Proving The Resurrection By the "Minimal Facts" Approach

[pocaracas]

They agree on the 15 things on the list, poca.

Yes, yes, they (a consensus) do.

Thanks for confirming their (consensual) bias.

 

[pocaracas]

1. Thirty years after they were reported to have seen Jesus, the ones who were still alive uprooted themselves and travelled 1800 kms to Ephesus to see Paul.

Wow… Paul was in Ephesus?!

So… that’s why I never got any response to a “where” were the gospels written…
Thanks, Bradski!

 

[Bradski]

Wow… Paul was in Ephesus?!

So… that’s why I never got any response to a “where” were the gospels written…
Thanks, Bradski!

I was there about 5 years ago. Hey, it ain’t far from you. Practically a day trip. I seriously recommend it. Astonishing place. Absolutely soaked in history. But never had a sense of…Christianity.

Edit: Well, OK, not exactly unsurprising…

 

[PRmerger]

Thanks for confirming their (consensual) bias.

Oh, geez.

So when 97% of scientists believe that climate change is human-driven, that’s consensual bias?

climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

And when most scientists proclaim the theory of evolution, that’s consensual bials?

religioustolerance.org/ev_proof.htm

And when 100% of engineers believe that 15 > 5, that’s consensual bias?

No? That’s just being consonant with truth?

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Is this another example of your having a wee bit of a different standard for yourself and your arguments vs believers?

 

[pocaracas]

Oh, geez.

So when 97% of scientists believe that climate change is human-driven, that’s consensual bias?

climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Are you telling me that people who study to become climatologists, start by presupposing that climate change is human-driven?

And when most scientists proclaim the theory of evolution, that’s consensual bials?

religioustolerance.org/ev_proof.htm

Are you telling me that people who study to become biologists, start by presupposing that theory of evolution is true? (how on Earth would Darwin ever come up with it?.. oh, he’d lie, huh?)

And when 100% of engineers believe that 15 > 5, that’s consensual bias?

No? That’s just being consonant with truth?

This one is independent of engineers… it’s a property of the numbers as delineated by Arabs some 1000 years ago.
Numbers which represent amounts. And 15 oranges are still more oranges than 5 oranges.

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Is this another example of your having a wee bit of a different standard for yourself and your arguments vs believers?

However, theologians, biblical scholars, the majority of which are Christian, indoctrinated since birth into believing that Christ did exist, did die by crucifixion and did resurrect, and that most of what is written in the NT is trustworthy… these are the people you have studying the NT… I’d be surprised if they arrived at a conclusion that would discredit the NT…
However, the few who study that field and see some paradoxes, do come out thinking that the resurrection account isn’t all it’s cooked up to be… and become quite verbal atheists. Although, they will still admit that a person called Jesus did exist somewhere close to the beginning of the first century.

[cont…]

 

[pocaracas]

[contd.]
But some believers do try to be sensible…
Remember the list of things that EP Sanders claims are agreed upon? (on this post)
Well, It seems other people couldn’t find anything about the resurrection…
infidels.org/library/modern/jacob_aliet/historical.html:
"
Sanders begins his reconstruction by laying out Jesus’ life as described in the Gospels and listing ten statements about Jesus’ life that he says are almost beyond dispute. Before we examine these statements, note that Sanders is appealing to the scholarly consensus on these points.
…]
Having arrived at Jesus’ death, Sanders’ reconstruction of the historical Jesus is complete, and he remarks that strictly speaking, the Resurrection is not part of the story of the historical Jesus.
"

earlychristianwritings.com/jesus/epsanders.html
"
I. Certain or virtually certain:

1. Jesus shared the world-view that I have called ‘Jewish restoration eschatology’. The key facts are his start under John the Baptist, the call of the twelve, his expectation of a new (or at least renewed) temple, and the eschatological setting of the work of the apostles (Gal. 1.2; Rom. 11.11-13, 25-32; 15.15-19).
2. He preached the kingdom of God.
3. He promised the kingdom to the wicked.
4. He did not explicitly oppose the law, particularly not laws relating to Sabbath and food.
5. Neither he nor his disciples thought that the kingdom would be established by force of arms. They looked for an eschatological miracle.
   II. Highly probable:
6. The kingdom which he expected would have some analogies with this world: leaders, the twelve tribes, a functioning temple.
7. Jesus’ disciples thought of him as ‘king’, and he accepted the role, either implicitly or explicitly.
   III. Probable:
8. He thought that the wicked who accepted his message would share in the kingdom even though they did not do the things customary in Judaism for the atonement of sin.
9. He did not emphasize the national character of the kingdom, including judgment by groups and a call for mass repentance, because that had been the task of John the Baptist, whose work he accepted.
10. Jesus spoke about the kingdom in different contexts, and he did not always use the word with precisely the same meaning.
    IV. Possible:
11. He may have spoken about the kingdom in the visionary manner of the ‘little apocalypse’ (Mark 13 and parr.), or as a present reality into which individuals enter one by one - or both.
    V. Conceivable:
12. He may have thought that the kingdom, in all its power and might, was present in his words and deeds.
13. He may have given his own death martyrological significance.
14. He may have identified himself with a cosmic Son of man and conceived his attaining kingship in that way.
    VI. Incredible:
15. He was one of the rare Jews in his day who believed in love, mercy, grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sin.
16. Jews in general, and Pharisees in particular, would kill people who believed in such things.
17. As a result of his work, Jewish confidence in election was ‘shaken to pieces’, Judaism was ‘shaken to its foundations’, and Judaism as a religion was destroyed.
    "

Judging by the review I linked above of his second book, I’d say there’s a good reason not to include those extra 5 items in the list here.
But, I’ve found another review which does address the resurrection:
"
Vegantrav
Dec 21, 2010

-Sanders has a few comments about the resurrection accounts; he states that the accounts are so confused (Jesus appears to different people in different places and in different time sequences) among the gospels and Paul’s account that it is impossible to do draw any substantive conclusions from textual analysis; Sanders also focuses on the fact that all of the appearances seem to indicate clearly that this was not merely a resuscitation of Jesus’s body: for example, if Jesus had been simply raised from the dead in his same physical body, why did some of his followers have trouble recognizing him, and why could he appear and disappear and pass through walls, which a physical body could not do, and why does Paul equate his own experience of the resurrection (clearly a visionary experience) as being equal to that of Peter and the other disciples (if Paul’s experience was a visionary experience and it was like that of Peter and the other disciples, wouldn’t that mean that their experiences were also visionary?)? Sanders, ever the careful historian, refuses to speculate on what the exact nature of the resurrection experiences were, but it is clear that he does not believe that it was simply the physical resuscitation of Jesus’s corpse.
"

So… next time you guys talk about a Historical Jesus, remember that he didn’t resurrect.
Also, the consensus is this:
is-there-a-god.info/blog/belief/is-there-really-consensus-scholars/

 

[Peter_Plato]

So… next time you guys talk about a Historical Jesus, remember that he didn’t resurrect.
Also, the consensus is this:
is-there-a-god.info/blog/belief/is-there-really-consensus-scholars/

Two thousand years from now, scholars will be all over the map regarding the existence of pocaracas and Peter Plato. No doubt virtually all (perhaps even all) will know nothing about either one of us. The same reason for thinking future scholars will have no credible expertise regarding your existence or mine is the same reason for thinking current scholars do not have any privileged “knowledge” about Jesus or what he did as compared, for example, to those living with him and experiencing directly the events surrounding his life.

Given the choice of believing and trusting the “consensus” of current scholars or the words of actual eyewitnesses – eyewitnesses I have no reason to doubt regarding their motives – I will go with the eyewitnesses.

The points made by E.P. Sanders, by the way, are easily refuted by those of N.T. Wright and Richard Bauckham, who, as far as I am concerned, make a far better and more credible case regarding the reliability of the Gospel accounts and the Resurrection. (I never was one to trust ‘consensus’ for its own sake, since it is always subject to revision when new and compelling arguments are presented by what amount to a few dissenters from the ‘consensus’ opinion.) I’ll take a sound argument OVER consensus every time.

 

[PRmerger]

So if you agree that Paul would have known the people or at least to have known their names, we have three options so far:

1. Paul made a list of 500 people’s names and contact details, or…
2. He remembered 500 people’s names and contact details, or…
3. Thirty years after they were reported to have seen Jesus, the ones who were still alive uprooted themselves and travelled 1800 kms to Ephesus to see Paul.

These are your interpretations of what you think is likely to have happened. Do any of them really sound credible to you? Notwithstanding that none of this information is to be found anywhere in scripture at all.

Or, they came to him.

Or, they started a church in their area.

And what makes you think Paul stayed only in Ephesus while he preached?

So many possibilities.

Are you going to apologize for saying I just made up that Paul’s list of witnesses was of men who could serve as reliable witnesses in a court of law?

Again, I refer you to Steve Ray, professional Catholic Apologist, who said this on May 3, 2010.

catholic.com/audio-player/4526

 

[PRmerger]

Are you telling me that people who study to become climatologists, start by presupposing that climate change is human-driven?

Are you telling me that if a climatologist presupposed that climate change is human-drive that this means that climate change is NOT human driven?

I think the truth of climate change is independent of the putative biases of the scientists.

I presume that when a scientist, or a historian, makes an assertion, it is because, regardless of her preconceived biases, truth is what they want to profess.

And I trust (that is, have faith) that they would take their assertions to whatever road the truth leads them to…regardless of where they were when they started.

That seems to be the prudent thing to do.

 

[PRmerger]

However, theologians, biblical scholars, the majority of which are Christian, indoctrinated since birth into believing that Christ did exist, did die by crucifixion and did resurrect, and that most of what is written in the NT is trustworthy… these are the people you have studying the NT… I’d be surprised if they arrived at a conclusion that would discredit the NT…
However, the few who study that field and see some paradoxes, do come out thinking that the resurrection account isn’t all it’s cooked up to be… and become quite verbal atheists. Although, they will still admit that a person called Jesus did exist somewhere close to the beginning of the first century.

[cont…]

Ok. That’s it.

You’ve been warned already to be careful about how you present things here.

There is no more indoctrination by Believers than mathematicians are indoctrinated to believe 15 is greater than 5. Or climatologists are indoctrinated to believe that climate change is human driven.

Your double standards are indefensible.

 

[Michael_Francis]

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