Methodology and Miracles

This is the introductory episode in a new series on historical methodology, Gospel reliability, and miracle reports. How can we avoid being either too skeptical or too credulous about miracle stories in the Gospels? How can we take proper account of evidence for high Gospel reliability while recognizing that miracles are unusual and exercising due care in evaluating miracle stories? Suppose that we end up relying on our independent evidence that Jesus was God in order to conclude that he really performed a certain miracle. Does that mean that we're "believing as a Christian" rather than using historical reasoning? In this preliminary episode I try to sort out some of these questions. We'll learn more about how this works in the series as a whole when I discuss particular examples.

Originally uploaded to YouTube Oct 30 2020