Introduction

A common argument for the truth of the Christian religion is that its origins were too improbable for it to be false. This argument has appeared in many forms over the years, but most of the usual ideas are combined into a single popular effort by James Holding.[1] The following article critiques that effort, by comparing Holding’s arguments and claims there with the actual facts of ancient history, and identifying fallacies in his reasoning. Holding offers seventeen factors “where Christianity ‘did the wrong thing’ in order to be a successful religion” and concludes from this that “the only way Christianity” could “succeed” under those seventeen hostile conditions is “because it was a truly revealed faith,” in particular “because it had the irrefutable witness of the resurrection.” Besides those seventeen factors, Holding offers one additional critical assumption about “luck,” making eighteen points altogether. Each of those points will be addressed in a separate chapter, in order, with his eighteenth underlying assumption counted last, followed by an evolving chapter responding to critics of the present work. In addition, I have added some preliminary remarks about method below (after the table of contents).

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