I like to define evidence as “anything that makes a specific proposition more likely to be true, than without such thing”
For example X is evidence for Y if the existence of X makes Y more likely to be true than without “X”
Compelling evidence is whatever makes something more likely to be true than false
Conclusive evidence is anything that proves beyond reasonable doubt that something is true.
I know that these are just words and definitions, but I think it´s a useful way of understanding what we mean by “evidence”
So in this sense the new testament would count as evidence for the resurrection / in other words the resurrection claim would have been less likely to be true if those documents didn’t exist.
At his point do you agree?
Yes, I mostly agree. I consider your definition for compelling evidence the same as your definition of evidence. For me, compelling evidence raises the likelihood to the level of believability.
I said those same things in my post, although I distinguished between evidence and evidence of. Evidence of resurrection is anything evident that makes resurrection more likely. I provided a long list of interpretations of the biblical testimony that a resurrection had occurred, one being what you believe: "
They're evidence that somebody said those things. That is either because a resurrection and was witnessed and reported second or third hand to the Gospel writers, "
But I also believe that the likelihood of a resurrection occurring, although slightly increased because of the report, is still not sufficiently likely to believe that it happened. That is why I would call the evidence of the Gospel testimony evidence of a resurrection, but so weak as to not be considered compelling or conclusive evidence.
Suppose I predicted that the second number picked in the lottery tonight would be 19. The first number is 27. That is evidence that the second number won't be 19. My prediction just became a little more likely with that evidence. If there are 60 balls in the hopper, the chances of me being right just went up from 1/60 (0.01666666666) to 1/59 (0.01694915254). Do you believe me yet? Probably not.
I see the scriptural evidence for resurrection the same way. Yes, that somebody heard second or third hand that a resurrection occurred makes the likelihood of that having occurred very slightly higher, but not enough to support belief.
Also, when others say that there's no evidence for resurrection, I think it should be understood that way - there is insufficient evidence for belief. I've tried to avoid using the phrase "no evidence" for this reason, substituting "insufficient evidence."
There's evidence for intelligent design. It's the same evidence as supports naturalistic science - reality. It's just insufficient evidence to believe that nature was designed. It's merely logically possible. And the rigorously logical position is that each is a candidate hypothesis, although they can be ranked according to likelihood, and naturalistic hypotheses are preferred for being more parsimonious: they don't require an intelligent designer.
But falsify evolution, and what's left to account for all of the evidence for naturalistic evolution of matter into galaxies of solar systems containing sentient life but a deceptive intelligent designer explanation? Once again, that possibility is orders of magnitude less likely than the present one, and is not considered seriously by any critical thinker, but cannot be dropped from the list of candidate hypotheses without making a non sequitur error - shortening the list by guessing.
To recap, evidence can support an idea without making the idea believable or likely, and yes, you have testimonial evidence of a resurrection, but that is insufficient to justify belief that one occurred.
By the way, anything that makes the likelihood of one resurrection increase makes the likelihood of two resurrections increase. If Jesus was actually resurrected, it is slightly more likely that he was not the only one.
