The Argument from Miracles: The Resurrection

[danserr]

It is well established that the 3 synoptic gospels are not independent. Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. Anyway, the facthat sveral newspapers publish different articles base on one report does not entail multiple attestation.

 

[danserr]

None of the gospels report these 500 anonymous witnesses. And how does just stating in a letter to people living as far away as Corinthia that 500 people have seen something prove anything? Do you think it would have been possible for a 1st century Corinthian “Joe Nickell” to interrogate these 500 ‘brethern’ whose name wasn’t even given?

Now Paul is writing this in his letter to the Corinthians, an indisputably authentic letter written only 20-23 years after the Resurrection. He evidently knew these people, since he knew that some of them had died , “most of whom remain living, though some have fallen asleep.” C.H. Dodd, the Cambridge University NT scholar says “there can hardly be any purpose in mentioning the fact that most of the 500 are still alive, unless Paul is saying in effect, the witnesses are there to be questioned.”

Remember, this was under the Pax Romana of the Roman Empire, travel was not difficult or uncommon as Paul’s own journey’s show. Corinth to Jerusalem is not an unreasonable journey. Paul himself went back and forth several times. And when one made the journey it would be easy enough to ask about witnesses to the event, and a failure to find any would be a problem. Hence, Paul could never have said therer were 500 witnesses if the event had not actually occurred.

the women would never have been made up – Why not, since the disciples wanted to spread their religion. So why not make up spectacular stories to convince people?

If they were inventing stories to convince people, then they would have put men in the role, since women were not regarded as reliable witnesses, (as I say above).

That’s what Paul says, despite the fact that he himself never met the risen Christ in that way.

If the appearances were not physical, they would never have said Jesus was raised, they’d say they saw his ghost.
Also, Paul was in contact with the apostles by 3 years after the events. This means that his sources were early and he was in contact with the eyewitnesses to the events.

They saw Lazarus being bodily resurrected, and they still had no reason to believe this was possible?
Jesus was not the first person to resurrect.

You are confusing reanimation with resurrection. (But thank you for admitting the Lazarus story was not made up, since if it was made up after the fact, you could not use it to claim that Jesus’ apostles invented his resurrection based on that).

Resurrection meant something specific in Jewish culture. It was not just returning to this life (reanimation) or life after death. it was life after life after death, and involved the transformation of the earthly body. Lazarus was reanimated, Jesus’ resurrected, the apostles saw these as 2 separate things and a belief that Jesus was reanimated would not have caused them to say that he was resurrected.

The sole exception was the Jews, who came to believe …the end of time.
And the Egyptians,

-NT Wight, The Resurrection of the Son of God: talks about how Egypt is not relevant because it was not practiced in Palestine or other early Christian areas, which shows that the apostles could not have gotten the idea of Resurrection from there. Additionally, Egypt was not resurrection (anastasis) because that word was only used to refer to a new embodiment, a coming back to a this-worldly sort of life. At most egypt saw life after death and not return to this worldly life, but as a sort of continuance of it, which is a different thing from Resurrection.

so it is very hard to deny that at least some jews already believed in a bodily resurrection.

Of course they did. But they thought it would happen to all God’s people, at the end of time, and that the Messiah would not be raised (because the messiah was never supposed to die).

An there wasn’t 'virtually unanimous agreement about what it meant.

They all agreed, Jesus was raised, ahead of time, that he was the messiah, and that resurrection was something to which they could contribute in the present life.

Only if one already believes this is possible. “The disciples stiole his body and made up some stories” is a far better explanation.

Why? This is a poor explanation and rejected by every scholar today. I don’t know a single skeptic who claims the disciples stole the body and then made up stories. I would be curious if you could name a scholar who think so. Do you have any evidence for this view? So far you just state it as a bare, unsupported possibility.

• This would make the disciples liars, which is incredibly ad hoc and implausible. They suffered and died for their beliefs, had nothing to gain by them save a life of hardship and eventually death.
• And this claim does not account for the origin of Christian belief. Where did the idea come from? They all believed that Jesus rose, and conspiracies to lie like this tend to come out sooner to later.

 

[danserr]

But that’s the crux: the Bible isn’t a normal historical source. It is a source from people who had a definite agenda: spreading what they believed was the word of God.

The bible being written to try to convince people of an event hardly makes it an abnormal source. A great many history sources are written for this reason. And nothing in my argument rests on me saying “the bible says Jesus rose from the death, therefore he did.” Rather as a historian, I say, "this specific verse in this letter/gospel says x, and this implies that y is probably true.

Only if one already believes this is possible.

This I think, is your real difficult. You are assuming in advance that Jesus cannot have risen and are thus willing to accept even a strange, ad hoc, implausible alternate explanation if it will avoid you having to accept the resurrection. But I see no reason for thinking that Jesus rising from the dead is impossible. You just want to rule out miracles a priori, and this you cannot do.

So actually, it looks that when you treat the Bible this way, we have good reasons to affirm the fact of the empty tomb, the appearances of the risen Christ, and the origin of Christian belief (facts I am pleased to say are admitted by the majority of even skeptical scholars), and then we conclude that the best explanation of these facts is that Jesus rose from the dead, leaving behind him an empty tomb.

 

[belorg]

belorg;7745243:

No, it is not well established that the 3 synoptic gospels were not independant. NT Wright for example shows that even in places they tell the same story, they use different words, which shows that they were not copying from each other.

Nobody says they are exact copies, just that thye used Mark as a source. And it doesn’t really matter, if one guy believed the resurrection happened or ven one guy didn’t believe it but decided to spread it for its own reasons, other could have rewritten this story using the same source.

Matthew is independant from Mark since he includes the story of the guard at the tomb, which is not in Mark. Bart Ehrman (the skeptic) even goes so far in claiming the stories are independent as to claim that they are so independent, they are contradictory.

They are contradictory in that some of the details they added to the sory don’t add up. That doesn’t mean they are totally independent.

But if the accounts were written to convince people (as you agree), then putting women in such a situation, especially Mary Mag. would have been shooting themselves in the foot. If the accounts were invented, it would make far more sense to have men discover the tomb and then just claim “Jesus told them to be quiet.”

Do not forget the story needs a reason why someone was at the tomb site so early.

Thank you. This supports my point that even the Jews agreed that the tomb was empty. Faced with the disciples’ claims about Jesus resurrection, they never claimed that Jesus’s body was there, or that the disciples went to the wrong tomb, or anything else. Rather, they admitted the tomb was empty and claimed that Jesus’ disciples stole the body, which confirms the fact of the empty tomb.

How do you know the jews didn’t claim this?

No, just that enough people did or could have. Think about it. The easiest way to disprove the resurrection would have been for the Jews or apostles’ opponents to go to the tomb and verify that the body was really there.

That’s exactly why the story was probably invented. The jews could have easily taken some beggar’s dead body, wrap it and said it was Jesus. Or just post another set of guards there to keep away everyone away from the tomb.But, there is no report they did this.

.

 

[belorg]

The bible being written to try to convince people of an event hardly makes it an abnormal source.

It makes it a somewhat suspect source.

A great many history sources are written for this reason.

To promote a religious belief?

This I think, is your real difficult. You are assuming in advance that Jesus cannot have risen and are thus willing to accept even a strange, ad hoc, implausible alternate explanation if it will avoid you having to accept the resurrection.

Sure, I use Ocham’s Razor. Just as you and everybody else does in other circumstances.
Is it immosible that someoen stole the body? No, is it impossible that the Romans decided to get rifd of Jesus’ body? No.
It is impossible that God just created the illusion that Jesus rose from the deead? No.

But I see no reason for thinking that Jesus rising from the dead is impossible. You just want to rule out miracles a priori, and this you cannot do.

I always presuppose naturalism, yes, so do you, in other circumstances.

 

[danserr]

Nobody says they are exact copies, just that thye used Mark as a source. And it doesn’t really matter, if one guy believed the resurrection happened or ven one guy didn’t believe it but decided to spread it for its own reasons, other could have rewritten this story using the same source.

They are contradictory in that some of the details they added to the sory don’t add up. That doesn’t mean they are totally independent.

I have a hard time following you in the second quote, but you still seem to be suggesting the accounts are not independent. Now, why do you think this? The simple fact that they tell similar stories is not evidence that they are dependent on each other; on the other hand, that they regularly use different vocabulary, is evidence for independence. The inclusion of some materials in one account not in others is evidence for independence.

• The account of Jesus’ burial (which supports the empty tomb because it means the location of Jesus’ grave was well known), is a part of Mark’s material for the passion story that Rudolph Pesch dates within seven years of Jesus’ crucifixion. Mark Powell says "the dominant view is that the passion narratives are early and based on eyewitness testimony.
• Paul in 1 Cor. 15:3-5 is an independent source and quotes an old tradition, testifying to Jesus’ burial
• Matthew and Luke are sufficiently different from Mark to cause us to think they had sources besides Mark. It is not plausible that they just changed Mark because of the omission of events like Pilate’s interrogation of the centurion, and the agreement in wording between matthew and Luke in contrast to Mark.
• Paul Barnett Jesus and the Logic of History: careful comparison of the texts of Mark and John indicate that neither is dependent on the other, yet have a number of incidents in common.

Do not forget the story needs a reason why someone was at the tomb site so early.

That still doesn’t explain why the account has women finding the empty tomb rather than men. If the accounts were made up later to convince people, as you claim, then they would have invented men in the role of discovering the tomb, since men were reliable witnesses.

Quote:
Thank you. This supports my point that even the Jews agreed that the tomb was empty. Faced with the disciples’ claims about Jesus resurrection, they never claimed that Jesus’s body was there, or that the disciples went to the wrong tomb, or anything else. Rather, they admitted the tomb was empty and claimed that Jesus’ disciples stole the body, which confirms the fact of the empty tomb.
How do you know the jews didn’t claim this?

Because Matthew never felt compelled to refute that idea. Rather he is responding to the Jewish claim that Jesus’ disciples stole the body. There would be no point to him doing so, unless the Jews really were claiming that the tomb was empty and that Jesus’ disciples stole the body. By claiming this, the Jews admit the tomb was really empty.

Quote:
No, just that enough people did or could have. Think about it. The easiest way to disprove the resurrection would have been for the Jews or apostles’ opponents to go to the tomb and verify that the body was really there.
That’s exactly why the story was probably invented. The jews could have easily taken some beggar’s dead body, wrap it and said it was Jesus. Or just post another set of guards there to keep away everyone away from the tomb.But, there is no report they did this.

I am not sure I can even follow you here. I said that the disciples could never have preached the resurrection unless the tomb was really empty. They would either have checked themselves, or if, by some weird stretch of the imagination they did not, their enemies would have. If they did check the tomb and the body, that would have put an end to Christianity then and there. But they did not. This suggests that the tomb was really empty. Second, there is no evidence of a dispute as to whether the remains of a body were actually those of Jesus. Rather, when faced with the disciples claim of the empty tomb, their enemies didn’t claim “o this is his body, right here,” rather, they claimed “the tomb is empty because the disciples’ stole the body,” by which they admitted the empty tomb.

–So up til now we still have good reasons for agreeing with the majority of even skeptical scholars today and holding that the empty tomb may be considered to be a historical fact.

 

[danserr]

Originally Posted by danserr View Post
The bible being written to try to convince people of an event hardly makes it an abnormal source.
It makes it a somewhat suspect source.
Quote:
A great many history sources are written for this reason.
To promote a religious belief?

no, to describe events that happened. And the bible being written to convince people that something happened is not unusual. Most history is. Tactitus wrote to convince people of certain historical facts, so did Seutonius, Josephus, and historians all throughout history. The simple fact that something was written to convince people of a historical fact does not provide sufficient warrant to ignore it.

More importantly, You seem to insist on ignoring my oft-repeated point, that nothing in my argument relies on supposing that the gospel accounts were written early, were by the original authors, or are even reliable sources as a whole. I believe all 3 on historical grounds, but that is irrelevant for the argument. I am not saying, the Bible says Jesus rose, so Jesus rose. I am saying “this part of the account says x, and that implies y.” Or "this part of the account says women discovered the tomb, given what we know about women’s status as witnesses in ancient society, this is historically probable.

Sure, I use Ocham’s Razor. Just as you and everybody else does in other circumstances.
Is it immosible that someoen stole the body? No, is it impossible that the Romans decided to get rifd of Jesus’ body? No.
It is impossible that God just created the illusion that Jesus rose from the deead? No.

Occam’s razor says that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is preferable. I might just as soon claim the simplest explanation is that Jesus really did rise. It accounts for all the evidence, has the greatest explanatory power and fulfills other criteria for best explanation. Your other ideas are ad hoc, lack explanatory power and scope (someone stealing the body would not explain the appearances of the risen Christ or the origin of Christian belief, which you have not disputed in your most recent post), and so your ideas are to be rejected.
-Historians deal in probability. It is not enough for your to mention the bare possibility that someone stole the body. You must show this is a more probable than alternative explanations. And it clearly is not, since it does not explain the risen appearances or origin of belief. It fails to account for the disciples obvious sincerity, suffering and death, which means they did not steal the body. It fails to account for if someone else stole the body, why did they not produce it later when the disciples began preaching the Resurrection.

• It is not enough for you to mention bare possibilities. You have to show that there is some reason for thinking that your suggestions are more probable than either the 3 facts I have mentioned, or the resurrection as the best explanation of those facts.

I always presuppose naturalism, yes, so do you, in other circumstances.

Then, at the risk of being overly blunt, you are not considering the evidence with an open mind. Rather you are completely biased against the view that the resurrection is even possible, but you have not presented any evidence of this. Rather you appear to refuse to let the evidence change your own preconceptions. And even if your naturalism is very strongly held, well, sometimes historical evidence can be enough to shake worldviews. They evidence for the Resurrection appears to be of this sort. The sort of strange explanations and ideas this has forced you to take should cause you to reconsider. You tried to claim earlier that the disciples hoaxed the whole thing. No one thinks this today and the fact that your naturalism forced you into such an implausible view should make you wonder if your naturalism requires reconsideration.

We have 3 historical facts: the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and the origin of Christian belief. The most plausible explanation of these is easily that Jesus really did rise from the dead, leaving behind an empty tomb.

 

[AntiTheist]

We have 3 historical facts

As people have been trying to explain to you, no, you don’t.

 

[Luke_K]

C. The Origin of Christian belief. The disciples came to believe, in spite of every reason not to, that Jesus was really raised from the death.

1. The ancient world always used the work “Resurrection” to mean a physical bodily resurrection. And they universally, from Plato, to Homer, through ancient Greece and Rome, agreed that Resurrection in this sense did not happen.
2. The sole exception was the Jews, who came to believe there would be a Resurrection of all the just, at the end of time.
3. Yet Christians claimed that 1). God raised Jesus, ahead of time, 2). that this man was the messiah, and the 3). resurrection was something to which they could contribute in the present life. 4).Early Christians had no spectrum of belief about the Ress. Rather there was virtually unanimous agreement on what it meant.
4. Beliefs in life after death tend to be very conservative (they are very precious to people). For Christians to 1). show such changes and 2). agree almost completely, this demands explanation.

Except, Jesus is recorded as telling the apostles 3 times that he would be raised from the dead. Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, also in Mark and Luke. And the angel at the tomb said, “He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said…” -Matt 28:6 And in Luke the angel says “He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words." -24:6-8

Also, how do you say that Christians had no spectrum of belief about the resurrection? Paul, in 1 Corinthians, writes quite a bit arguing for the resurrection of the dead, saying “But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” -1 Cor 15:12

I think this part of your argument needs to be refined.

 

[danserr]

As people have been trying to explain to you, no, you don’t.

And I have been telling you that you simply assert this but have completely failed to offer any evidence or reason for thinking that this is the case.

If this supposed to be an argument that you are offering now? I have given reasons for those 3 facts. You have not refuted them. I have pointed that those facts are admitted even by most skeptical scholars; you have not denied this. Do you have anything to offer other than bare assertion?

 

[Luke_K]

But if the accounts were written to convince people (as you agree), then putting women in such a situation, especially Mary Mag. would have been shooting themselves in the foot. If the accounts were invented, it would make far more sense to have men discover the tomb and then just claim “Jesus told them to be quiet.”

Except that the men did go to the tomb to discover it themselves. Luke writes that the women’s story sounded like nonsense to the apostles, and they didn’t believe them. So, Peter went to the tomb to see for himself. Later, when the two disciples who met Jesus on the road went back to the eleven apostles, Luke writes, “…they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”” Apparently the eleven didn’t believe until Simon, a man, told them what he saw.

Mark records that the apostles did not believe anyone until they saw the evidence for themselves, “But later, as the eleven were at table, [Jesus] appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised.” John also records that Jesus and the beloved disciple went to the tomb to see it for themselves.

So the fact that the Gospel writers included the women in the story doesn’t matter, because they also pointed out that the men checked out the facts for themselves. I don’t think this is a significant point for you to argue.

 

[Pieman333272]

Except that the men did go to the tomb to discover it themselves. Luke writes that the women’s story sounded like nonsense to the apostles, and they didn’t believe them. So, Peter went to the tomb to see for himself. Later, when the two disciples who met Jesus on the road went back to the eleven apostles, Luke writes, “…they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”” Apparently the eleven didn’t believe until Simon, a man, told them what he saw.

Mark records that the apostles did not believe anyone until they saw the evidence for themselves, “But later, as the eleven were at table, [Jesus] appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised.” John also records that Jesus and the beloved disciple went to the tomb to see it for themselves.

So the fact that the Gospel writers included the women in the story doesn’t matter, because they also pointed out that the men checked out the facts for themselves. I don’t think this is a significant point for you to argue.

What is significant is that the women were the first to discover the tomb, and told the apostles. Why didn’t the apostles find out themselves? Or a male from the outer circle found it? The criterion of embarrassment still aids the empty tomb in this scenario.

 

[danserr]

Except, Jesus is recorded as telling the apostles 3 times that he would be raised from the dead. Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, also in Mark and Luke. And the angel at the tomb said, “He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said…” -Matt 28:6 And in Luke the angel says “He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words." -24:6-8

Also, how do you say that Christians had no spectrum of belief about the resurrection? Paul, in 1 Corinthians, writes quite a bit arguing for the resurrection of the dead, saying “But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” -1 Cor 15:12

I think this part of your argument needs to be refined.

Actually part of what you have said is not relevant and part actually supports my argument. This is largely from NT Wright and he’s actually much more sophisticated than you think.
a). Jesus’ predictions- It is admitted on all hands that none of the disciples thought Jesus would rise after his death. Anytime, he mentioned it, they never got it. This is widely admitted, so there is no reason to infer that the idea of resurrection could come from that. The disciples just had no concept of that. Consider the conversation on the road to Emmaus, “we hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel.” A dead messiah was a failed messiah, and the disciples knew it.
b). As for Corinthians. One of the most interesting parts of NT Wright’s exhaustive study of the Resurrection is his study of pre-Christian beliefs of life after death, and they all admit that Resurrection does not happen. So this would have been the situation in Corinth. As pagan romans, they would have “known” just as surely as the modern naturalist, that “dead men men do not rise.” So this is the cause of disagreement Paul is discussing. He is trying to convince greeks that a dead man did rise and that we can, but given their naturalistic background, this is not an easy task.

• When I talk about the origin of Christian belief, I mean among the earliest apostles and I mean how they use the term “Resurrection.” I mean they used the term resurrection to mean certain things. That some in Corinth denied Ress. is not relevant to that. They did not use the term to mean certain things, rather they accepted what ress. meant (return to a bodily life after life after death) and simply denied that it could happen. The point is that the earliest disciples, first and second generation Christians until the 2nd century (according to Wright) all use the term "Resurrection in a certain way, that this way in which they use it is without precedent, and that such widespread agreement on use of the term “resurrection” and what it means, demands explanation.
• Actually solely on the basis of this NT Wright infers both the empty tomb and risen appearances. why? If the tomb were not empty, the disciples would not say that Jesus had been raised, they’d say that his body was stolen. And appearances alone would have just lead them to day that they saw his ghost. So you have another way of inferring the empty tomb, appearances, and origin of Christian belief.

 

[danserr]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke K View Post
Except that the men did go to the tomb to discover it themselves. Luke writes that the women’s story sounded like nonsense to the apostles, and they didn’t believe them. So, Peter went to the tomb to see for himself. Later, when the two disciples who met Jesus on the road went back to the eleven apostles, Luke writes, “…they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”” Apparently the eleven didn’t believe until Simon, a man, told them what he saw.

Mark records that the apostles did not believe anyone until they saw the evidence for themselves, “But later, as the eleven were at table, [Jesus] appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised.” John also records that Jesus and the beloved disciple went to the tomb to see it for themselves.

So the fact that the Gospel writers included the women in the story doesn’t matter, because they also pointed out that the men checked out the facts for themselves. I don’t think this is a significant point for you to argue.

What is significant is that the women were the first to discover the tomb, and told the apostles. Why didn’t the apostles find out themselves? Or a male from the outer circle found it? The criterion of embarrassment still aids the empty tomb in this scenario.

Right. the point is that any role in which the women played a part, was a role that could have been better served by men. It would still be embarrassing that the first witnesses to the empty tomb were women, especially Mary Mag., who had a checkered past. If these stories had been invented to try to convince people, they would never have put the women, especially Mary Mag. in such a role. The pagan Celsus, for instance, just ridiculed the Christianity as “based on the testimony of some hysterical women.”

That the disciples did not believe the women at first only confirms this, that women were not considered reliable witnesses, and that they must themselves have required some stronger proof before they would believe. So by the criterion of embarrassment, the presence of women as the discoverers of the empty tomb strongly supports the idea that the tomb really was empty. Their presence was an embarrassment. It would not have been invented.

St. Paul, for instance, when listing the witness to the Resurrection in Corinthians, never mentions the women. Why? Because they were an embarrassment. He didn’t say “well, the women saw it first, but then some men saw it too.” Mentioning the women was just pointless for trying to convince people that it happened. Yet, in spite of this, the gospel writers put the women front and center, which strongly supports the reliability of the accounts.

 

[belorg]

no, to describe events that happened. And the bible being written to convince people that something happened is not unusual.

.

If the Bible was meant as a historic account, that would be true. But was it written as history or as propaganda?

Occam’s razor says that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is preferable. I might just as soon claim the simplest explanation is that Jesus really did rise.

Sure you might claim that.

It accounts for all the evidence, has the greatest explanatory power and fulfills other criteria for best explanation.

But by this criteria, “God can do everything” always has the greatest explanatory power.
But you don’t use it in other cases. When the electricity goes down in your house, do you call an electrician or do you say: well, God doesn’t want me to watch televison today, so I just pary everything will be alright?

Your other ideas are ad hoc, lack explanatory power and scope (someone stealing the body would not explain the appearances of the risen Christ or the origin of Christian belief, which you have not disputed in your most recent post),

The origin of Christian belief is no mystery. It was the belief of one of the many sects in (and on the edges of) Judaism of the 1st century.
The appearances are a mix of hallucinations, exaggeration, epic concentration , legend building and propaganda.

-Historians deal in probability. It is not enough for your to mention the bare possibility that someone stole the body. You must show this is a more probable than alternative explanations.

Well, there are historic sources for the stealing of the body, aren’t there?,

And it clearly is not, since it does not explain the risen appearances or origin of belief. It fails to account for the disciples obvious sincerity, suffering and death,

I do not know the disciples were sincere. Some of them were, other probably were not.
And there is no historic record of the suffering and death of the apostles.

which means they did not steal the body. It fails to account for if someone else stole the body, why did they not produce it later when the disciples began preaching the Resurrection.

Probably because at that time, the Christian belief was not significant enough to go to all the trouble of producing a body.
And if the Romans did it, they wouldn’t have bothered producing it. Why would they care about it? They just wanted to get rid of a trouble maker.

• It is not enough for you to mention bare possibilities. You have to show that there is some reason for thinking that your suggestions are more probable than either the 3 facts I have mentioned, or the resurrection as the best explanation of those facts.

Bodies have been stolen,lots of things have been made up by various people, especially those who want to promote a religion, and lots of natural events have been misinterpreted as supernatural.

Then, at the risk of being overly blunt, you are not considering the evidence with an open mind. Rather you are completely biased against the view that the resurrection is even possible, but you have not presented any evidence of this. Rather you appear to refuse to let the evidence change your own preconceptions.

That would take a lot more evidence. And there just isn’t enough evidence, and if it was somebody else’s religion at stake, you would agree with me.

The sort of strange explanations and ideas this has forced you to take should cause you to reconsider. You tried to claim earlier that the disciples hoaxed the whole thing. No one thinks this today and the fact that your naturalism forced you into such an implausible view should make you wonder if your naturalism requires reconsideration.

Nobody thinks this today? That may be true, but why doesn’t anybody think this today?
Richard Carrier mentions it as a possibility., e.g. I think here are still a considarble number of people who think this is a plausible explanation.

We have 3 historical facts: the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and the origin of Christian belief. The most plausible explanation of these is easily that Jesus really did rise from the dead, leaving behind an empty tomb.

That is not plausible at all. it is only plausible if you presuppose that this is possible, something for which there is no evidence.

 

[danserr]

Belorg, I was glad to read your first couple posts, but your last is a little disappointing and lazy. You’ve really ignored alot of stuff that I’ve said.

The center of the argument is that 3 facts, the empty tomb, the risen appearances, and the origin of belief can be established as historical facts on the basis of the evidence. The best explanation of these facts is the Resurrection. These facts are all admitted by the majority of even skeptical scholars. This does not make them true, but it means very good scholars think so and that if you wish to disagree, then you must offer some strong proof. But you have not.

You hint that at the gospels being propaganda but offer not a shred of evidence for that. Similarly, you ignore what I have said repeatedly, that a case for these 3 facts does not rest on the gospels being reliable sources, only on the historian being able to infer a few interesting facts from certain things they say. No part of my argument rest on me saying “the gospels say Jesus rose, therefore he rose.” Rather, my point is that “the gospels, at this particular point, say x, and from this we imply that y is historically probable.”

But you don’t use it in other cases. When the electricity goes down in your house, do you call an electrician or do you say: well, God doesn’t want me to watch televison today, so I just pary everything will be alright?

Now you are just being silly. You had no cause to invoke occam’s razor, you just tried to use it as a lazy excuse to beg the question favor of naturalism. Second, God is not the simplest explanation for the electricity going out. Such an explanation would be pretty ad hoc. There is no historical or doctrinal context for such a belief. But the Ressurection of Jesus occurs in a certain historical and doctrinal context, as the culmination to Jesus remarkable life, career, and personal claims.

The origin of Christian belief is no mystery. It was the belief of one of the many sects in (and on the edges of) Judaism of the 1st century.
The appearances are a mix of hallucinations, exaggeration, epic concentration , legend building and propaganda.

This is very vague and general. Hallucination never occurs to groups, only to individuals. As a projection of the mind, it includes nothing new. Jesus’ resurrection occurred to groups and individuals, and included new information, namely that they Messiah had risen, which has no basis in Jewish though, because, as Wright says, the Messiah was not supposed to die. Finally, as I have said before and you repeatedly ignore. Hallucinations would not cause the disciples to say that Jesus had risen, it would cause them to say that they had seen his ghost. I have repeatedly refuted the legend hypothesis and you offer no evidence in favor of your ideas, only bare assertion, which is not enough.

Well, there are historic sources for the stealing of the body, aren’t there?,

There is not a shred of evidence the disciples stole the body or that anyone else did. Do you have any in mind?

I do not know the disciples were sincere. Some of them were, other probably were not.
And there is no historic record of the suffering and death of the apostles.

The suffering and death of apostles and early disciples is widely admitted. Paul himself says that he persecuted the apostles even to the death. Tacitus confirms that 30 years after the Resurrection, Nero was killing Christians, some by clothing them in the skins of wild beasts and throwing them to the dogs, while others were smeared with pitch and used as human torches. Seutonius and Juvenal confirm that within 30 years of the death of Christ, Christians were dying for their beliefs. Ignatius’s letter confirm this, so does the account of Polycarp’s death. Pliny the younger, Martial, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius confirm that Christians died for their beliefs. And it is an undisputed fact that Paul, Peter, and James were killed for their beliefs.

Probably because at that time, the Christian belief was not significant enough to go to all the trouble of producing a body.

Conjecture. And not even plausible. Christians were enough trouble to be worth persecuting and killing (as Paul says that he himself did. Second, they were enough trouble to spread the story that disciples stole the body. Given this, it would hardly have been much trouble to find the tomb and produce the body. That they did not means that even the Jews admitted that the tomb was empty.

Bodies have been stolen,lots of things have been made up by various people, especially those who want to promote a religion, and lots of natural events have been misinterpreted as supernatural.

none of this is evidence against those three facts. Provide some evidence, don’t just mention bare possibilities.

and if it was somebody else’s religion at stake, you would agree with me.

an ad hominem and red herring. I would believe what the evidence indicates, the evidence indicates those 3 facts, and I infer that the most probable explanation of those fact is the Resurrection.

 

[danserr]

Nobody thinks this today? That may be true, but why doesn’t anybody think this today?
Richard Carrier mentions it as a possibility., e.g. I think here are still a considarble number of people who think this is a plausible explanation.

Richard carrier is not a reliable source. he claims that maybe Jesus didn’t even exist. The last scholar who denied that was some guy, wright says, who decided the whole thing was about some cult of the sacred mushroom. His books are published by lulu.com press and authorhouse, not peer-reviewed presses. I mean no serious scholar in an academic department, who publishes in peer reviewed journals, thinks the disciples hoaxing the thing is a possibility, nor have you offered a shred of evidence for that beyond bare assertion.

That is not plausible at all. it is only plausible if you presuppose that this is possible, something for which there is no evidence.

The evidence is the empty tomb, risen appearance, and origin of Christian belief. I do not rule out its possibility.

You only deny it because you assume in advance that it is impossible, which means that you are closed to the evidence from the beginning and are not considering it with an open or fair mind, but a narrow and biased one.

 

[belorg]

The center of the argument is that 3 facts, the empty tomb, the risen appearances, and the origin of belief can be established as historical facts on the basis of the evidence. The best explanation of these facts is the Resurrection. These facts are all admitted by the majority of even skeptical scholars.

 

[Pieman333272]

Mattew wrote decades after the supposed resurrection. What body would they have produced after 30 years?

Granting that Matthew wrote it ‘decades’ after the resurrection appearances (which is debatable in and of itself), the body would have been producible. The Jews of the time were very organized in their burials and had Jesus not been raised the scribes could just look in every tomb across the country until they found Jesus’ tomb or ossuary. Also, the Jews and Romans had multiple years to produce the body between the empty tomb discovery and Matthew’s gospel.

 

[Luke_K]

Granting that Matthew wrote it ‘decades’ after the resurrection appearances (which is debatable in and of itself), the body would have been producible. The Jews of the time were very organized in their burials and had Jesus not been raised the scribes could just look in every tomb across the country until they found Jesus’ tomb or ossuary. Also, the Jews and Romans had multiple years to produce the body between the empty tomb discovery and Matthew’s gospel.

Additionally, Paul was a Jewish man and persecuted the Christians. He originally was trying to destroy the church, as he said in his own words in Galatians. Now, if the body of Jesus was still in the tomb, why didn’t Paul and the Jews produce it in order to destroy the growing Christian movement? Since Paul himself came to believe in the resurrection, the tomb must have been empty.