Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

[leroy]

The supposed "500" can be dismissed right off the bat as hearsay. We don't have any testimony from a single one of them. Just somebody saying "500 people saw such-and-such" which is a claim anybody can say about anything.

You are confirming my point, you can´t dismiss the 500 as an hallucination, this is why the hallucination hypotheiss is rejected

 

[Subduction Zone]

That supports my point, the chances that there were 2 persons named Jesus that where crucified and then buried within the year 30 are low. So finding one would strongly indicate that he is Jesus Crist.

LOL! Do you think that you can always tell when someone was crucified? Your test fails again and again. It is not a proper test. And you of all people should know how full of denial that believers are at times.

Sorry, you lost. you do not have a proper falsifiable test. Your test needs to be based upon something that is likely to happen if your beliefs were wrong. Not some exterly wild chance.

Yes but that is only one of Manny potential falsifications, there are many artifacts and documents that could be found, that would falsify the resurrection hypothesis.

And yet you do not even have one.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are confirming my point, you can´t dismiss the 500 as an hallucination, this is why the hallucination hypotheiss is rejected

Dude! That is not what she did. What is it with you and these endless strawman arguments.

"I do so have a girlfriend! She lives in Canada. She is really hawt!"

You probably do not understand how that refutes your claim.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The 12 disciples (except for Judas)



The apostles (not sure about the number)

The woman that visited Jesus´s tomb (perhaps 3 or so women)

The 500

These are the 4 group appearances that are reported in the new testament. (perhaps I missing one or two more)

All I am saying is that they could have not been hallucinations because group hallucinations don’t happen.

(if you whant to say that these are lies, or legends or myths, ) then it´s an other issue, but likely they were not hallucinations.

You are making the error of assuming that the Gospels are accurate and believing Paul's Canadian girlfriend story. That is why you are suing a strawman argument. As to t eh eleven, they would be the sort of group that would be very susceptible to mass hallucinations. There are examples of much larger mass hallucinations than just 11 people.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Another day at work for the Atheists trying to undermine Jesus Christ and yet another swing and a miss! The sheer amount of effort that they put into discrediting faith says everything about their lives!

You need some new glasses.

 

[leroy]

I told you that I'm not interested in relitigating all of that. I've already done that twice. You said you didn't see it. I can't help you see.

Did you look into how to search RF? Go to your home page and click Search:

View attachment 80332

That takes you to this screen. Enter your search parameters and hit Search again:

View attachment 80330

That gets you this:

View attachment 80331

I'll bet you can find what you say doesn't exist in one of those posts. I could have opened those links, reviewed them, and copied my answers, but it was your job to focus on them the first time enough to understand and remember what you read, and if that didn't happen then, I don't expect going through it all again would matter. You'd still be telling me you never saw it.

If you don't find it there, try other search parameters. If you consider that too much work, that's fine. So do I.

Why do you feel that you have the right of accusing others of committing fallacies, if you can´t support those accusations?

You don't understand where the word applies. You wrote this: "Because it is, (at least more parsimonious than the naturalistic rivals)……… I am only adding one element “that miracles are possible” (specifically the miracle of the resurrection.) Naturalistic hypothesis, add much more elements"

Yes that is what I said and this is 100% true, or at least you haven’t shown the opposite to be true

Yes, that's falsifiability (and falsification), but the complaint is the same. You don't know where to apply these terms. You said that finding a body thought to have died in 30AD and thought to be named Jesus falsifies the claim that the Jesus of the Gospels was resurrected. It doesn't. I agree that that never happened, but if I didn't, somebody digging up a body and claiming that that was the same person shouldn't be believed, since we would have no way of identifying whose body it actually was.

Strawman again

I said that a tomb of man named Jesus who was crucified within the year 30 within that area (Jesuralem) would falsify the resurrection hypothesis,

(you missed the word crucified) was it an honest mistake? Or where you intentionally misrepresenting my words? you also added the word "thought" which I never used. (strawman)

Victims of crucifixion where usually not buried, ether because they didn’t had a tomb (only rich people did, and rich people usually had the means of avoiding this punishment) or because the governor (Pilate) wouldn’t accept it. Jesus was a relativley rare exception

So to find 2 guys that are named Jesus who died by crucifixion and where buried in the 30s in Jerusalem, would be very unlikely.

See, this is how arguments are justified. I don’t have the need to lie and say “oh that was already answered”

And even more important, I am accusing you of making a straw man fallacy and I am quoting your words and explaining where the fallacy is (in this case how and where you are misrepresenting my view) ……….. why can´t you show the same courtesy?

Group "hallucinations" aren't actually hallucinations as occurs with psychoses and hallucinogens. People see what is there but are later deluded into believing that they saw something else through suggestion and a desire to believe.

Well I was talking about group hallucinations, which we both agree can´t happen.

If you whant to claim that they saw something else and where later diluted because “they wanted to believe” then that would be a whole different hypothesis…………. In which case I will ask ¿why do you keep changing you hypothesis?

Why don’t you pick one hypothesis , develop it and defend it. Why are you jumping from one hypothesis to another?

Disagree.

Ok but irrelevant anyway WLC´s reasons to believe are irrelevant

 

[leroy]

You are making the error of assuming that the Gospels are accurate and believing Paul's Canadian girlfriend story. That is why you are suing a strawman argument. As to t eh eleven, they would be the sort of group that would be very susceptible to mass hallucinations. There are examples of much larger mass hallucinations than just 11 people.

There are examples of much larger mass hallucinations than just 11 people.

Ok and that is what you think happened?

 

[blü 2]

You where ignored because the comments are irrelevant……………. None of your alleged contradiction (even if real) falsify any of the 3 pooints in the OP

Those points are ─

1. Jesus was killed by crucifixion under Pilate.​

That is consistently maintained in the gospels (though Paul never mentions Pilate).

2. Very soon after his death, his disciples reported having experiences which they interpreted as the risen Jesus appearing to them, both individually and in groups.​

That's hypothesis, of course, though not an impossible one.

What we can say is that each of the four gospels has a version of the story ─ Paul does not, other than to remark that Jesus was crucified ─ which in a manner very usual in oral transmission has gone in different directions. It's still the case that none of the NT authors ever met an historical Jesus, so all of them are starting with hearsay and oral tradition, and the authors of Matthew, Luke and John are using Mark as their template, while adding parts of their own. One of the well-recorded aspects of oral transmission is the improvement of the story in the telling, whether to please the hearer or to smooth over parts that the speaker doesn't find attractive. It's striking, for instance, how in the respective crucifixion scenes in chronological order, we start with Mark's abject, defeated and despairing Jesus who thinks his God has forsaken him, to Matthew's similar model, to Luke's more positive model, to John's scene where Jesus is not the victim but the master of ceremonies (as it were).

3. The early Church persecutor Paul also had an experience which he interpreted as Jesus appearing to him and this experience convinced him to convert to Christianity.​

Yes, Paul says this, and it would be an odd thing to invent about oneself. Paul also states specifically that "the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12) Taken literally, it would mean that everything Paul says about Jesus was invented by Paul ─ and points to some mental disorder, perhaps epilepsy ─ but Paul's claim tells us more about Paul than about the whole picture.

(But of course the resurrection as an historical event is both untenable at first glance, and abysmally "evidenced".)

 

[leroy]

Those points are ─

1. Jesus was killed by crucifixion under Pilate.​

That is consistently maintained in the gospels (though Paul never mentions Pilate).

2. Very soon after his death, his disciples reported having experiences which they interpreted as the risen Jesus appearing to them, both individually and in groups.​

That's hypothesis, of course, though not an impossible one.

What we can say is that each of the four gospels has a version of the story ─ Paul does not, other than to remark that Jesus was crucified ─ which in a manner very usual in oral transmission has gone in different directions. It's still the case that none of the NT authors ever met an historical Jesus, so all of them are starting with hearsay and oral tradition, and the authors of Matthew, Luke and John are using Mark as their template, while adding parts of their own. One of the well-recorded aspects of oral transmission is the improvement of the story in the telling, whether to please the hearer or to smooth over parts that the speaker doesn't find attractive. It's striking, for instance, how in the respective crucifixion scenes in chronological order, we start with Mark's abject, defeated and despairing Jesus who thinks his God has forsaken him, to Matthew's similar model, to Luke's more positive model, to John's scene where Jesus is not the victim but the master of ceremonies (as it were).

3. The early Church persecutor Paul also had an experience which he interpreted as Jesus appearing to him and this experience convinced him to convert to Christianity.​

Yes, Paul says this, and it would be an odd thing to invent about oneself. Paul also states specifically that "the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12) Taken literally, it would mean that everything Paul says about Jesus was invented by Paul ─ and points to some mental disorder, perhaps epilepsy ─ but Paul's claim tells us more about Paul than about the whole picture.

(But of course the resurrection as an historical event is both untenable at first glance, and abysmally "evidenced".)

ok, but even if I grant everything you said, the 3 facts from the OP are still unrefuted

 

[blü 2]

ok, but even if I grant everything you said, the 3 facts from the OP are still unrefuted

They're not facts, they're reasoned opinions from informed people, as I pointed out.

And my reasoned opinion is above.

It's possible to account for Mark, hence the gospels, without there having been an historical Jesus at all; or if there was an historical Jesus, without the author of Mark knowing anything much at all about his life. The miracle stories in Mark make it clear that a whole lot of fiction ─ perhaps 'earnest storytelling' is the phrase ─ is involved in that narration.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ok and that is what you think happened?

The most probably answer is that Peter at least had after death hallucinations. Others may have had them, but Peter is really the only one at the most of the eleven that needed to have such a hallucination at the most. The Gospels are hardly a reliable source. We already know that is all that Paul had. As to the "500" why would you think that was valid at all? Seriously, try to think about it a bit.

 

[Subduction Zone]

ok, but even if I grant everything you said, the 3 facts from the OP are still unrefuted

Sorry, some of those were not "facts" they were claims. There were claims that others saw Jesus. That was not a fact. Your "experience" for Paul is not a "fact" either. At least not as you presented what happened to him. So you have only one fact. Jesus was crucified by Pilate.

 

[joelr]

(I Will respond to this post in 3 or 4 independent comments) and whithin few days.......

Well that atleast some of the disciples saw something that they interpreted as having seen the risen jesus is an uncontrovertial fact accepted by most scholars.

If your position is so strong why would you find the need to misrepresent scholars? Theologians start with the assumption the Bible is true so that is so incredibly bias it doesn't help the argument.
Historians understand the stories about people seeing a resurrected Jesus are folktale stories, not history. The text is not written as history its
written as historical fiction. A popular Greek school writing style.
No historian things these tales represent anything that actually happened.

Obviously not all scholars claim a physical resurection, but that the disciples *saw something * that they interpreted as having seen the risen jesus (perhaps a dream or a hallucination) is accepted by most scholars.

Zero historical scholars accept the gospel stories as anything except folk tales placed in real places. Again, the consensus is the Gospels Matthew and Luke are 100% a rewrite of Mark. A creative rewrite making political, religious and other changes that the new author saw fit.
John most likely also used the older Gospels as a source. Each rewrite made Jesus more and more into God and more supernatural.

You don't even study the historical scholars?

Scholars accept this Mainly for 3 reasons :

1 we have the testimony of Paul, who reported 6 aperances of the risen Jesus (+his own) Paul is someone who knew the witnesses of these apperances. So he had access to first hand testimony.

Those are apologetics which all historians consider crank. What they also know is Paul claims VISIONS of Jesus. Not Jesus in a body.

2 some of the aperances that Paul reports where independently attested by other sources. The aperance to Paul is reported in Acts, the aperance to the 12 disiples (except for Judas) in John and Luke, the aperance to Peter in Luke ....+ We also have independent witness to Galilean appearances in Mark, Matthew, and John, as well as to the women in Matthew and John

No historian considers those independent sources. Mark definitely used Paul to make his narrative.
Dozens of examples from journal papers are here:

Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier Blogs

Many studies have argued the Gospel that came to be labeled “according to Mark” based some of its content on the Epistles of Paul. Here I’ll discuss this scholarship and its evidence. “Mark” is of course the earliest Gospel we have any surviving text or even any real evidence of. It was then...

www.richardcarrier.info

The other Gospels you mention are just using Mark and making changes and keeping some stuff. This is so well known and the arguments and evidence for this is incredibly strong.
For example here: The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org

Acts is the most fictive of all of them. It's literally a shipwreck narrative and follows The Odyssey in so many ways.
I'll have to transcribe some of this discussion where he explains how ridiculous Acts is:

The women are in Mark because he has one particular theme running through the story - the least shall be the first. So he has women see Jesus first. It's a story. Matthew and John get this from Mark. Read the arguments and reasons why scholars know the other Gospels are rewrites of Mark.

You are preaching tired old apologetics that scholars who do actual research do not buy. Ehrman was asked about apologetics and he said it's all the same and it's been answered and debunked for a long time. Everything.

3 explanatory power: the apperancess explain why Paul and James converted to Christianity....,

Paul was Jewish and saw a new cult that he could be a big fish in. The visions were probably added flare. In religious tales a person meets a demigod and of course they are going to convert? It's exactly how a religious story would be presented to get people to buy into it.

Why the apostoles had a stronger faith after Jesus died,

No, Paul said they did. He's selling a cult, of course he's saying things like this.

and it explains why the early church flurished so fast ,

Oh wow. Do you care about what is true at all? The entire 2nd century was 50% Gnostic sects. It didn't grow until Rome adopted it.

........... from the point of view of a first century Jew, Jesus was a failed messiah, he didnt meet the mesianic expectatations from that time, a crusified meassiah was an absurd and self refuting idea from their point of view. .... so unless something extraordinary happened after his dead, the flurishment of this new church would have had no sense. ..... the aperances explain all these three mysteries..

And it just so happens that Hellenistic savior deities provide salvation by undergoing a passion, sometimes even death before resurrecting and passing salvation onto followers. Judaism was the last to adopt the model. They would not have admitted it was Greek, they would have presented it as Gods plan all along and of course God is Jewish so this is the correct version.

Mark also rewrote the basics of the Romulus story but inverted it into a peaceful savior rather than a militant savior. His excellent metaphor for Passover and Yom Kippur using Barrabas and Jesus as the scape goats - one is set free and one is killed for the sins of Israel was brilliant.

A) Paul and James converted because they saw something that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus.

Paul liked the new sect, it also happened to be a trend and started in Antioch, the place were Hellenism is strongest. Not a coincidence.
Paul saw a sect he could play a bigger role in is one probable option.

B) Peter and the disciples had more faith than ever before because they saw something that they interpreted as having seen the risen jesus

So the myth says. Prince Arjuna also believes in Krishna way more after he came down and gave him wisdom.

C) the early church flurished because thausans of people granted such apperances.

They did not. No record of any such thing from any historian at the time. It's in the story, which is folk tales.
The early church was half Gnostic. Now why would that be? Maybe because there was no actual true event that happened, it's just whatever version someone felt stronger towards?
Modern Christianity did not start until the end of the 2nd century and was refined by Rome.

If you reject the historicity of the apperances , what other alternative explanation do you suggest for points A B and C.?

You don't need a reason for someone converting to a religion because people do it by the billions. Paul however already bought into Judaism and it already had been Hellenized. He came in contact with the center of Hellenism and now gets to have a Hellenistic version of Judaism that is appealing to people for obvious reasons.
You say this like there cannot be any other reason why Paul would convert. Thousands of Christians have converted to Islam and vice cersa. Or Hinduism or whatever. Why would this be weird just this one time?

For C, the "church" did not flourish. The first official canon, Marcionite is unknown, so you don't know what was first. The Gnostic sects were all different and bizarre. Why did that get so huge? Half was Gnostic. So you hand wave off 50% of false Christianity becoming popular but then take the other 50% and use it as some claim that since THAT version also grew in popularity it MUST be true. But the Gnostic sects also grew? This isn't even logic in any sense. It's just a mess of confirmation bias and doing history with your hands over your eyes and ears.

Your point says Gnosticism must be true because it grew, but it's not true. Therefore neither does any other version.

Even Gert L¸demann, the leading German critic of the resurrection, himself admits, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.” Gerd L¸demann, What Really Happened to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.

Gerd Lüdemann is Professor of New Testament. He doesn't do history and like many NT scholars bought into th eidea that the NT was history. AS historians have been demonstrating, it is not history.

So rejecting the historicity of the apperances requires you to explain, why you think that so many top scholars are wrong. What do you know that they are missing ?

Because "top scholars" you mention are theologians or NT scholars and take many assumptions to be true. They cannot entertain the idea that history shows us this is all a trend, already happening in other nations, all coming from Hellenism. Historians can read all the original sources and are not hung up on the fact that if you do impartial history it's very easy to see what Christianity really is. A Jewish version of Greek mythology.

all of these appearances are in the Gospels which are rewrites on Mark. Mark is fiction, more fictive than Lord of the Rings in terms of parables, literary devices and so on. There are 20 close parallels to the Romulus narrative, and evidence of borrowing many other narratives and making them into Jesus stories. Like the Kings tales.
You don't have to "explain" tales from folk stories set in a high level historical fiction. It's fiction? Not real.

No ancient historian ever mentions anything except there are Christians who follow the gospels. One said it was harmless superstition after investigating.

This is like someone saying Froto Baggins is real because of multiple sightings, all independent. The Elf, the king, Gandolf, Sam, they ALL saw him. Even the Orcs saw and touched Froto. How could all this evidence not prove he's real?
If LOTR was ancient more people may have written their own version. Then you would have so many sightings, how could you ever explain all that?????
That is exactly what you are doing.

 

[joelr]

I have seen no historical books about the FSM and what it has done. All I hear is mocking comments from skeptics whose critical thinking has let them down and who claim the evidence for their invented FSM is the same as for the Bible God.

It is pretty much the same. An excellent Old Testament scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion has a new book called God: An Anatomy. She demonstrates Yahweh is a very typical ancient God. A myth.

"This might be one of the most refreshing and mind-expanding books I have ever read. Professor Stavrakopoulou has a writing style that is accessible to the reading-comprehension level of any average 15-year-old, yet the end notes and depth of her subject matter offer a lot to even the most highly educated reader. She excels at interpreting ancient art, time and time again revealing rich stories from engravings, etchings, statuary, and other pictorial depictions that are thousands of years old. Photographs and illustrations included. If you need a "spicier" reason to add this book to your library, get it for the chapters on God's genitals. To this reader who grew up in an uptight, rigid, conservative evangelical system, it is refreshing to accept that not only did ancient peoples have genitals and, um, used them, but that they had very few qualms about recognizing that their contemporaneous deities had them, and used them, too! Why have those notions become so obscure and taboo over time? But Professor Stavrakopoulou doesn't spend any more time on that "spicy" topic than she does on describing God's feet, hands, face, and other parts of His anatomy. As I read the text and followed her endnotes, checking them against both an English translation of the Bible and a graduate-level Bible atlas, ..."

Your critical thinking has let you down here also.
Evidence points to the truth of a particular conclusion and does not necessarily show it to be true.

Evidence points to the fact that the OT is Mesopotamian and some other reworked stories and myths and the NT is 100% a Jewish version of Hellenism and Persian religion. Vast evidence, in scripture and outside in comparative studies.

And yes, my beliefs are faith in Jesus, and the evidence supports that faith imo.

What evidence? The Gospels are really just rewrites of Mark which is a 100% myth. Literary fictive devices, parables being taught and the story is often a bigger parable. Reworking Elija, and other OT narratives, Homer, Romulus, Psalms, it's all created.

Faith is not needed if you have evidence. You do not. You have only faith. But faith can be used for any position and is not a reliable path to truth. Your beliefs have nothing to do with what is true and what evidence shows.

 

[joelr]

You are confirming my point, you can´t dismiss the 500 as an hallucination, this is why the hallucination hypotheiss is rejected

It's a story. From one guy pushing a new cult. He didn't see it either, he said " I also received..." , so it's part of his revelation. Do you buy any revelation ever besides the one in your religion? Bahai had many, Muhammad, Mormonism, probably not.

Paul sounds like he is reciting a popular folktale here and is framing it as a revelation. Joe Smith having a revelation from Moroni and getting important updates on Christianity is no different. You buy Paul because you accept that religion as true. Has nothing to do with evidence, logic or truth.





this is likely, I also think this was a saying or creed,
"
One of the members of the class commented that she'd heard an argument along the lines of "If there were over 500 witnesses to the resurrection, why don't we have any other record of them? Where are their letters or testamonies? Isn't it more likely that Paul just made them up?"

From a form criticism point of view, isn't it likely that this section is part of a creed and that the number 500 represents an arbitrarily large company of believers (or perhaps the size of the Jerusalem church when the creed was articulated), rather than an actual number of people who claim to have seen Jesus after his death?"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So you have no idea what evidence means, and no idea what supernatural means………… but you still have the intellectual dishonesty of claiming that there is no evidence for the supernatural?

That's not what I said at all.

Under what basis do you affirm that there is no evidence for the supernatural y you don’t even know the definitions of this terms?.

Under the basis that those who claim that the supernatural exists completely fail to produce any evidence, or even a proper definition, for it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

well then deal with the OP and spot the logical fallacies.............

Already happened.

And not just by me.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

well i missed the post where you did that

You didn't.
Plenty of people have done it, all pointing out the same shenannigans in the OP. You responded to those posts.

As usual you just ignore it and / or strawmen it and / or are in complete denial.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Another day at work for the Atheists trying to undermine Jesus Christ and yet another swing and a miss! The sheer amount of effort that they put into discrediting faith says everything about their lives!

Another ad hominem which is only "required" because actual evidence and proper arguments are lacking.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok and that is what you think happened?

It is infinitly more likely then "the laws of nature were suspended / violated"

Other explanations that are infinitely more likely:

- it's just a story
- people made mistakes
- people lied

We have real-world contemporary example for each and every one of these.
We have ZEROR real-world examples of the laws of nature being suspended / violated.

IN FACT.....

When we call a certain occurance or event "impossible", what we actually mean is that said occurance or event would require exactly that: laws of nature being suspended / violated.



So what you are really arguing for here... is that an explanation branded as "IMPOSSIBLE" is more likely then COMMON daily things like people making mistakes, lying, hallucinating, exaggerating,........................