And there was the fossil record to prove it

Problem 1: lack of fossils 

The few supposed examples of gradual evolution were featured in the journals and textbooks, but paleontologists had long been mum about their "dirty little trade secret:" most species appear suddenly in the fossil record and show no appreciable change for millions of years until their extinction.

Eldredge and Gould (1972) pointed out, paleontologists were raised in a tradition inherited from Darwin known as phyletic gradualism, which sought out the gradual transitions between species in the fossil record. They viewed species as part of a continuum of gradual change in anatomical characteristics through time. 

Even their detractors concede that Eldredge and Gould were the first to point out that modern speciation theory would not predict gradual transitions over millions of years, but instead the sudden appearance of new species in the fossil record punctuated by long periods of species stability, or equilibrium. 

Eldredge and Gould not only showed that paleontologists had been out-of-step with biologists for decades, but also that they had unconsciously trying to force the fossil record into the gradualistic mode. The few supposed examples of gradual evolution were featured in the journals and textbooks, but paleontologists had long been mum about their "dirty little trade secret:" most species appear suddenly in the fossil record and show no appreciable change for millions of years until their extinction.

Many of the gradual evolution examples were restudied in critical detail, and turned out to be ambiguous, or actually demonstrated punctuated equilibria better than gradualism. Most studies fell short because they focused on a single lineage (neglecting faunal variation) from a single section (neglecting geographic variation), often showing change in only one characteristic (neglecting morphological variation), which had not been analyzed by rigorous statistical methods. Other cases failed because they were on the wrong time scale to be relevant to the debate, or too poorly dated to know anything about change through time. 

For example, one of the main proponents of gradualism, Philip Gingerich (1976, 1980, 1987), showed just two or three examples of supposed gradual evolution in early Eocene (about 50-55 million years old) mammals from the Bighorn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. But a detailed examination of the entire mammal fauna (monographed by Bown, 1979, and Gingerich, 1989) shows that most of the rest of the species do not change gradually through time. 

As paleontologists had known for over a century, most species are stable for millions of years, and change so rapidly that we rarely witness it in the fossil record. Of the hundreds of studies that have been reviewed elsewhere (Gould and Eldredge, 1977, 1986; Gould, 1992), a few stand out (Stanley, 1992). Cheetham (1986) and Stanley and Yang (1987) examined allthe available lineages of their respective groups (bryozoans and bivalves) through long intervals of time, using multivariate analysis of multiple character states. Both concluded that most of their species were static through millions of years, with rare but rapid episodes of speciation. 

Williamson (1981, 1985) examined the details of evolution of molluscs in Lake Turkana, Kenya, and showed that there were multiple examples of rapid speciation and prolonged stasis, but no gradualism. Barnosky (1987) reviewed a great number of different lineages of mammals, from mammoths to shrews and rodents, that lived during the last two million years of the Ice Ages. He found a few examples of gradualism, but many more which showed stasis and punctuation

With one exception (gradual dwarfing in the oreodont Miniochoerus), we found that all of the Badlands mammals were static through millions of years, or speciated abruptly (if they changed at all). 

The discovery of stasis in most species for millions of years was an fact that biologists did not expect (as even Mayr, 1992, concedes). At first, they dismissed it as genetic homeostasis or stabilizing selection (Charles worth et al., 1983; Levinton, 1983; Lande, 1985). But such models are only appropriate on scales of a few generations, or at most a few thousand years. No environment is so constant that stabilizing selection can act for millions of years. 

Evidence from paleosols and land floras (Retallack, 1992) document a striking cooling and drying event across this boundary, with a woodland vegetation replaced by a wooded grassland, mean annual temperature declined almost 13 degrees C, and the annual range of temperature increased dramatically from 5 degrees C to about 25 degrees C. There was an abrupt transition from moist floodplains to semi-arid landscapes with abundant wind-blown volcaniclastic dust. Most of these events took place over a few thousand years. This is certainly one of the most severe climactic events since the extinction of the dinosaurs. In spite of all these changes, however, only one lineage of fossil mammal underwent a gradual change. All of the rest either remained unchanged through the interval, or went extinct, with new species replacing them. 

None showed the panselectionist prediction of gradually evolving to track their changing environment. If species are static through millions of years in spite of environmental changes, then there must be some sort of homeostatic mechanism that preserves this stability beyond what traditional reductionist Neo-Darwinism once postulated. 

Instead of the "rolling ball" metaphor so favored by evolutionary biologists, perhaps species are more like a polyhedron, which can roll rapidly over from face to face, but resists change when it is sitting on one of its stable faces (Gould, 1980b). Change only occurs when the threshold necessary to tip it over has been exceeded, and then the polyhedron will resist further change until that threshold is once again reached. Between stable states (the faces), however, the transitions are very rapid. 

Source for the above info 

 

So multiple independent scientific sources [the paper cites 40 different experts in the field] concluded that most of their species were static through millions of years, with rare but rapid episodes of speciation.

Pushback: it's a 30 yeard old paper. 

Reply: True, but science and facts don't have an expiration date.  If you have something that controverts what is cited in the paper please post it. Just saying, "It's an old paper" doesn't mean it's wrong.

The Engineering problem 

Stephen J Gould [one of the two scientists behind punctuated evolution] said in his book "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory": I recognize that we know no mechanism for the origin of organismal features other than conventional natural selection at the organismic level [pg 710]

Here's a 20-min vid on how punctuated equilibrium doesn't solve the problem

Let's illustrate one of the difficulties with the fish to amphibian transition. There had to be changes from:

1) obtaining oxygen from water to directly from the air,

2) change from permeable scales to impermeable skin,

3) ventral, anal, and tail fins would have to go from steering to a) weight-bearing and b) to providing locomotion,

4) a two chambered, one loop heart system would have to transform into a three chambered, two loop heart.

And all of these changes had to happen 1) in concert, 2) on a molecular level and 3) while that species remained the fittest for its environment. The genetic code had to change in multiple proteins throughout multiple systems within the fish, all at basically the same time.

For example the Cambrian explosion the unparalleled emergence of organisms between 541 million and approximately 530 million years ago at the beginning of the Cambrian Period. The event was characterized by the appearance of many of the major phyla (between 20 and 35) that make up modern animal life.

As I said gradualism seemed plausible if there were 100's of millions of years for a system of hit or miss chance, but there is not; take that element away, as Punctuated Equilibrium and the Cambrian explosion shows, then design [a purposeful, intentional, guided process with a goal in mind] is the much more likely candidate than a purposeless, unintentional unguided process without a goal.

The mathematical problem

And it gets worse for the evolutionist. There are dozens of DNA based micromachines in our bodies like the ATP Synthase which is a dual pump motor. The ATP Synthase has dozens of different parts; each is a protein which is formed from long strings of amino acids – 300 to 2,000 base pairs – which must be in a particular order, so they will fold correctly to perform a certain function.

But are there enough chances for evolution to occur since the universe began for evolution to work?

If every particle in the observable universe [1 × 10 to the 90th power] was a coin that flipped every Planck second [5.4 × 10 to the 44th power] since the beginning of the universe [4.32 × 10 to the 17th power - in seconds] there would be a max of ~ 1.07x10^133 events since the beginning of the universe. An average sized protein of 150 amino acids would take 7.2x10^195 to form via an unguided, purposeless, goalless process. That's more the amount of events in the entire history of the universe.

Note: ~1.07x10^133 takes into account the entire observable universe, but it's difficult to believe that particles outside the earth would affect evolution. Also, it's calculated from the beginning of the time [13.8 billion years] not the beginning of life [3.5 billion years], so the amount of total chances for evolution of life is much smaller. Somewhere around 2.5x10^61.

Also, there are vastly more ways of arranging nucleotide bases that result in non-functional sequences of DNA, and vastly more ways of arranging amino acids that result in non-functional amino-acid chains, than there are corresponding functional genes or proteins. One recent experimentally derived estimate places that ratio—the size of the haystack in relation to the needle—at 10^77 non-functional sequences for every functional gene or protein.

And we have many, many different kinds of these micromachines in our bodies. For instance, the ATP Synthase, the dual motor pump mentioned earlier, is part of the Electron transport chain; four other DNA based, multiple part micromachines.

Sorry, but the math just doesn't hold up for a purposeless, unintentional unguided process without a goal for all those necessary genetic changes in multiple proteins in multiple organs that needed to for the fish to amphibian transition. Not to mention all necessary genetic changes in multiple proteins in multiple organs for the the 20 to 35 he major phyla in the Cambrian explosion.

An illustration: 

Let's say there is a cabinet that the drawers slide in smoothly, is level, hinges work perfectly, the fit and finish is high quality, and was built within tight time constraints. You have 2 choices as to who is responsible for it: A) a person whow was trying to build a high quailty cabniet, who has skills and years of experience, and can show you the blueprints or B) a person who says he was just putting pieces together randomly without thinking, wasn't trying to build anything inparticular. Has zero skill and experience.

Evolutionists want me to believe that person B is more likely than person A, in fact they don't think person A should even be a canidate. But in actuality, to choose B over A, is to be ideologically driven, rather than to be driven by the facts and logic.

Conclusion: Evolution by a purposeless, unintentional unguided process without a goal does not hold up to scrutiny. Mathematically, the probability that is so low as to not be worthy of mentioning.


The design objection 

Please don't say that design [purposeful, intentional guided process with a goal] is unscientific, since SETI looks for design [or artificiality - i.e. not generated by natural processes], an arson investigator can tell if a fire came about naturally or was started by a human, the police can determine if a death was natural or at the hands of a human, an archeologist can say whether it’s a just rock or an arrowhead, etc. An appeal to a designer is accepted in every field of inquiry, including biology - we can determine whether a virus, like Covid-19 was designed of was natural. An a priori non-design stance for evolution seems to be an a priori ideological conclusion, rather one that is driven by the facts

Pushback: This is a God of the gaps argument. 

A God of the Gap argument assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon. But I’m not citing an unknown phenomenon or a gap in our knowledge. I am using the inference to the best explanation and citing what we do know about DNA, the difference between fish and amphibians, in order to choose between design [purposeful, intentional guided process with a goal] over chance [a purposeless, unintentional unguided process without a goal].

Other common pushbacks:

You have confirmation bias 

Confirmation bias "describes our underlying tendency to notice, focus on, and give greater credence to evidence that fits with our existing beliefs" But I wasn’t a Christian when I first encountered this, I became a Christian long after I rejected evolution.

You have a delusion 

A delusion is a false belief or judgment about external reality; so I'll ask, 1) what is reality and 2) how do you know?

I have wrong, outdated info 

Please state what specifically I got wrong?

Evolution has almost literal mountains of fossil evidence, evidence for evolution is overwhelming from multiple scientific disciples, there very good explanations for evolution, etc - 

Where is this info that vindicates evolution? Please cite your sources

Even if you prove evolution to be false you have done nothing to prove your god exists 

Proving God exists wasn’t the point of the post.

You aren't you dealing with the genetic evidence 

I did - it's under Mathematical problems

We shouldn't have to straighten out every misunderstanding people have about science 

If one making the claim that the info in the OP is wrong and that correct info is easily available they have the burden of proof.

Please read [this or that book on evolutionary theory] 

If you think there is some pertinent point is some book, please provide that point.

Evolution is simply the idea that we inherit some traits from our parents 

This is microevolution, not macroevolution

God as a source for objective morality - a proposition

Axiology is a branch of philosophy that studies values. Axiology includes questions about the nature of values, how they are classified, and what things have value. It also includes the study of value judgments, especially in ethics. 

To be meaningful, in an objective sense, axiological statements must have the force of obligating a moral agent to either perform a prescribed action or prohibit him from carrying one out.  If that force is not sufficiently authoritative, by what right may any human impose his personal convictions on other humans? 

If moral obligations aren’t grounded in a sufficiently authoritative way, then we are not justified in making absolute moral pronouncements. We have no warrant to say things like, “striving to eliminate poverty is objectively good” or that “racial oppression has and will always be bad, in all places and for all peoples”. Nor would one have any basis to say that "rape is wrong, or that "torturing babies for fun is morally wrong".

Only a transcendent Person who is rightly authorized in and of himself (since he alone is the author of all created things) to hold us accountable for them is justified in making absolute moral pronouncements. 

Objectively binding moral obligations can’t rightfully be imposed from within the human community, regardless of consensus by any arrangement of individuals in that community. They must come from a source external to the community (i.e. not derived from but independent of the community). That source would have an authoritative claim on the community because it would have constituted the community.

 It would also have an immutable nature, without which moral imperatives are subject to change over time. The only qualified candidate, with no conceivable substitute capable of satisfying the requirements for grounding objective morality, is God. Only his character – his intrinsically good nature – establishes the basis for why all people are properly obligated to be good.

Is there any reason to conclude that a prefect God, who created humans for a purpose, could not provide them a morality that is free from bias, individual perspectives, cultural norms, and societal values - i.e. objective morality?

Objection 1: One can be moral without believing in God. 

Reply: I’m not saying one can’t be a good, moral person unless you believe in God. I’m saying that if you accept the reality of objectively binding moral values, yet you can’t provide a coherent explanation for how to derive them, then your view of the world is incoherent.  

And if you do not accept the reality of objectively binding moral values, if morality is simply the subjective realm of desires and preferences that invariably differ from one individual to the next, then one cannot say anything is right or wrong; good or evil; moral or immoral. 

Objection 2: All morality is subjective

Reply: if you do not accept the reality of objectively binding moral values, if morality is simply the subjective realm of desires and preferences that invariably differ from one individual to the next, then one cannot say anything is right or wrong; good or evil; moral or immoral.  

See also: The Problem of Evil: Solved for Christians; A Major Problem for Atheists

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ Is a Historical Fact

Molly Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. 

Lorian Foote, Patricia & Bookman Peters Professor of History at Texas A&M, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma.  

This is a transcript of a talk entitled How a History Professor Changed Her Mind About the Resurrection

Note: This has been slightly edited [ums, ahs, you knows, double words deleted] and links and emphasis added. 

Lorian Foote: So what were kind of the key realizations that you had that that started to to make you think that the resurrection was possible and plausible,

Molly Worthen: The book that was most important for me was N.T. Wright's big book on the resurrection although I had to... it is even for a historian it's really a slog.

So I would constantly have to kind of pause and read a chapter that Tim Keller has in his book Reason for God on the resurrection where he sort of summarizes N.T. Wright's whole argument. So I could remind myself of the forest for the trees. That book is a is a very elaborate kind of layer after layer exploration of the views of the resurrection, and the afterlife, both in the Greco-Roman Pagan context in the first century and the spectrum of Jewish views, and he makes clear that whatever Jesus's disciples were hoping would happen, expecting would happen the end of the gospel story and the resurrection appearances are so far outside the cultural lanes, the sort of range of cultural imaginative options, that one has to really take seriously the possibility that they they did not confect these stories to support their beliefs but rather they develop these beliefs to explain unbelievable things that actually happened.

And part of the power of N.T. Wright's book is that, for me, is that it is such a slog and that there's just this cumulative effect of the depth of detail that he explores that I found really compelling. I guess I had in the past accepted what I now think of as fairly lazy analogies between Jesus and other self-declared messiahs**, other stories of gods, you know, descending and rising again to heaven. And once Wright and other scholars s**ubjected these comparisons for me to more scrupulous analysis I was persuaded that they weren't very good comparisons at all and that, the Jesus case is just incredibly strange.

And this drove me into, I think a new relationship with the gospels. I was reading the gospels over and over, you know, and having a reaction, I'm not, I'm still waiting for the mystical experience that I thought I would get, you know, at some point and nothing like that; the closest I have gotten to that is the experience of seeing for the first time the sheer strangeness of the things Jesus does his interactions with people especially the accounts of healing and the strange details, the way every healing is a little bit different. Jesus meets each person on their own terms and as much as I hate, I think I had a real, sort of allergic reaction to that evangelical theme of, "imagine yourself in the scriptures, put yourself in, in the place of these people", I did start to get tugged into the stories a little bit.

I also, I mean, there's a way in which when you spend a lot of time reading primary sources, you just develop a sort of sixth sense for what a source is, what category it belongs in. And I think this is one change that's happened in the New Testament scholarship.

So, you know following, the famous German scholar, Rudolf Bultmann in the early 20th century there was, I think, a move toward talking about the Gospels really in the category of Mythology. But the consensus has shifted and I think this is fair to say even of non-believing historians. That the appropriate genre for them is really more, Greco-Roman biography, but even then if you go and you read Plutarch’s Parallel Lives or you read, say Philistratus's biography of Apollonius of Tiana who was a traveling, Greek sort of magician, healer, who's in the first century sometimes compared to Jesus, the character of those texts, is so different.

So, the character of those texts is they're very polished. They're deeply embroidered, that the authors have a real commitment to careful theme setting. There is a brutal roughness to the Gospels. Especially Mark. Mark, I'd always kind of dismissed Mark because, like, the short one was sort of boring, least theological, Mark was the one that wrestled me to the ground and it is the grittiness, the sense that this is not, honestly, it is not a great work of literature, it is a desperate author, just trying to get on paper this bananas stuff, that this author was much closer to, than I had realized. And I became persuaded by the work of people ike Richard Bauckham was another one of these Anglicans, who can kind of speak to secular American snobs, that it's not that we need to distinguish between some sort of vague idea of oral tradition passing from community, to community and getting garbled along the way and oral history. And that there are, there are clues in the text that create a, not an airtight, but an awfully interesting and persuasive case that the Gospel authors were quite close to the events they were describing and, and possibly should be dated earlier than I had kind of come to believe. And so all of that, I mean, this was so imoprtant, I did not have to treat the Gospels as inerrant. All I had to start to do was to treat them with the same methods and the same kind of respect and questions as I would treat other historical sources. But for that to be possible, for me, they had to be sort of de-familiarized.

Lorian Foote: Interesting. Yeah, you know it's as a professional historian what you described is, how I feel about the Gospels. Because when I bring the techniques that we have in our profession to them, you know, I was telling Molly earlier, it drives me crazy. When I just hear somebody casually say, "well there's so many things that don't exactly match across the four Gospels. And so that's why it shows that that didn't really happen" and I'm like, okay. So then clearly we don't know that anything in history happened because as historians we know, when there's accounts of events....

So like I'm a civil war historian, there is not a single newspaper article and a single eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg that agree on the details of what happened at the battle. None of us questioned the battle we have to piece together a rough estimation of what we think happened based on accounts that don't add up.

And so to me I think as a historian I came to some things on my own that scholars, who are much better than me at the New Testament, come to do as part of their apologetics. But it was just striking to me that, in one gospel that there's two thieves are both making both making fun of Jesus and another gospel, one of them eventually turns to him, and that's what I witnessed. They both have on either side of Jesus, different witnesses are remembering different things that they saw that to me, made it more plausible and made it read as you said more like a true attempt to write a biography than a formalized document and and little things like the gospels record that women were first there.

And that women are there and women are the key eyewitnesses in a culture that discounts the testimony of women. As a historian when I would read a document like that, I would say, okay now, wait a minute, why are they having, if they're wanting to convince people of something that isn't true, would they put these witnesses, as their first class. Look, these women were the witnesses, so just lots of questions, the way that I methodologically go through and ask questions of the source. If I do the same thing to the gospels, I've always found them to be very compelling as historical documents

Molly Worthen: And the women, their role is one part of the broader absolute humiliating scandal of the whole end of the gospels. And this is what N.T. Wright's picture of Jewish theology and culture, really drove home to me in a way that I just had not assimilated before that no other movement that had believed in a self-declared Messiah had then seen that Messiah killed and declared him God. I mean, you could run away, right? Because the whole idea of the role of the Messiah in Jewish thought, was that this would be the individual who would lead Israel to worldly victory, and then Resurrection would kind of follow in the in for everybody, in the context of that victory.

And so I think this helped me see how I thought as a historian, it always been really an important part of my self-understanding that I approached people in the past with respect and a sense of humility.

But I think that there was a way in which that first task, that we're called to as historians to just really respect the chasm between them and me. It can easily slide into a kind of condescension. Because you you forget, you in your quest to distance yourself from your subjects, you can dehumanize them a little bit and maybe reduce the complexity of their worldviews.

So worldviews in the first century were, of course, very different from ours, but no less complicated. And so there were clear ideas for these people about what was and was not possible. And they were not, they were not fools. Who would just sort of believe any crazy thing, They were clear on on dead people, remaining dead, right?

And I think I had just not fully grappled with the radicalism of the Gospel claims in the first century, forget about now for me, the big hurdle and I think this is true of many scholars who spend their careers on this subject. If you don't already allow for the possibility of an open universe. If you are committed to an anti-supernaturalist understanding of reality than any possible explanation of the empty tomb and Jesus's appearances to his followers is preferable to the Christian explanation, no matter how Baroque and elaborate and I had to come to grips with my own deep anti-super-naturalist bias, I could always sort of thought of myself as open to the claims of Christianity.

But I had just, mean, my whole existence was in this one epistemological groove and this one kind of lane of approach and there are good reasons why in the modern research university in a secular university certain questions are just ones we set aside and we focus on other questions. But there's a way in which in doing that one can just get so used to setting aside those questions that you forget about the presuppositions that are involved in ruling those questions out and you can begin to think in the subconscious way that those questions are just foolish questions. Because your tools that you use in your teaching and research are not aimed directly at them.

I think also, I had a kind of "all or nothing" view of the historical method. If we define the historical method as drawing our ability to draw analogies between our own experience of cause and effect in our own life and the way cause and effect works in the past.

And we Define a miracle as Divine intervention Interruption In the normal order, normal relationship between cause and effect. Then yes, it's true that at the sort of Singularity of the miracle, the historical, method fails. So you can't prove as you couldn't a lab or or even you know, to the extent that that historians can prove things, you can't prove the resurrection.

However, there's all sorts of context. And you can bring the historical method to bear and all kinds of really fruitful ways to the textual record, the archaeological record. You don't have to make the perfect the enemy of the good. And if you're willing to suspend your disbelief in the Supernatural, then then you can be, you can begin to investigate the historical context of Christians claims about the empty tomb and the appearances of Christ that then get you to the point where you are, you're still faced with a leap of faith, but it's no longer a wild leap in the dark; it's a well-researched, reasonable leap. And then you start to realize that you were always making a bit of a leap and you just weren't acknowledging it. This was from true for me, anyway, that I had paid, I think lip service to the idea that, yes, as a secular agnostic person I had unproofable presuppositions because we all do, no view from nowhere blah, blah, blah.

But I had never. I'd never truly like looked that in the face and and and wrestled with it.

[End of Talk]

Key take aways:

1) If we treat the Gospels as we do other ancient documents they are clearly historical and reliable.

2) Accounts that "don't add up" are common in historical documents

3) In the first century people were not fools and knew that dead people stayed dead. so to conclude, even from the evidence, that Jesus rose was radical.

4) It's only a bias for an anti-supernaturalist understanding of reality that is the stumbling block for accepting the ressurection of Jesus Christ as a historocal fact.

Two agreed upon historical facts

1) We know that Jesus died a torturous death by crucifixion; this is attested to in every gospel, but it is also confirmed by several non-Christian sources. - Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, and the Jewish Talmud.

2) The empty tomb. Something happened to the body. Both the Jewish and Roman authorities had plenty of motivation to produce a body, bring it to downtown Jerusalem and dump it on the street. Especially after His post-mortem appearances and empty tomb were first publicly proclaimed in Jerusalem. This is ezpecially true since the Jewish authorities asked the Romans to guard the tomb. 

The alternative explanations...

The Swoon Theory does not take seriously what we know about the scourging and torture associated with crucifixion. A nearly dead man, in need of serious medical attention, could hardly serve as the foundation for the disciples’ belief in the resurrection, and that he was a conqueror of death and the grave.

Second, Roman soldiers were professional executioners, and knew everything about the torture and crucifixion of people, making this theory highly improbable.

Third, are we to think that the Jewish and Roman authorities sealed and guarded the tomb without verifying the Jesus was dead in it? Another highly improbable assumption.

The disciples stole the body - this was the charge by Jewish authorities; Jesus’ followers stole the body unbeknownst to anyone and lied about the resurrection appearances.

First, this theory does not explain why the disciples would invent women as the primary witnesses to the empty tomb - the were not considered to be reliable witnesses. This is not the way one gets a conspiracy theory off the ground.

Second, this also doesn’t explain how the disciples actually stole the body that was 1) sealed by a heavy stone, and 2) guarded by Romans.

Third, there was no expectation by first century Jews of a suffering-servant Messiah who would be shamefully executed by Gentiles as a criminal only to rise again bodily before the final resurrection at the end of time: “As Wright nicely puts it, if your favorite Messiah got himself crucified, then you either went home or else you got yourself a new Messiah. But the idea of stealing Jesus’ corpse and saying that God had raised him from the dead is hardly one that would have entered the minds of the disciples.” [Craig (citing N.T. Wright), Reasonable Faith, p372.]

Fourth, this theory cannot account for the conversion of skeptics like Paul, a devout Jew and persecutor of Christians, who also testified to having seen the risen Lord and willing suffered and died for his belief in the resurrection.

Every source we have indicates that the practice in Israel, especially in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in peacetime, was to bury the executed before nightfall. This was a practice that Roman authority permitted. source  This gave the disciple little time to come up with a "steal the body" plot, especially given their emotional state. 

The disciples experienced hallucinations.

First, the testimony of Paul along with the Gospel writers is that the appearances of Jesus were physical, bodily appearances. In fact, this is the unanimous agreement of the Gospels.

Second, hallucinations are private experiences as opposed to group experiences. Therefore, hallucinations cannot explain the group appearances attested to in 1 Cor. 15, the Gospel narratives, and the book of Acts.

Finally, hallucinations cannot explain such facts as the empty tomb, why the Roman and Jewish authorities didn't produce the body, and the conversions of skeptics like Paul

The only real obstacle to resurrection as a plausible explanation is an anti-supernatural bias. But as I've argued the belief that nature is all that exists is logically self-refuting and thus cannot be true if reason, critical thinking, and knowledge are part of our reality

Objection A - Right in that last bit she says that "you can't prove the resurrection"!

Reply: That is in the context of the historical method which, like the scientific method, assumes an unproofable presupposition, i.e. an anti-super-naturalist bias. So please provide your proof or argument that "physical only view of the reality" is correct.

We have good reasons to think that "physical only view of the reality" is logically incoherent

I have had many atheists and critics say that they do not ascribe to a "physical only view of the reality"; so what then given the above is the issue with the conclusion that the ressurection of Jesus Christ as a historical fact?

Objection B - If we treat the Gospels as we treat every other historical document, then we could never conclude that an actual resurrection occurred as a historical event.

This is the thing that Christian apologists are never honest about: historians, scholars, and us skeptics and atheists don't accept the resurrection story not because we aren't giving it a fair chance; it's because WE are the ones treating the Gospels the exact same as every other historical text that exists.

Reply: Yes, you are using the same anti-supernatural bias that you look at everything. But that lens is faulty. Thus, I am under no obligation to view reality through your faulty lens especially when this unsupported assumption that has been pointed out time and again, with no defense ever offered for it.  This is even touched on in the OP

Objection C - Why is the "best explanation" here something that we know to be impossible and not "people lied?"

Reply: First it’s only "impossible" if one assumes PN, but we have good reasons to think that is a false idea. Secondly, it's not part of the historical method to assume that the writer of a document lied or the poeple quoted in the text lied; that would have to be proven.

Objection D They got the wrong tomb. Josephus said he buried the body and didn't.

Reply: Are we to believe that the Jewish and Roman authorities, the latter posting a gaurd at behest of the former, wouldn't have checked to see that the body was there prior?

Objection E - You need to reproduce your proof

Reply: We do not prove historical events by reprodcuing them. Do we prove World War 2 by "reproducing" the proof? No.