List of Proofs For vs. Proofs Against the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, & Ascension

[rakovsky]

In my message earlier, I listed some things like the Shroud of Turin and Jesus’ ongoing appearances that could show that the Resurrection occurred. But at the moment I am uncertain whether those things are real.

I think that it’s very unlikely that the stories of Jesus physically appearing and talking to the apostles at length are mere hallucinations, because I don’t think that people hallucinate in a large group to such an extreme extent. So either they were real or else they were invented. In that case, either: (A) the apostles made them up themselves like other persecuted Asian sects have made up miracle stories, or else (B) they were hearsay that was added to the gospels and Acts when those were written 40 to 70 years after the events.

So here I would like to share with you things I found in those gospel accounts of Jesus’ physical appearances that give me doubts about them. Granted, I think that the resurrection could still have happened even if accounts of them are wrong. But I think it’s much less likely the event happened if they are.

Let’s start with Mark
**1. Mark’s account of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances (the verses after Mark 16:8) were apparently added on 80 years or more later, as the Christian apologetics website Tectonics explains:
tektonics.org/lp/markend.php
For example, the early Church writer Eusebius said that the accurate copies of Mark lack the added part. That part basically just takes short pieces from what the other gospels say.
It’s noticeable to me that Mark doesn’t include the miraculous virgin birth either in the beginning of his gospel. it makes me think that since the post resurrection appearances and the virgin birth are the most fantastic parts of the gospels, “bookending” them at the beginning and end, that Mark probably didn’t include the resurrection appearances just as he didn’t include the virgin birth.
**
2. In Mark 1-8 (not the added part), the women come to the tomb and find a young man (perhaps an angel) in white who tells them to tell the apostles that Jesus is going to Galilee, and that the apostles should go too because they will see Him there.

But in Luke 24, the same day as the resurrection the apostles are in Jerusalem, Jesus appears to them and tells them to stay in Jerusalem until they are given power from on high. And then he takes them to Bethany and Ascends to heaven. Presumably this refers to the Ascension and the promise that the Spirit would come later on Pentecost. So the Ascension was on Day 1 in Luke.

In Matthew, it says Jesus told the women to tell the apostles to go to Galilee. And the next and only appearance mentioned is on a mountain in Galilee to the eleven disciples when the apostles go there to see Jesus, and he talks to them at length. In John 21, it talks about Jesus meeting the apostles on Day 1 of the Resurrection, apparently in Jerusalem, and then meeting Peter and others in Galilee and showing Himself physically.

So in Luke, all the appearances are in Jerusalem, where Jesus tells them on Day 1 to stay until Pentecost (50 days later). But in Mark and Matthew, the angel or Jesus immediately sends the apostles a message to see him in Galilee, where those two gospels and John talk about physical meetings with Jesus.

The only way I can think to reconcile these is by proposing that Jesus sent a message for the apostles to go to Galilee but then showed up in Jerusalem with them anyway and told them to stay in Jerusalem until Pentecost. But for some reason Matthew never mentions the Jerusalem appearances and gives the impression that the disciples soon followed Jesus’ instruction to go to Galilee. Then after Pentecost, despite His Ascension, He showed Himself physically to the apostles in Galilee and talked with them at length. The stories are not totally contradictory, but are at odds without each other.
**
3. In Mark 16:8, after hearing the young man/angel talk about Jesus ging to Galilee, **“they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.” But in Matthew and Luke, they went to tell the apostles about the angel, and the disciples came back and looked at the tomb.

To reconcile the versions, you can say that the women “said nothing to any man” until they arrived to tell the apostles. But this also sounds like the stories are at odds.

 

[rakovsky]

I think that C.S. Lewis’ dilemma is correct with the added possibility of later fabrication. One could therefore use a process of deduction.
**
The least likely possibility is delusion.** It can explain some sightings of Jesus, But not a number of other ones.
**
If the accounts of the appearances were not fabricated at all, it’s extremely unlikely that the apostles and the women would see Jesus in physical form,** particularly in cases where they were gathered in a major group (11 apostles) and touched Him, watched Him eat, touched His wounds, and heard Him talk to them at length. That kind of illusion as a group where He is so close and so physical and real to them would have to mean that they were all practically certifiably insane. To say that they were drunk out of their minds would be an understatement, since it would have to be severe alcohol poisoning of the brain of all those involved in the alleged appearance. And yet one of those appearances allegedly occurred while they were fishing, which is not something a group of people drunk out of their minds would do.

Personally, I find an actual resurrection in transfigured form by Jesus more likely than that possibility.

What about the possibillity of later fabrication?
In that case, you would have to think that the apostles told their followers about having visions of Jesus like Paul did, with the apostles clarifying at least for their closest followers that Jesus’ appearances were nonphysical. People like Paul would have asked Peter what those appearances were like, and Peter would have described them in a nonphysical way.

And yet, 50 to 80 years later, 3 of the four gospel accounts either described Jesus appearing in physical form and talking (Luke and John) or gave a story of a physical Virgin birth (Luke and Matthew), which is relatively as miraculous as the physical transformed resurrection. Meanwhile, it was standard knowledge among the apostles and their closest followers that those physical events were not things they heard from Jesus or things that the apostles had alleged. And yet nonetheless despite their disagreement or intense skepticism of those claims, the gospel writers described them as if they were the truth and the gospels spread around the ancient world in 80-110 AD with the incorrect version, without the Church fathers recording any disagreement on the topic by the church leaders. This would have been a virtual coup d’etat, reworking the gospel story to fit physical appearances, without a surviving record of a dispute on the question with the church leadership.

Not only that, but Matthew, Luke, and John have so many stories and details about Jesus and the apostles that it sounds like they were very close to them. The book of Acts, which has a close focus on Paul’s ministry and the early Church, claims that it is written by Luke and a sequel to his book, which at least means that Acts vouches for Luke’s account. And Acts’ author would have been close to the early church, at least to Paul, who was close enough to the apostles to know their gospel.

More specifically, the later fabrications would have to have developed some time after the Resurrection and outside of the apostles’ circle. They would have been put into those 3 gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) between when the time those gospels were written first (70-110 AD) and when our first existing copies of any of those books have been found, from about 100-200 AD. (The Bodmer papyrus with John 20-21:9 about the resurrection is from about 200 AD). So it’s not as if Constantine and the Roman empire decided they needed to make the religion talk about physical resurrection appearances. Additionally, Christianity had spread across the ancient world and we have huge numbers of New Testament manuscripts from the first few centuries AD and they are close in agreement in the meaning of the New Testament texts throughout them, with a few exceptions (like the omission of Mark 16:9-20). So I believe that we have a thorough understanding of the original versions of each gospel, at least from within a few decades from when they were written (in 70-110 AD).

So if the physical appearances and virgin birth were later fabrications, they would have had to have come about in 33-80 AD and three of the four evangelists would have to have retold or invented one of those two extreme events despite the apostles’ own beliefs to the contrary.

Anyway, Paul practically says that Jesus was born of a Virgin when he says: “In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a woman…” (Galatians 4:4). There is no point in saying Jesus was made of a woman if His birth was normal. Are we to think Christians in the 2nd-3rd centuries made this statement up and added it into their copy of Paul’s letter?

The “Later fabrication theory” demands a massive, concerted pre-Constantine effort of early Christians to rewrite their copies of New Testament books", leaving no traces of objections by early Christians about this rewriting, and I highly doubt that happened.

Josephus says James was the bishop of Jerusalem until his death in 60-70 AD, and Jerusalem had a line of Jewish Christian bishops until about 135 AD. So it’s hardly likely that those 3 gospels and Paul taught something totally different on the Virgin birth.

So either the gospels are true about the physical appearances of Jesus and Virgin birth, or the apostles themselves participated in making them up, probably with the help of Jesus’ mother and at least a few others.

 

[rakovsky]

P.S. It’s true that there was an Ebionite sect made of Jewish Christians, however based on Jerome’s description in the 4th century:

…an Ebionite story has Jesus eating bread with his brother Jacob (“James the Just”) after the resurrection, which indicates that the Ebionites, or at least the ones who accepted this version of the Gospel of the Hebrews, very much believed in a physical resurrection for Jesus.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites

 

[oldcelt]

Any sources?

Also,even if the Celts did have a belief in deities rising from the dead,it wasn’t a Resurrection.

The Jews and Apostles believed that Resurrection was God glorifying a body and making it beyond a natural body.A regular rising from the dead is not a Resurrection since the body isn’t glorified nor was it done by God.

Jews and the Apostles believed something completely different.

Bodily immortality is a resurrection, no matter the method of defeating the grave. Here is an in-depth thesis on the beliefs of the British Isles before Christianity.

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/rac/rac25.htm

 

[NormalBeliever]

Bodily immortality is a resurrection, no matter the method of defeating the grave. Here is an in-depth thesis on the beliefs of the British Isles before Christianity.

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/rac/rac25.htm

Resurrection in Jewish terms is far different from regular resuscitation we think of today.It is firmly established in Jewish doctrine and eschatology.

Another thing is,reading a bit into that website,so far it seems to suggest the Celts believed in immortal souls,and not something like a body being raised up by God into a glorified special state.

But reading even further into that website,I find this:

‘‘The dead who return are not spectres, but are fully clothed upon with a body.’’

This seems to suggest that they might recieve a second body rather then their own.

And it seems also as if the Celts believed people return in a regular body,an immortal one perhaps,but nothing similar to the glorified supernatural body given by the Resurrection

And it is nowhere near anything such as the Jewish doctrine of Resurrection.

 

[rakovsky]

SonofMan questioned my 3RD PROOF, the apostles’ testimony of the Resurrection as confirmed by their undergoing persecution

Josephus was born in 37 A.D., he couldn’t have witnessed the Apostles dying. Maybe he saw Christians who had no contact with Jesus, who came later, being put to death, but that isn’t as powerful because as another poster pointed out, even Muslims die for their faith and as Christians, we don’t believe they are correct, so that is a problem.

There is also the dilemna that scholars believe that Josephus’ writings were tampered with, or forged, by Christians.
Hello, Son of Man.

The scholars are generally in agreement that Josephus’ passage on James’ being killed by the Sanhedrin is an authentic passage.
In 60-70 AD when James was killed, Josephus was 23-33, so he would be the right age to know about this event. The Talmud mentions other followers of Jesus who were killed with James, which would have been in the 60-70 AD period.

 

[rakovsky]

I’ve noticed many here have made a comparison to crazed Islamist suicide bombers dying and “being martyred” for their faith. There is a very big difference here – while the early Christian martyrs and the Apostles may have died for their faith, as do Islamist suicide bombers, Christians martyrs don’t wipe out an entire bus or supermarket as they do so. Christian martyrs don’t tend to have innocent blood on their hands.

I guess the Christian martyrdom could be seen as selfless, and perhaps a crazed terrorist Islamist’s suicide could be seen as selfish.

I say this with the utmost respect for the Islamic faith, and the numerous Muslim friends I have, mind you.

Hi Micosil.

The point is that in both cases (Muslim suicide attackers and Christian martyrs) both groups are willing to die for what they believe, but that in itself doesn’t mean that their belief is correct. Of course, a Muslim bomber’s action is in one sense “self-less” - he/she gives up their life for some reward in the afterlife, although of course the difference is that in the Christian case the attacker doesn’t take out other victims.

 

[rakovsky]

No.They couldn’t have fabricated the Resurrection because it vindicates Jesus.

Because all Jews believed the Resurrection would happen at the end times and to believe it would occur to someone before the end of the world was not only a very hard thing to come up with,but it was such a hybrid mutation of Jewish beliefs that it is very likely the disciples couldn’t have made it up.

Hello, NormalBeliever.
Jewish sects of the time, like the Essenes and the gnostics, were quite capable of making up or mutating beliefs.

In this case the prophets foretold the Messiah’s Death and Resurrection in the 1st century (eg. Daniel + Psalm 16 about not seeing corruption, which occurs in 3 days after death), but it wasn’t clear how long before the end of the world this would happen. In Christian thought, the dead are already rising, according to Paul, which has at least a spiritual, if not physical meaning.

Anyway, Christians did not come up with an idea different than the Jewish idea that the resurrection would be at the end times. In Christianity, the future resurrection does come at the age of the second coming,ie. the end times.

The fact is, the Christians believed in the Messiah’s death and resurrection, but they were capable of allegorizing or reinventing other things since Jesus himself spoke in parables and did not feel chained to the common beliefs of the pharisees.

Another,bigger reason,why they couldn’t have used a claim of Resurrection is because it is impossible for either Jew or Roman to believe this without evidence.

Mormonism caught on pretty fast and to me it’s surprising that Americans believed the Mormon story without enough evidence.

Anyway, the Romans and Jews had plenty of unorthodox sects that lacked enough evidence for a critical scientist to believe in.

The Romans pagans held to a view of the afterlife in which after you die your spirit gets seperated from your body forever.The Romans honestly believed this and also thought any idea of your spirit coming back into your body is unbeliavable.

The Romans believed the body was shameful and was something which everyone must wish to reject because it makes humans vulnearable and because the body itself is a source of suffering.

Now the Apostles claimed not only did God rise from the dead via resurrection but that everybody else would also rise in the future by their spirit reuniting with the body.This was a teaching completely unbeliavable and unacceptable to the Romans.

Once you believe that the body separates from the soul, it’s still rational and logical to think that a God could reunite you with a transformed body, The Romans believed things that were comparably strange, like their idea that their emperors were gods. What’s important to understand is that ancient people were able to change beliefs. There was a cult of Mithros that was spreading among the Romans too. People in East Asia began accepting Buddhism in 500-100 BC, even though Buddhism represented a change in beliefs for them too.

If the Apostles did make up the Resurrection,then they couldn’t have spread Christianity at all.

It is much easier for the Apostles to have claimed Jesus was only ‘‘raptured’’ away like Elijah was.This would have been much easier for the Jews and even the pagan Romans to believe then the Resurrection.

OK, but a death and resurrection is more impressive as a claim, so it can get more attention. The philosophical problem you raise could have made it harder for Christianity to spread in the 1st century until its ideas caught on, but it’s not a total barrier, since the Jews did believe in the Resurrection, the scriptures predicted the Messiah’s resurrection, and the idea of the soul reuniting with the body is at least a logical possibility in Roman thought,

 

[rakovsky]

Unless,of course,the Apostles had some type of real experience that made them honestly believe Jesus Resurrected from the dead.

In the apostolic time 33-100 AD, the Christians were still a minor group, so it wasn’t as if the apostles directly converted a big percent of the Roman empire. As Christianity grew in 100-300 AD, those generations did not have direct experience with the apostles. Instead, they were relying on other peoples’ allegations to them.

Anyway, just because the apostles were convincing in their testimony doesn’t mean their testimony was true.

‘‘If the guards saw a real angel who made them leave, then why didn’t they become believers instead of spreading the story,’’

Because there was an earthquake beforehand.The Romans could have fled from the earthquake and from the angel both or seperately.

OK, but Matthew 28 says that it was the angel who paralyzed the soldiers with awe, not the earthquake.

But also,if the Romans did see an angel,it is likely they thought it was a human or some apparition of a ghost instead of believing a Resurrection had occured.Thus,they didn’t have to convert.

The sight of a mere human obviously would not cause armed guards to become “like dead men”, and a ghost wouldn’t roll away a tomb stone.

‘‘Besides that, didn’t you contradict yourself when you wrote on one hand that the soldiers didn’t reveal Jesus’ resurrection or the angel because it would vindicate him, but on the other hand you wrote that the Romans would find it “impossible to believe” that someone was “vindicated from Crucifixion”.’’

Actually I was talking about how the very idea of crucifixion was unacceptable to the Romans thus making a false Christianity impossible to believe.

Didn’t Roman pagans have a cult of how Dionyius or Tammuz was killed on a pole and resurrected?

Spartacus wasn’t saved or resurrected after his crucifixion, but didn’t Spartacus remain a heroic or sympathetic figure in the minds of slaves after he was crucified by the Romans? And Christianity spread among slaves besides other groups.

Naturally, if he was crucified and stayed dead, he would not be very vindicated, but if it was claimed by witnesses that He resurrected, that would be a much more vindicating story.

So to sum up, you made philosophical objections that the Jews and Romans wouldn’t make up or believe in a sect that went against their beliefs. But there really were sects among Jews and Romans at that time like the gnostics that believed very unconventional things. And why would the soldiers spread a fabricated story if they had been so paralyzed and overpowered mentally by an angel? The fact that a resurrection contradicted their presuppositions didn’t stop them from collapsing from the angel, so why would they be willing to go against such an extreme, supernatural force that had just rendered them powerless?

 

[rakovsky]

Any sources?

Also,even if the Celts did have a belief in deities rising from the dead,it wasn’t a Resurrection.

The Jews and Apostles believed that Resurrection was God glorifying a body and making it beyond a natural body.A regular rising from the dead is not a Resurrection since the body isn’t glorified nor was it done by God.

Jews and the Apostles believed something completely different.

Actually, raising someone from the dead is a “resurrection”. Jesus “resurrected” Lazarus.

But still, you are right that Jesus had a transformed resurrection, so it’s not the same thing as a normal resurrection.

 

[rakovsky]

There’s significantly less evidence for this than for the validity of their martyrdom. There are records, both Christian records and secular coliseum records, noting the martyrdom of innumerable Christians.

Hello, Architect.

Sure, there can be writings confirming that later on Christians were killed in Rome in the coloseum.
But what matters most is whether the 11 apostles + 2 women who were claimed to have seen Jesus physically were martyred or not. That’s because all those Christians killed in the coloseum might have been sincere believers who were just going on their trust of what the apostles told them. So it doesn’t actually prove that the apostles themselves were sincere, only that the numerous Christian martyrs were.

Secondly, Christianity was proving to be a powerful political movement, so powerful that the Emperor of Rome thought it could overthrow them and start an uprising. So, there was the reward of having a lot of power. To this day the Pope influences millions of Catholics worldwide.

An illogical claim. People who do things for power do their best to hold onto that power. During this time, the average reign of a Pope was something like two years, maybe three. Taking up the office was essentially placing upon yourself the mantle of suffering a painful death. A person desiring power would not take on the role given its almost-certain outcome.

Again, what is important is whether the apostles themselves were expecting martyrdom. Peter and James weren’t killed for about 30 years after the Resurrection, and in both cases their deaths were unexpected. In James’ case, the Roman governor temporarily left Judea and the Sanhedrin took advantage of his absence to kill James. But after a Roman governor arrived, the Roman governor punished the Sanhedrin leader for the killing of James.

As for the claims of the Apostles making it up, I’m sorry, but that is just stupid. The historical evidence we have, both religious and secular, speaks of widespread persecution of Christians at several points in the early years of the Church. The very act of -being- a Christian was illegal under Roman rule, and punishable by death. Despite all of this, Christianity flourished.

Of course being a Christian was not per se illegal in 33-100 AD in Judea or else the Romans would not have protected James. How could Paul have made so many missionary journeys across so many provinces if his mission was illegal? I think that Jewish Christianity per se was not illegal in that era but some things related to it were, like disturbing the Temple or gentiles not making offering to the emperor.

We have historical evidence that the apostles suffered and died for the faith, you can chose to ignore this evidence if you want, or claim that it was tampered with; but such claims are pure conjecture and have no evidence to support them.

Besides Peter and James, what is the evidence of the deaths of the other 9 apostles who allegedly saw Jesus physically, as opposed to the large number of converts like Paul who didn’t necessarily have a physical sighting of Jesus.

Had Christ not be raised, it would have been easy enough to bring out his body and show it off. If the Apostles had stolen his body, then there’s no way they would have suffered being skinned or cooked alive, all while singing the praises of the man who’s divinity they knew to be false.

Maybe someone who liked Jesus stole the body but not one of the apostles, and thus the apostles remained clueless?

But if you are looking for alternative versions of history, I think that the apostles most likely knew that the body was stolen and weren’t expecting to be killed for spreading Christianity. Peter could have been killed in Rome when Nero blamed them for the fire of Rome in about 64 AD, but the killing was not explicitly for being Christian. Thus, Peter need not have been expecting that Nero would have blamed the fire on him and others.

 

[rakovsky]

Also,as for the claim the Apostles dying is no different from Muslims dying,there actually is a difference.

The Apostles gave up their lives and were martyred because they believed they were witnesses of the Resurrection.That is,they handled the proof of the Resurrection and the truth,whether it was real or a lie.

They all died because they claimed Jesus did rise from the dead.If they lied,they very easily could have recanted and would not have died because they knew what they were saying was a lie.

The Apostles were in a situation where they claimed they were the witnesses of a supernatural proof prooving that Jesus was God.They died exactly for the reason that they claimed they saw Jesus.

Yes, that is a major, real difference, Normal Believer.
However, one must still establish that they were expecting to be killed for this claim of Jesus’ resurrection in order to show this difference.

At least how I see it,there is no reason for the Apostles to lie.

Yes there was - to lead a sect like Joseph Smith did, which is why J.Smith made up his religious claims even though he was killed for them.

The argument the Apostles died for a lie the same way Muslims die for their religion or other people die for some vague principle cannot simply be correct.

Another thing is that the Apostles and other Christians also were presecuted by fellow citizens in the Roman Empire.

If you wanted to become a Christian you had to give up a comfortable life and be prepared to be persecuted by your fellow neighbors and also be prepared to give up your social life and status as well.The Apostles weren’t only putting their lives at risk for Christianity,but also many other things as well and they were commited to that.

This is true. However, Joseph Smith and the Three Witnesses to his made up golden plates were willing to give up their social status while backing up Smith’s false claims about religion.

The only way I can see the Apostles giving up their lifes and social status is if they honestly did have an experience that changed their lives and made them believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

I understand. But this argument is really based on several premises:
(1) The apostles did not mistakenly have a delusionary vision but instead knew whether they saw Jesus or not.
(2) All 11 apostles actually claimed to have seen Jesus risen physically, so that the appearance’s physical nature was not just embellished later.
(3) The apostles actually knowingly faced likely mortal persecution and the killing of the other 8 apostles was not just a later invented tradition.

Otherwise, they didn’t intentionally and voluntarily give up their lives for proclaiming a real experience of Jesus’ physical resurrection.

 

[rakovsky]

Resurrection in Jewish terms is far different from regular resuscitation we think of today.It is firmly established in Jewish doctrine and eschatology.

Where do you see it in Jewish doctrine that the resurrection isn’t a regular resuscitation?

Another thing is,reading a bit into that website,so far it seems to suggest the Celts believed in immortal souls,and not something like a body being raised up by God into a glorified special state.

But reading even further into that website,I find this:

'‘The dead who return are not spectres, but are fully clothed upon with a body.’

This seems to suggest that they might recieve a second body rather then their own.

And it seems also as if the Celts believed people return in a regular body,an immortal one perhaps,but nothing similar to the glorified supernatural body given by the Resurrection

And it is nowhere near anything such as the Jewish doctrine of Resurrection.
If the Celts believed that they were given bodies after the resurrection, what is to say that the body isn’t their own?
If they then become immortal in their new bodies, isn’t that a kind of supernatural existence?

 

[rakovsky]

Thank you everyone for your replies.
**
Is there a Christian scholar whom you recommend I write to about my uncertainties about Jesus’ main miracles?**

I wrote to Fr. John Meier, a Catholic theologian who did an excellent job showing in his book “A Marginal Jew” that Jesus existed and used a historical method of text criticism to show that some things in the gospels were true. But Fr. Meier didn’t really give a persuasive answer to my question about the main miracles other than to say that it’s faith.

I am familiar with the writings of William Lane Craig, and Lee strobel. Perhaps there is someone else I should contact?

Thanks.

 

[Giovonni]

I understand. But this argument is really based on several premises:
(1) The apostles did not mistakenly have a delusionary vision but instead knew whether they saw Jesus or not.
(2) All 11 apostles actually claimed to have seen Jesus risen physically, so that the appearance’s physical nature was not just embellished later.
(3) The apostles actually knowingly faced likely mortal persecution and the killing of the other 8 apostles was not just a later invented tradition.

Otherwise, they didn’t intentionally and voluntarily give up their lives for proclaiming a real experience of Jesus’ physical resurrection.

When you speculate about evidence in support of the resurrection you need to also consider Paul. His experience on the road to Damascus is independent of the Apostles. This puts a bit of a damper on the whole “the apostles were delusional because they expected the resurrection” theory. Paul, as a persecutor of Christians had no such expectation. Also, Paul’s letters are dated to a much closer time of the resurrection, going against the “later embellishment” argument.

What you are left with is multiple independent accounts (including the 500 Paul mentions) of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

 

[Randy_Carson]

As I said in an earlier post, it is claimed that the apostles never actually suffered martydom and the stories about them dying are largely myth.

Here’s one:

Acts 12
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3 When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. 4 After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

^
^This passage points out the type of persecution that the apostles endured.

Josephus was born in 37 A.D., he couldn’t have witnessed the Apostles dying. Maybe he saw Christians who had no contact with Jesus, who came later, being put to death, but that isn’t as powerful because as another poster pointed out, even Muslims die for their faith and as Christians, we don’t believe they are correct, so that is a problem.

Josephus would have been 28 when Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome around AD 65.

There is also the dilemna that scholars believe that Josephus’ writings were tampered with, or forged, by Christians.

It’s not really a dilemma. By removing the portion of the Testimonium Flavianum that is most likely an addition, the overwhelming majority of scholars (skeptics included) are able to conclude that the passage is still a powerful witness to the existence of Jesus as a historical figure.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Let’s start with Mark
To reconcile the versions, you can say that the women “said nothing to any man” until they arrived to tell the apostles. But this also sounds like the stories are at odds.

Disagreements among eye-witnesses are not uncommon. In fact, detectives look for discrepancies when investigating crimes to determine whether the witnesses or suspects have colluded.

But here’s an example: Did you know that the survivors of the Titanic disagreed as to whether the ship broke in two pieces before it finally slipped beneath the waves? I mean, how could anyone get that wrong? But they did.

Finally, note carefully this passage in Mark:

Mark 16:5-8
5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Wow. No post-resurrection appearances…maybe Mark didn’t think that Jesus was raised from the dead, after all.

But wait…why did Mark put the following words into the mouth of the young man:

"He is risen!"

Mark knew that Jesus was risen, and he declared it very clearly in the short ending. :yup: