Let’s to back a little.
What’s your explanation as to how the myth of the Resurrection began. And spread?
Let’s say that someone heard a story about the resurrection and repeated it as if it were true. Maybe they thought it was true or it rang true for them. There were aspects of the story, which, if included, would make any listener doubt the veracity of the account, but they were omitted. Not intentionally, but the person telling the story thought they weren’t relevant or simply didn’t bother mentioning them.
The story stands as told. Someone who had been told will now repeat it as she had heard it, with no embellishment or no additional information, because none was originally supplied. The story, told in all sincerity in the first instance, is now passed on as being factual. If questioned, anyone repeating it will say that they heard it from an honest source and would not doubt it’s veracity.
All this would happen two thousand years ago when there was in any case no real method of checking the truth of any claim. This is all word of mouth. Passed form one person to another until it gains the patina of truth.
Now we come to this:
Can you explain to me why you think that I would need to be proffering some sort of paradigm in which the gospel writers were looking for “proof” of the resurrection, when I believe they had actually seen Jesus in the flesh?
Since that sentence is way too convoluted, I will say it another way: why do you think the NT writers would be searching for proof of the resurrection, when they had The Proof already.
Anyone coming on to the forum and reading that, having read your previous posts and come to the conclusion that you were a well read, intelligent woman who would appear to be trustworthy and would never deliberately try to mislead anyone, might accept what you have just said and might well repeat it elsewhere.
Then someone else, reading what that person had repeated would repeat it himself. And so on. So in a number of forums and discussions and dinner table conversations we have many people stating quite honestly that the gospel writers had ‘actually seen Jesus in then flesh’. Really? Yep, I have it on good authority. I’ve heard it from any number of reliable people in different forums and in various conversations.
Yet the gospels were written anonymously. It is only assumed that they were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Whoever wrote Mark, even if it was Mark, doesn’t actually say that he saw the resurrected Jesus and it’s generally accepted that Matthew’s gospel is a copy of Mark’s.
Luke? Whoever it was says specifically that he wasn’t an eye witness. And John could have been an eyewitness but the gospel again is written anonymously. If he did see what he said he saw, why not identify himself?
Having been given all that additional information, do you think that anyone would then claim that the gospels must be true because each of the writers personally saw Jesus in the flesh after the resurrection?
I don’t think so. At best one could say that: Assuming that one of the gospels had been written by the person whom it is assumed wrote it, and assuming that he was telling the truth and was not mistaken, then it is possible that that one person may have been a witness.
Which is a lot different from all the definitive statements people may have made after reading your post.
