patg:
That’s ridiculous - inconsistent stories about alleged witnesses written long after the event by extremely biased authors cannot be considered as history - at least not by someone who is not extremely biased themselves. Throwing the word “eyewitness” around as if it were an established fact is also ridiculous.
That is laughable - we have thousands of active particpants in historical events such as the moon landing or World War II or the holocaust, many still alive. We have documentation and evidence accepted as historical based on the rigor required by historians. We don’t even look at historicity the same as people in the time of the gospel authors did.
I understand that you really want to believe in the resurrection - I do too. But trying to prove it historically is trying to put the understanding of a non-worldly event into a worldly system which doesn’t and can’t support it. Dead bodies don’t recusitate and it requires pure faith to believe that it happened 2000 years ago and that the “eyewitnesses” were describing that actuality.
I said nothing about proving it historically. I said it was history. You don’t even seem to understand the meaning of the word “history.” It is derived from the Latin *historia, *from Greek, inquiry, history, from *histOr, istOr *knowing, learned; akin to Greek *eidenai *to know. It means, according to
Merriam-Webster:
history: tale, story, a chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes, a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events, events of the past
There are many things in history books, taught as hisotry that we don’t have
proof other than what has been recorded as a “tale, story, records of past events.” Those records are either trustworthy or they are not, but they are still the evidence of history and historians teach from that evidence, the subject of History.
For example, the knowledge of Socrates and his writing comes indirectly from certain dialogues of his disciple Plato. By your logic, anything we know about Socrates is not “history.” Yet, by Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word, and the actual inclusion of Plato’s accounts of Socrates in history books, it clearly does constitute history. Gotta go with Webster and actual historians on this, as you seem quite clueless as to what “history” is.
Another example, from the
Jewish Historian, Flavius Josephus (AD 37-100), excerpted from his 20-volume historical text, *Jewish Antiquities, *which is a
history of the Jews up until their war with Rome:
“About this time lived Jesus, a man full of wisdom, if indeed one may call Him a man. For He was the doer of incredible things, and the teacher of such as gladly received the truth. He thus attracted to Himself many Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. On the accusation of the leading men of our people, Pilate condemned Him to death upon the cross; nevertheless those who had previously loved Him still remained faithful to Him.*** For on the third day He again appeared to them living, just as, in addition to a thousand other marvelous things, prophets sent by God had foretold.*** And to the present day the race of those who call themselves Christians after Him has not ceased.” (Book 18, Ch 3)
Is Josephus’ work not a
history text of a
Jew from the first century? Historians seems to think so and they cite him on many number of things pertaining to Jewish History.
You may not like what he recorded as it might not sit well with your “Jesus Seminar” viewpoint, but to discount say that this is not a historical account is absurd. You’d be more convincing if you simply told us you don’t believe the historical account by this 1st century Jew or the eyewitnesses who wrote about Jesus in the Bible. That would make much sense coming from you. But to expect us to believe you have any credibility to tell us what is and is not history is ridiculous.
