How to refute the Crucifixion/Resurrection deniers?

[Ben_Sinner]

There are groups out there that deny that Jesus was crucified, died, and resurrected as the scriptures said.

How do we refute the claims by people like Basilides and Islamic sects who said the Jesus manifested his appearance on Simon and Simon was the one who was crucified by mistake by the Romans because everyone thought it was Jesus?

the Encyclopaedia of Islam writes:

The denial, furthermore, is in perfect agreement with the logic of the Qur’an. The Biblical stories reproduced in it (e.g., Job, Moses, Joseph etc.) and the episodes relating to the history of the beginning of Islam demonstrate that it is “God’s practice” (sunnat Allah) to make faith triumph finally over the forces of evil and adversity. “So truly with hardship comes ease”, (XCIV, 5, 6). For Jesus to die on the cross would have meant the triumph of his executioners; but the Quran asserts that they undoubtedly failed: “Assuredly God will defend those who believe”; (XXII, 49). He confounds the plots of the enemies of Christ (III, 54).

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

There are groups out there that deny that Jesus was crucified, died, and resurrected as the scriptures said.

How do we refute the claims by people like Basilides and Islamic sects who said the Jesus manifested his appearance on Simon and Simon was the one who was crucified by mistake by the Romans because everyone thought it was Jesus?

the Encyclopaedia of Islam writes:

The denial, furthermore, is in perfect agreement with the logic of the Qur’an. The Biblical stories reproduced in it (e.g., Job, Moses, Joseph etc.) and the episodes relating to the history of the beginning of Islam demonstrate that it is “God’s practice” (sunnat Allah) to make faith triumph finally over the forces of evil and adversity. “So truly with hardship comes ease”, (XCIV, 5, 6). For Jesus to die on the cross would have meant the triumph of his executioners; but the Quran asserts that they undoubtedly failed: “Assuredly God will defend those who believe”; (XXII, 49). He confounds the plots of the enemies of Christ (III, 54).

Three words: Shroud. Of. Turin.

 

[fred_conty]

It is Islam’s understanding that Christ was not God as well. So if he is not God, then the conclusion is that he could not have brought himself back to life, and therefore his death meant failure for them as their prophet. But the old principle still holds, that you can’t prove something to a person that has already made up their mind. So naturally Peter was selected to have died, in order to show that historical testimony that it was Christ who died was a big mistake.

If Islam were ever to admit that Christ was God, then what would they do with Alah who is their God. It just wouldn’t work for them because they do not have the theological equipment to do so.

 

[ClearWater]

Ask what they think happened then, that somebody stole the body or what happened?

 

[Tim_D]

How to refute the Crucifixion/Resurrection deniers?

You don’t even try because you will never change their mind.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

There are groups out there that deny that Jesus was crucified, died, and resurrected as the scriptures said.

How do we refute the claims by people like Basilides and Islamic sects who said the Jesus manifested his appearance on Simon and Simon was the one who was crucified by mistake by the Romans because everyone thought it was Jesus?

the Encyclopaedia of Islam writes:

The denial, furthermore, is in perfect agreement with the logic of the Qur’an. The Biblical stories reproduced in it (e.g., Job, Moses, Joseph etc.) and the episodes relating to the history of the beginning of Islam demonstrate that it is “God’s practice” (sunnat Allah) to make faith triumph finally over the forces of evil and adversity. “So truly with hardship comes ease”, (XCIV, 5, 6). For Jesus to die on the cross would have meant the triumph of his executioners; but the Quran asserts that they undoubtedly failed: “Assuredly God will defend those who believe”; (XXII, 49). He confounds the plots of the enemies of Christ (III, 54).

Jesus wasn’t a liar and neither were the writers of the Gospels.

Muslims certainly have their reasons for disputing the resurrection. If they believed Jesus was God, they could not be a Muslim.

 

[z_0101]

Three words: Shroud. Of. Turin.

Reply to that is Carbon Dating

shroud.com/nature.htm
Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin
Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. As controls, three samples whose ages had been determined independently were also dated. The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval.

Completely ignoring the more recent work
usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/30/shroud-turin-display/2038295/
and

innoval.com/C14/

There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow, and so further research is certainly needed. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information. –Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit which participated in the 1988 Carbon 14 Dating of the Shroud. (Mar 2008)

• [T]he [1988 carbon 14] age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three thread samples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case. –Robert Villarreal, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) chemist who headed a team of nine scientists at LANL who examined material from the carbon 14 sampling region. (Aug 2008)

 

[PRmerger]

Ask what they think happened then, that somebody stole the body or what happened?

The Empty Tomb is, indeed, a trump card.

There must be a reasonable explanation for this. And the Resurrection is the most logical, makes the most sense.

 

[Reuben_J]

How to refute the Crucifixion/Resurrection deniers?

You don’t even try because you will never change their mind.

For those who already made up their mind, I think so. For those exploring, they may need more information which they have not heard yet, for them to ponder on and if necessary to make an informed decision.

The Bible is the source of this story and it has to start from there. Sure, there are lots that need explanation, especially the doctrine of salvation, in which without them, Jesus’ death and resurrection would not be understood properly.

 

[PRmerger]

That’s a possibility. Or perhaps his body was not buried in the first place, as several NT scholars suggest, but put into a mass grave as was the custom for the crucified.

Evidence for this, please.

I don’t agree with that at all.
Many would change their mind if given good evidence.

We do have good evidence.

Note: please have the same standard of evidence. It’s not ok to say: “Here’s a fragment of a parchment from 500AD that says a man witnessed Jesus’ body being put into a mass grave”…

while also saying: 4 ancient texts, plus other epistles, plus lives converted and a movement started, other historians testifying to his follower’s belief in his resurrection, the fact that no one recanted under torture…is not good enough evidence.

Pick a standard, and then apply it consistently.

If you yourself were given strong evidence that Jesus was not crucified or was* not *resurrected…would you change your mind and change your beliefs

Yes, I would.

 

[PRmerger]

Plus, if one is reading them in the context of the era, it was not uncommon to write about men becoming gods and gods becoming men and miraculous births at that time…or for people/followers to write stories to support and try to promote their beliefs.

Evidence for this please.

Also, wasn’t it more common for men who followed a god-like leader who was killed to go home and nurse their wounds and start following another leader? I don’t know of any of said, “Hey! He didn’t really die! Come and follow us again!”

jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9034-judas-maccabeus

It doesn’t have mean they are saying anyone is specifically lying.

So who started the myth, and why, and what did they receive for it but horrific deaths under torture? And why is there no documentation of anyone recanting this myth?

 

[PRmerger]

If someone goes to a tomb and finds that a body placed there a few days before is now missing…you truly think that the most reasonable, most logical, most sensible explanation is that the person’s body was resurrected and they came back to life and just got up and walked away??

My first thought would be…someone moved the body.

.

Not goes to a tomb. Goes to the tomb.

The most logical explanation, in the context of this meme, as to why his enemies conceded the tomb was empty, is that Jesus actually rose from the dead, as he claimed he would, as his followers said he did, as the Jews were worried he would do.

It’s the best explanation for* Jesus’* empty tomb.

Not to mention, all anyone has to do to prove Jesus didn’t resurrect, is to produce the bones of the dead Christ.

No one has done this.

For over 2000 years.

:coffeeread:

 

[z_0101]

This question got me to looking for Non-Biblical documentation/accounts for Christ. Doing so I ran across this article:
Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible? (link)
citing some very ancient documents that seem to support the Gospel accounts of the events surrounding Christ:

The first account cited in this article comes from the secular scholar Thallus (52AD) as quoted by Julius Africanus, attempting to explain the darkness and earthquakes occurring during Christ’s crucifixion.

However, the following section in particular has a convincing support for me in that people do not typically hold on to a myth when tortured and threatened with death (the following also taken from the above link):
Tacitus (56-120AD)
Cornelius Tacitus was known for his analysis and examination of historical documents and is among the most trusted of ancient historians. He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian and was also proconsul of Asia. In his “Annals’ of 116AD, he describes Emperor Nero’s response to the great fire in Rome and Nero’s claim that the Christians were to blame:

“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”

In this account, Tacitus confirms several historical elements of the Biblical narrative: Jesus lived in Judea, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and had followers who were persecuted for their faith in Christ.

There are quite a number of other secular/non-Christian documents cited in this acticle that I will let you, the reader, link to: Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible? (link)

With these accounts then it only make sense that the Leaders of the Sanhedrin or the Roman empire would have produced the Body of Christ as soon as the resurrection “myth” started, they would have placed guards at the Tomb, and given the secular documents, I have no doubt that the description in Matthew 27:62-66 where Pilate ordered the Tomb to be secured occurred. Thus, the body of Christ was observed by Roman solders being placed in the Tomb and that Tomb sealed.; thus, most probably preventing the easy theft of Christ’s Body either before or after the burial - these guards would have valued their lives, to fail a task given by the Prefect would have meant scourging if not death for these guards!

Both the leaders of the Sanhedrin and Pilate had much to gain politically by disproving the resurrection of Christ, much more so,. than by allowing the “myth” to continue and would have produced the Body of Christ if they could have done so… and I suspect that they turned the place upside down looking for Christ’s Body! Pilate may not have been a Nobel Piece Prize winner, but he wasn’t stupid, nor were the leaders of the Sanhedrin - they would have known very well that the resurrection of Christ had to be debunked as soon as possible to regain control of Christ’s followers and to quell unrest. Yet we do not see this happening, no indeed, instead we see decades later Nero still dealing with the Christians which doesn’t make any sense of the events if the Crucifixion and Resurrection didn’t occur as related in the Gospels and could have been discredited at the time of the Resurrection.

 

[Bookcat]

If they are embracing such nonsense - not likely they will listen to reason and history …

 

[1Lord1Faith]

If someone doesn’t believe what the gospel writers wrote, there are many reasons other than calling the writers or Jesus liars.

With the gospels written 40-60 years after Jesus was supposedly crucified, and not written by eyewitnesses by via stories passed along for decades and decades…it leaves much room for error, misquoting, mis-copying, mis-remembering, misinterpreting, mis-hearing and elaborating by the time it gets written down.

Plus, if one is reading them in the context of the era, it was not uncommon to write about men becoming gods and gods becoming men and miraculous births at that time…or for people/followers to write stories to support and try to promote their beliefs.

All this is often taken into account when people who don’t believe what is written in the gospels read them.

It doesn’t have mean they are saying anyone is specifically lying.

.

So your saying that the Vietnam War could not be accurately written about toady because it happened 40-60 years ago? That doesn’t make sense even without modern technology.

The early Christians wanted to distance themselves from common pagan literary methods, not conform with them. And the Hebrew writing style they used was even different from the traditional Hebrew style of the books of the Old Testament.

The Gospels make it quite clear who Jesus is, there is no cultural confusion as to what the Gospel writers were getting at. Thus my use of the word liars; it may be too strong in implicating non-believers, but if the Gospels are taken at face value, other conclusions such as…certain people don’t possess the intellect to understand the message of the Gospels - is condescending. I would prefer to say, Jesus and the Gospel writers were not liars.

 

[Tim_D]

I don’t agree with that at all.
Many would change their mind if given good evidence.

And exactly what evidence would convince you? As Christ Himself said, if a person won’t believe Moses and the prophets, then they won’t believe one even though he rose from the dead. The resurrection isn’t a scientific event that left behind physical evidence. It is a matter of faith. Faith, by definition, is believing in something that you cannot prove but know to be true. For whatever reason, the neo-darwinists/atheists of today do not comprehend that the question of religious truth and faith lies in the branch of philosophy known as theology. It isn’t a hard science. To ask for scientific proof of God’s existence is akin to asking proof that you love your spouse. All you can go on is the logical truths and evidence of your stance. You cannot prove it with chemicals, equations or a microscope. If a bone of Moses was discovered in the deserts of the Sinai tomorrow, it wouldn’t change our understanding of him or his role in the mystery of salvation in the least.

So again, tell me; what evidence do you require to make you believe in the resurrection?

If you yourself were given strong evidence that Jesus was not crucified or was* not *resurrected…would you change your mind and change your beliefs?

Not at all because there is no way that you could provide such evidence.

Do you love your spouse? Prove it.

 

[Bookcat]

Pope Benedict XVI April 2009

“Consequently, it is fundamental for our faith and for our Christian witness to proclaim the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as a real, historical event, attested by many authoritative witnesses. We assert this forcefully because, in our day too, there are plenty of people who seek to deny its historicity, reducing the Gospel narrative to a myth, to a “vision” of the Apostles, taking up and presenting old and already worn-out theories as new and scientific. For Jesus, of course, the Resurrection was not a simple return to his former life. Should this have been the case, in fact, it would have been something of the past: 2,000 years ago someone, such as, for example, Lazarus, was raised and returned to his former life. The Resurrection is placed in another dimension: it is the passage to a profoundly new dimension of life that also concerns us, that involves the entire human family, history and the universe. This event that introduced a new dimension of life, an opening of this world of ours to eternal life, changed the lives of the eye-witnesses as the Gospel accounts and the other New Testament writings demonstrate; it is a proclamation that entire generations of men and women down the centuries have accepted with faith and to which they have borne witness, often at the price of their blood, knowing that in this very way they were entering into this new dimension of life… This is the victory of Easter, our salvation! And therefore we can sing with St Augustine: “Christ’s Resurrection is our hope!”, because it introduces us into a new future.”

 

[Matthew91]

And exactly what evidence would convince you? As Christ Himself said, if a person won’t believe Moses and the prophets, then they won’t believe one even though he rose from the dead. The resurrection isn’t a scientific event that left behind physical evidence. It is a matter of faith. Faith, by definition, is believing in something that you cannot prove but know to be true.

But even for belief based on faith, there is a foundation of evidence that you use in order to make that leap of faith. A lot of religions demand faith, if many religions demand faith based belief then why are you Catholic as opposed to Muslim, or Baptist, or Jewish? Clearly there is some calculation of evidence on your part to invest your faith in Catholicism as opposed to these other religions.

 

[Tim_D]

But even for belief based on faith, there is a foundation of evidence that you use in order to make that leap of faith. A lot of religions demand faith, if many religions demand faith based belief then why are you Catholic as opposed to Muslim, or Baptist, or Jewish? Clearly there is some calculation of evidence on your part to invest your faith in Catholicism as opposed to these other religions.

I was born into the Catholic faith.

 

[fred_conty]

But even for belief based on faith, there is a foundation of evidence that you use in order to make that leap of faith. A lot of religions demand faith, if many religions demand faith based belief then why are you Catholic as opposed to Muslim, or Baptist, or Jewish? Clearly there is some calculation of evidence on your part to invest your faith in Catholicism as opposed to these other religions.

Although I was raised in a Catholic home and environment, I believe I am a Catholic today because of the miraculous medal I have worn all my life. I put my trust in Jesus and Mary, and Mary has always been there in the rough spots. I truely believe it is her doing that I love and follow Jesus. And this is something that can’t be proven, but I know in my heart. How does one convince others of this … can’t be done. But all they have to do is wear one as I have, then they will know.