Open AccessDid Jesus Commit a Fallacy?
Author(s) -
Aaron BenZe’ev
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
informal logic
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.368
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 2293-734X
pISSN - 0824-2577
DOI - 10.22329/il.v17i2.2417
Subject(s) - fallacy , antecedent (behavioral psychology) , commit , philosophy , epistemology , predicate (mathematical logic) , argument (complex analysis) , psychology , social psychology , computer science , biochemistry , chemistry , database , programming language
Jesus has been accused of committing a fallacy (of denying the antecedent) at John 8:47. Careful analysis of this text (1) reveals a hitherto unrecognized valid form of argumentwhich can superficially look like the predicate-logic analogue of denying the antecedent; (2) shows that determining whether a published text can be fairly charged with committing a fallacy may require (but often does not get) extensive and detailed analysis; (3) acquits Jesus of the charge; and thereby (4) conflnns a claim by Michael Burke that published arguments can seldom be fairly charged with denying the antecedent, or analogous fallacies.