Thoughts about Reza Aslan and Jon Sorensen

[patrick457]

If you are a man of faith, historical detail is very secondary consideration, agreed.

Well, the Resurrection is a matter of faith. History can only get you past a certain point ("‘The more you know, the more you know you don’t know"): all it can tell you is that there was a guy named Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and whose disciples thought to have been raised from the dead. Short of finding Jesus’ bones out in a dig or in a museum somewhere you can neither prove nor disprove that the Resurrection really happened using that alone.

That being said, I don’t think I need to be a man of faith to think that any rationalization of the resurrection accounts which are based on the swoon theory or any other idea that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross (thus making ‘appearances’ possible) is absurd. The 19th century rationalist theologian David Strauss - himself no friend to the idea of resurrection - wrote:

It is impossible that a being who had stolen half dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening, and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of life: an impression that lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression he had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.

I think in this particular instance you only have two choices: either you believe the gospel accounts or you don’t. So far I’ve never seen someone pull a midway, “well, He might have been resuscitated but then again He never really died”-sort of thing convincingly.

 

[Cathoholic]

Hello patrick457.

You stated:

Please see post number 18. There is no verifiable authentic Jewish tradition that Adam was buried in the traditional site, where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands.

But my point wasn’t that there was verifiable Jewish tradition, etc. as to Adam’s skull being there or not.

The point I attempted to make was Mount Calvary or Golgotha does not mean the place of “skulls” but place of the “skull” and is just another item to take issue with Dr. Azlan’s credibility.

Catholic Encyclopedia states:

There was a tradition current among the Jews that the skull of Adam, after having been confided by Noah to his son Shem, and by the latter to Melchisedech, was finally deposited at the place called, for that reason, Golgotha. The Talmudists and the Fathers of the Church were aware of this tradition, and it survives in the skulls and bones placed at the foot of the crucifix. The Evangelists are not opposed to it, inasmuch as they speak of one and not of many skulls. (Luke, Mark, John, loc. cit.)

You likewise pointed this out on post 18.

. . . it is not “place of skulls” (plural), but “place of a skull” or “skull’s place” (singular) - kraniou topos. I suppose Aslan needed the plural to strengthen his argument that Golgotha earned its name for being a “trash heap” for the bodies of crucified criminals.