Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – a review of another failed apologist, Val Grieve

While crossing swords with theists on YouTube, a Christian mentioned a book ‘Your Verdict on the Empty Tomb” by Val Grieve.  I wasn’t very familiar with it, so I decided to look up any reviews, etc. about it.  It seems to be mostly recommended by folks in the British sphere of influence. And it has vanishingly few mentions, even on Christian websites.

I discovered that this was for good reason. 

Val Grieve was an English lawyer, and this is supposed to be impressive that a lawyer is a Christian.  Unfortunately, ol’ Val was either an astonishingly incompetent lawyer or was the typical victim of compartmentalization.   Rather than any original thought, all this book has are the typical failed arguments for this religion.   Mercifully, it’s only 75 pages of large print.   It must be great to earn money by repeating nonsense. 

As you might guess, the entire book is an appeal to authority e.g., “I’m a lawyer, and all lawyers use logic and intelligence so therefore the bible is true.”   He starts with the typical claims that he was an atheist, though he was raised as a Christian. 

Then he decides that the resurrection was true and “talked” to jesus.  It’s rather easy to talk to imaginary things.  Children do it all of the time.  The claims of “knowledge” that this imaginary being wanted to be him is a typical theist claim, no evidence presented. 

Grieve then makes the claim that lawyers should be trusted.  No explanation why this is the case since it is nothing unusual to know of a corrupt lawyer.  Here in the US, we have a lovely parade of them in the various indictments of Donald Trump.  What’s amusing is that Grieve cites Charles Colson, who got religion since he was a criminal in the Watergate investigation. 

Colson claims he converted because of C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, claiming that this was written by an “intellect so disciplined, so lucid, so relentless logical that I only could be grateful”.   Curious how this is the same book where C.S. Lewis says to lie to potential converts since the contradictions and splintering of Christianity would only convince someone to not join the cult. 

Unfortunately, for Colson, and Grieve, Lewis does not show that any moral argument for this god works, for the reason that Lewis advocates lying:  Christians don’t agree on what morals this god wants. 

Grieve then goes onto try to claim that the contradictions in the bible don’t exist.  We can see why he makes this false claim in the chapters to come.

To finish out the preface, we have Grieve claiming:  “For far too long the Christian faith has been under attack.  Of course, it does not really need a lawyer to defend it.  As a famous preacher [C. H. Spurgeon] said many years ago, “Defend the bible, I would as soon as defend a lion!”.  But despite this, I feel it is high time someone spoke up for the Christian faith.  I maintain that only does it stand up to examination but is the most relevant thing in the world today.” 

Curious how they all keep trying and keep failing to defend this nonsense. 

Chapter 2 is built on the claim that the question “did the resurrection occur?”  is somehow the world’s most important question.  Grieve first tries the claim that the resurrection was mentioned a lot in the bible.  Yep, it was, and many mentions of a baseless claim doesn’t make it true. 

he does mention that Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock opera that has some awesome music in it, ends without the resurrection.  Never thought about that, and he’s right.  It just has a dramatic death and a song that shows how inept this god’s plan was. 

He also tries the claim that Christianity is unique and thus it is true.  It isn’t, and even if it were unique, being unique makes nothing true. 

Chapter 3 is supposedly about how courts and juries work.  He makes a claim that the robe that judges and lawyers wear is based on a priest’s robe.  Not sure if this is true, but I am sure that English law isn’t based on the bible. 

Then we get this:  “The leading legal textbook on evidence states: “The standard of proof required in civil cases is generally expressed on the balance of probabilities.  If the evidence is such that the tribunal can say “We think it more probably than not”, the burden is discharged, but if the probabilities are equal it is not.”  (this book has no bibliography at all)  He then states that this standard is to be applied to the resurrection.  And he promptly fails to do that. 

He goes on to talk about bias, when that is all he has.  The entire basis of his “case” depends on the presupposition that the bible relates the truth.  Nothing supports this.  Claims, aka the bible, aren’t evidence for themselves.

Chapter 4 goes into that presupposition quite well.  It assumes that the resurrection happened, and says the meaning of it is evidence that jesus was who he claimed, and evidence that this god’s promise of heaven was true. 

he quotes a verse from Hebrews 9 “²⁷ And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgement, ²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”.   curious how this contradicts the gospels when lots of people were resurrected and evidently had to die again.  Grieve tries to avoid this problem by saying this resurrection was “different” from JC’s, but no evidence of this at all.  Again, the contradictions pile up. 

He also claims that this bodily resurrection would assure the disciples would recognize him, but unfortunately, the gospel of John has Mary having no clue who he was. 

Chapter 5 makes typical Christian baseless claims, that it is a “fact” that jesus existed, was cruxified and there was an empty tomb.  Those familiar with apologetics will recognize William Lane Craig’s nonsense here. 

To support his claims, he does what all apologists do:  cite mentions of Christians as evidence that the bible stories are true.  Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny are mentioned and every single one of them only mentions what Christians believed, not that what they believed was true.   He then tries to claim that the new testament is evidence, when it is no more than claims that need to be supported. 

Unfortunately for Grieve, there are no “original writings”,  Christians can’t agree on when the events happened, the earliest copies found are decades after the supposed events, and numbers of copies don’t many any writing true. 

Chapter 6 is about the “empty tomb”, again, nothing new from what William Lane Craig has baselessly claimed.  The empty tomb arguments depend on one thing:  the tomb being full, and nothing supports that.  All Grieve has are claims, no evidence. 

Grieve also attempts to ignore how the various stories in the gospels contradict each other terribly in what happened at this tomb.  He cherry picks what he wants, unable to show how these 4 different stories can work together.  There can’t be different “first” people into the tomb.  So much for this lawyer’s logic.  And the women didn’t watch the cruxifiction from a distance, at least not per the gospel of John. 

Later in the chapter, Grieve tries to address the stealing of the body, swoon, and hallucination arguments for why the tomb is empty.  All can be dismissed with the lack of a body in the first place.  Unsurprisingly, no one noticed JC at all when he was alive either. 

I do love this plaint by Grieve:  “Try to be unbiased. Most of us have a basic prejudice against supernatural explanations and dismiss a miracle as a possibility without really examining it. But if we believe that God exists, and that he made and upholds the universe, there should be no difficulty in believing that he has enough power to do miracles within his creation. Even if we only admit the possibility of God then we must admit the possibility of a miracle.  And as no one can prove that God doesn’t exist, the possibility of a miracle cannot be entirely ruled out.” 

So, we have demand that one be biased so Grieve’s argument works.  The presupposition that this god must exist shows just how weak Grieve’s “case” is. 

Chapter 7 claims there is “direct evidence”.  And what is claimed, yep, the “eyewitnesses” in the bible. Poor Grieve, he tries to make the contradictory stories of what happens at the tomb work and fails miserably.   He admits that Mary had no idea who Jesus was, but earlier has to claim that he returned bodily to have evidence of who he was.  Which is it?  He has to claim that Mary just didn’t’ “look close enough” or her eyes “were dimmed with tears”.  Then why did she know exactly who he was in another gospel.  He also has to add an appearance by ol’ JC to explain why the other women, who aren’t there in various versions, recognize him. 

The same goes with the attempts to invent explanations of why no one recognizes JC on the “road to Emmaus”  when Grieve claims the bodily resurrection was for the expressed purpose to be identifiable.  IT’s hilarious when Grieve tries to have all of the events in all of the gospels happen, when they can’t, being chronological within each gospel.  He has Jesus teleporting all over the place:  1. To Mary alone at the tomb.  2. Back to the tomb so the other women can see him.  3. AT some point to Peter, since that’s what Paul claims in 1 Corinthians 15. 4. The road to Emmaus. 5. The disciples without Tomas.  6.  The disciples with Thomas. 7. Over to Galilee’s beach. 8. A hill in galilee. 9. To 500 people.  10. Somewhere with James.  11. Disciples on the mt of olives. 12.  To Paul, but Paul can’t even get his story straight.

Chapter 8 is about the “witnesses”, which Grieve claims, with no evidence at all, how trustworthy, of high “character” (presuppositions), they are.  He tries the “but but eyewitnesses wouldn’t agree”, which would mean, to any actual competent lawyer, he needs evidence in addition to supposed witnesses.  Paul is the subject of the appeal to character, since he was supposedly intelligent, which isn’t’ demonstrated at all.  Somehow, Grieve has also decided he was a lawyer. 

He also argues that since these witnesses saw jesus multiple times, a thing that only he’s invented with his need to claim that there are no contradictions, the witnesses must be sure that they saw jesus multiple times. 

Chapter 8 is about circumstantial evidence.  As usual, these appeals fail.  One is that since lots of people watched a TV show about Jesus, that means they are interested in him and that, somehow, means the story is true.  He tries the usual quotes from Einstein, which is a poorly done mangling of what he actually said.  And the supposed quote from Bertrand Russell doesn’t seem to exist at all. 

Then we get into the other typical claims:   that people changed after joining the cult.  Yep, that is true.  Not evidence that the cult is true.  No evidence that the disciples existed, so no evidence they changed.

Cults gain followers.  That doesn’t mean the cult is true.

Grieve claims that everyone was one big happy family “in Christ” when we know that they were as fractured as they are now, if not more. 

He has to claim that since Christians celebration a Sunday, they always have.  That is not true, and is not true to this day.  His claim “Only the resurrection can explain the keeping of Sunday as a day of worship.”  Is rather notable that any general agreement can cause that. 

And finally, the claim of growth means Christianity is true.   That fails since cults grow.   Islam has grown quite explosively.  And since Christianity is many, many versions, than just one, the claim a single entity has grown is demonstrably false.

Chapter 10 is “So What?”  and indeed that is a good title for it.  The presuppositions are laid bare, and since the presupposition that God exists is yet to be supported, the rest fall like a house of cards.  The idea of sin collapses, the idea of judgment collapses. The claim that only this cult gives life meaning collapses.  The idea of some afterlife collapses.

Chapter 11 asks for a verdict.  Various supposed authorities are cited, with the same failure as most appeals to authority do.  That one rabbi says that jesus will be the jewish messiah is nothing impressive. 

Another appeal to authority:  “Lawyers are not generally noted for their Christian faith, but they do know when something is proved”.   As reality has shown, that is not true at all, no matter how many “lord chief justices” one might mention.   The same holds for as many supposed speeches given, with no dates or locations, that still doesn’t mean this religion is true.

The usual “pride” nonsense is given, that how we dare be so “prideful” to dare not agree with the baseless claims of a lawyer!.

Finally, in Chapter 12, Grieve wants everyone to just read a gospel.  Certainly, we’ll agree with him then.  He tries to claim that humans choose to go to hell [not per the bible] and ends with a plea to just pray to this god and join the right kind of church, as if not all of them believe the bible and teach it.

Funny how that fails too.