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Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

leroy

Well-Known Member
I've got a little time now so I'm back!

I find it interesting how the majority of the posts here didn't really offer a critique of Licona's work from a historical perspective but a philosophical one. Most posts here rely on the same argument LeafCoast mentioned so I am going to keep my replies focused on the discussion I'm having with him as far as that goes. I do find it hard to believe that that's the only flaw people see in his arguments. Surely there's objections to the argument that go beyond the old Humean a priori dismissal of miracles and I would like to familiarize myself with some of those.



The big thing that struck me was the same thing I corrected the other guy for, when I said it's a historical fact that Jesus was a miracle worker and an exorcist, you expressed disbelief because you took me as saying it's a historical fact that Jesus actually performed miracles and exorcised demons. But it doesn't matter, just giving an example of what lead me to that conclusion.



Ok, what if we had a bunch of scientists doing all sorts of possible tests and they come to the conclusion that there is no conceivable way that he could've placed the cup there? (For whatever reason, maybe there was no one in the room at the time of it appearing or whatever.) If all possible natural explanations for the cup appearing fail to explain it adequately would you be willing to posit a miracle as an explanation or would you just chalk it up to mystery, saying we don't know how they did it but it must've been natural?



I'm not explaining the resurrection, I'm using the resurrection as an explanation for the historical bedrock. As stated in a previous post (I'll repeat it here since I intend to focus on our discussion as I said earlier) Licona doesn't make reference to God in the resurrection hypothesis which he states as follows:

"Following a supernatural event of an indeterminate nature and cause, Jesus appeared to a number of people, in individual and group settings and to friends and foes, in no less than an objective vision and perhaps within ordinary vision in his bodily raised corpse." (Chapter 5.7.1. Description of the Resurrection View)

I know I made reference to God wishing to raise someone from the dead but if we're going to stick to Licona's argument as he defends it he would say that the plausibility of a miracle would be directly linked to one's horizon. If naturalism is true it's unlikely that a miracle is an explanation but if supernaturalism is true the miracle as an explanation becomes far more likely. We need to look at the data and bracket our worldviews or we'll be driven by our horizons rather than the evidence.
I am a christian and have been following your coments with interest.

And I also grant that Licona made a good solid case.

Perhaps the best objection against Liconas work is that we are talkig about ancient history, we live in a world where 99+% of ancient stuff has been lost.

So even if we grant that the facts of the OP are well supported and if we grant that the resurection is the best explanation....bit still doesn't follow that the resurrection is true.

We only have a small minority of the pieces in the puzzle, it could be that if there where more piezes, there would be an obvious explanation that doest envolve supernatural events.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Well, my point is, whether or not they were hallucinations, they saw him in visions, and possibly in the world around them. Hallucinations imply that what they saw was false or made up in their minds, which is maybe what you believe, but I see that it's also possible that they saw his spirit. The idea of hallucinations comes from psychology, and implies falsehood. But it's also possible that these so-called hallucinations have some basis in reality. I see little is lost in believing he actually rose from the dead and talked to his followers. But what does that really mean anyway? Maybe just that they saw him, felt connected to him, and regarded his ascension to Heaven. To the observer there's no difference. Was it all a legend, or was it real? Maybe it's a legend you choose to believe in.


All that the word "hallucinations" does is to put a proper explanation to the "visions". Post death hallucinations are quite common. Calling it a vision puts a far heavier burden of proof upon you then me referring to them as hallucinations. Hallucinations are fairly well understood. and they are well evidenced. Visions, not so much.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Nope true. Please, do not be so tiresome.


That is false. You are not looking at the consequences of using that argument. You are trying to apply it only to your religion and you simply cannot do that. That would be a special pleading argument.

So once again, you are obviously wrong.


So what?


No, it is not. There are countless better ones. The resurrection raises far more questions. It only has weak answers and since it is magical it appears to be make believe.

Again, no, this is key as to why even you should see that this silly argument fails. You cannot limit it to your religion. That is saying "it only applies to Christianity because of <flap flap flap> reasons. it is a special pleading fallacy.
It is not special pleading, you can do a minimal case for any religion and any miracle that you whant.

Weather if you build your case successfully or not has no bearing on whether if liconas conclutions are true or not


, it is not. There are countless better ones
Ok name one , and explain why is it better than the resurrection ?
 
We all have to agree on what the resurrection of Jesus means. Those saying it's the best explanation are maybe a little dishonest in a way, if they fail to acknowledge the power of people to 'hallucinate" en masse. I think it's certainly possible that Jesus's resurrection was a mass hallucination of sorts, a fabrication of people's minds. You have to take it on faith that these people were experiencing Jesus rising from the grave. Yet perhaps it was. The naturalist sees it as unlikely, yet the supernaturalist sees the same evidence and believes that Jesus is alive.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
It is not special pleading, you can do a minimal case for any religion and any miracle that you whant.

Sorry, but yes it is.
Weather if you build your case successfully or not has no bearing on whether if liconas conclutions are true or not

How does it matter if the sun is shining or if it is raining? But Liconas has been refuted.
Ok name one , and explain why is it better than the resurrection ?
I already did so. It is probably very early on. I even quoted and linked a peer reviewed paper about the phenomenon. Do your homework.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
We all have to agree on what the resurrection of Jesus means. Those saying it's the best explanation are maybe a little dishonest in a way, if they fail to acknowledge the power of people to 'hallucinate" en masse. I think it's certainly possible that Jesus's resurrection was a mass hallucination of sorts, a fabrication of people's minds. You have to take it on faith that these people were experiencing Jesus rising from the grave. Yet perhaps it was. The naturalist sees it as unlikely, yet the supernaturalist sees the same evidence and believes that Jesus is alive.
We do not even need an "en masse" hallucination. Though there are accounts of those as well. There only need have been two at the most that had hallucinations.
 
Right, visions are perhaps less likely in a way, but they identical to hallucinations in appearance. There is a profound difference between the two, to be sure, but they appear the same to the observing eye (and reader of the Gospels). In fact, I could just say that what psychologists and God forbid psychiatrists are dealing with when they study and understand 'hallucinations' are just visions that seers have had since Biblical times, either true or false. Sometimes I wonder if believing there could be true visions are such a big burden of proof away from believing there are false ones or (I guess) that they are all false. Just some food for thought.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Has anyone interacted with this argument or others similar to it
Sure. Leroy's here, I see. He made such arguments recently in another thread. He also argued that the most likely explanation for the biblical scripture claiming Resurrection was that it actually occurred, and his evidence was some of yours - biblical tales of multiple people reporting witnessing a resurrection. He also added scriptural story of the empty tomb and that the existence of martyrs mean that what they died for probably happened.
It's possible the experiences were what you say but then again it's also possible they weren't. What we're looking for is the best explanation, not just a possible one.
The best explanation is never supernaturalistic, since it requires the existence of a realm outside of nature inhabited by a tri-omni god, neither of which is known to exist.
for the sake of the argument let's assume Jesus is the only case where God raised someone from the dead. I would like you to elaborate why you think this goes against the way we know the world works. Afaik we don't know that if God wishes he doesn't or can't raise a dead person, we just know that the natural course is that dead people stay dead.
We don't know that any god exists, nor that resurrecting a three-days dead cadaver is possible in the strong sense of could actually happen like an asteroidal impact of earth rather than not yet known to be impossible like time travel.
I would like to know how you could calculate the probability of God raising someone from the dead if He wishes to do so.
If by God you mean the deity of the Christian Bible, even if a god or gods of some sort exist, we can know that that particular god doesn't.
the second fact of the historical bedrock is that some of these experiences were group experiences.
It's not a fact that there were any such experiences, just a report of them likely added once it was decided to promote a new religion around a dead itinerant fundamentalist rabbi.
I don't find it convincing that there are any known facts that make it implausible.
Plenty of known facts make insurrection implausible. I just gave you some.
May I ask what these logical fallacies are and where I made them?
Your thinking is tendentious. It's goal-oriented, and not the goal of critical thinking - sound conclusion. You place excessive emphasis on the validity of scripture and the possibility of resurrection. You give them both a pass and accept them uncritically. Apparently, your audience doesn't.
If naturalism is true it's unlikely that a miracle is an explanation but if supernaturalism is true the miracle as an explanation becomes far more likely.
Resurrection would remain not known to be impossible but not known to have ever occurred to known to be possible but not known to have ever occurred. I don't call that far more likely.
the type of hallucinations require to explain the data, would have to be a type of hallucinations that has never been observed, nor proven to be possible.
Mass hallucination is not the likeliest explanation. Fiction is, as described above. These witnesses likely never existed. Next most likely, they were verbally persuaded something happened that didn't. Mass hallucination come next, and a very distant fourth is an actual resurrection.
resurection or not, you still have an extraordinary event.
All you have are mostly uncorroborated claims.
the point of the OP (and Liconas book) is that the resurection is the best explanation for such facts.
Apparently not with the critical thinkers that you haven't convinced. Whose assessments shall we consider more reliable, people who specialize in reasoning or people willing to believe by faith?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Right, visions are perhaps less likely in a way, but they identical to hallucinations in appearance. There is a profound difference between the two, to be sure, but they appear the same to the observing eye (and reader of the Gospels). In fact, I could just say that what psychologists and God forbid psychiatrists are dealing with when they study and understand 'hallucinations' are just visions that seers have had since Biblical times, either true or false. Sometimes I wonder if believing there could be true visions are such a big burden of proof away from believing there are false ones or (I guess) that they are all false. Just some food for thought.
How would you know? How can you show that "visions" are real? People can be very veery convinced by hallucinations. I do know know of any evidence for visions. I know that there is endless evidence for hallucinations.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Supernatural events are those that would break the various laws of science.

It is rather amazing that this has to be explained to you. The events that break natural laws simply do not exist. We can see events that we do not understand very very rarely. But you would be hard pressed to find any that would break laws of science. You might find some clickbait articles that make that claim but all of them fail that I have seen.

If you had been following this conversation you would have seen that I offered a more than reasonable explanation. One supported by a peer reviewed article.

There is a reason that they are called "miracles". Today the definition has been extremely diluted since the sort of miracles in the Bible are never seen to occur.


What laws where broken in the resurrection?

Why are those laws imposible to break?

The events that break natural laws simply do not exist
How do you know that ?
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I've got a little time now so I'm back!

I find it interesting how the majority of the posts here didn't really offer a critique of Licona's work from a historical perspective but a philosophical one. Most posts here rely on the same argument LeafCoast mentioned so I am going to keep my replies focused on the discussion I'm having with him as far as that goes. I do find it hard to believe that that's the only flaw people see in his arguments. Surely there's objections to the argument that go beyond the old Humean a priori dismissal of miracles and I would like to familiarize myself with some of those.



The big thing that struck me was the same thing I corrected the other guy for, when I said it's a historical fact that Jesus was a miracle worker and an exorcist, you expressed disbelief because you took me as saying it's a historical fact that Jesus actually performed miracles and exorcised demons. But it doesn't matter, just giving an example of what lead me to that conclusion.



Ok, what if we had a bunch of scientists doing all sorts of possible tests and they come to the conclusion that there is no conceivable way that he could've placed the cup there? (For whatever reason, maybe there was no one in the room at the time of it appearing or whatever.) If all possible natural explanations for the cup appearing fail to explain it adequately would you be willing to posit a miracle as an explanation or would you just chalk it up to mystery, saying we don't know how they did it but it must've been natural?



I'm not explaining the resurrection, I'm using the resurrection as an explanation for the historical bedrock. As stated in a previous post (I'll repeat it here since I intend to focus on our discussion as I said earlier) Licona doesn't make reference to God in the resurrection hypothesis which he states as follows:

"Following a supernatural event of an indeterminate nature and cause, Jesus appeared to a number of people, in individual and group settings and to friends and foes, in no less than an objective vision and perhaps within ordinary vision in his bodily raised corpse." (Chapter 5.7.1. Description of the Resurrection View)

I know I made reference to God wishing to raise someone from the dead but if we're going to stick to Licona's argument as he defends it he would say that the plausibility of a miracle would be directly linked to one's horizon. If naturalism is true it's unlikely that a miracle is an explanation but if supernaturalism is true the miracle as an explanation becomes far more likely. We need to look at the data and bracket our worldviews or we'll be driven by our horizons rather than the evidence.
Let us understand something. History cannot trump the natural sciences, but must stay within its limits. This is because history is made of primarily fallible and partially recovered writings of ordinary fallible humans who (in ancient days and even today) wrote with many different selfish aims, with little regard for actual truth of the matter. All ancient historical chronicles are propaganda of some kind or the other, and are not disinterested documents. Historians today try to sift through these subjective propaganda accounts to try to ascertain what may have happened and how different parties viewed the events as they happened. But their inferences are always constrained by understandings of of sociology, human psychology and natural laws. Under no circumstances can a historian go beyond them....for NO historical testimony can ever be strong enough to be taken against the grain of what has been established as can and cannot happen through careful observations of medical, physical and biological sciences.

So to your question on what historical evidence can establish a one off resurrection as possible? Given how history works....NOTHING. This is true for all such events of this kind in any historical account from anywhere. Lincona should have read historiography before embarking on a fruitless venture such as this....but then he only wanted to preach to the choir I feel.
 

Thrillobyte

Active Member
Why would anyone need to show that Paul was real with anything outside the Bible? He wrote, at least. 7 of the books of the New Testament. What about his simple existence do you think is in dispute?
You might not have heard of the term, Pseudepigrapha--which is just a fancy word for forged. What scholars agree on is that 7 of the 12 epistles were written by the same person because they have the same writing styles whereas the other 5 don't, but it still doesn't offer irrefutable proof it was someone named Paul who wrote them. Scholars just assume it was Paul because for 2000 years all 12 were attributed to Paul. But there is no historical evidence a Paul even lived. I mean, come on! One of the biggest Roman trials of the era and there isn't even a mention of the trial from Tacitus, much less a trial record itself???????? The earliest copies of the epistles themselves don't start appearing until the 4th-5th centuries--roughly 350 years at the earliest after they were supposedly written. I mean who in the early church even mentions all the epistles believed written by Paul: NOBODY. No proof of their authorship; no proof of when they were written; no evidence Paul even lived. If you want to take all this on blind faith be my guest. I sure wouldn't throw my life away on such a gigantic question mark.
 
But maybe it's not as unlikely as you think to believe that some so called hallucinations are true visions of God. Seers have been around since Biblical times. I think the resurrection story of Jesus is a clear example of visions, which need not be false or made up per se. Obviously they could be made up, fabrications of our minds, or maybe as people in Biblical times believed, visions of the divine. I have no doubt they saw Jesus. But what does that mean? That has to be clarified. The believer and unbeliever draw from the same well of evidence (the Gospels). I think the Gospels are reliable eyewitness accounts, in that I have no reason to believe the apostles and Jesus's disciples were lying when they say they saw him. But did they fabricate it all in their minds or were those visions somehow true? I mean really, who among mortals can say?
 

lukethethird

unknown member
But maybe it's not as unlikely as you think to believe that some so called hallucinations are true visions of God. Seers have been around since Biblical times. I think the resurrection story of Jesus is a clear example of visions, which need not be false or made up per se. Obviously they could be made up, fabrications of our minds, or maybe as people in Biblical times believed, visions of the divine. I have no doubt they saw Jesus. But what does that mean? That has to be clarified. The believer and unbeliever draw from the same well of evidence (the Gospels). I think the Gospels are reliable eyewitness accounts, in that I have no reason to believe the apostles and Jesus's disciples were lying when they say they saw him. But did they fabricate it all in their minds or were those visions somehow true? I mean really, who among mortals can say?
"I think the Gospels are reliable eyewitness accounts"

Maybe people are gullible.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Sure. Leroy's here, I see. He made such arguments recently in another thread. He also argued that the most likely explanation for the biblical scripture claiming Resurrection was that it actually occurred, and his evidence was some of yours - biblical tales of multiple people reporting witnessing a resurrection. He also added scriptural story of the empty tomb and that the existence of martyrs mean that what they died for probably happened.

The best explanation is never supernaturalistic, since it requires the existence of a realm outside of nature inhabited by a tri-omni god, neither of which is known to exist.

We don't know that any god exists, nor that resurrecting a three-days dead cadaver is possible in the strong sense of could actually happen like an asteroidal impact of earth rather than not yet known to be impossible like time travel.

If by God you mean the deity of the Christian Bible, even if a god or gods of some sort exist, we can know that that particular god doesn't.

It's not a fact that there were any such experiences, just a report of them likely added once it was decided to promote a new religion around a dead itinerant fundamentalist rabbi.

Plenty of known facts make insurrection implausible. I just gave you some.

Your thinking is tendentious. It's goal-oriented, and not the goal of critical thinking - sound conclusion. You place excessive emphasis on the validity of scripture and the possibility of resurrection. You give them both a pass and accept them uncritically. Apparently, your audience doesn't.

Resurrection would remain not known to be impossible but not known to have ever occurred to known to be possible but not known to have ever occurred. I don't call that far more likely.

Mass hallucination is not the likeliest explanation. Fiction is, as described above. These witnesses likely never existed. Next most likely, they were verbally persuaded something happened that didn't. Mass hallucination come next, and a very distant fourth is an actual resurrection.

All you have are mostly uncorroborated claims.

Apparently not with the critical thinkers that you haven't convinced. Whose assessments shall we consider more reliable, people who specialize in reasoning or people willing to believe by faith?
Ok develop your case.


Why is fiction a better explanation?


Develop you hypothesis explain exactly what you mean by fiction and show that it is a better explanation than a resurection.

Better in terms of
1 explanatory scope
2 explanatory power
3 predictive power
4parsimony
5 less adhoc
6 plausibility
And other criteria comonly used to stablish than an explanation is better.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
What laws where broken in the resurrection?
Why are those laws imposible to break?

Dead people stay dead. That one is rather well known. I am surprised that you were unaware of that.


Did I say impossible? All that you have to know that it is far far rarer than the explanation that I gave. That my explanation used an observed and understood phenomenon and you have to use an unobserved and unexplained phenomenon means that by definition my explanation was far more plausible.
How do you know that ?
Perhaps I should have used a qualifier, for all practical purposes they do not exist.
 
But maybe it's not as unlikely as you think to believe that some so called hallucinations are true visions of God. Seers have been around since Biblical times. I think the resurrection story of Jesus is a clear example of visions, which need not be false or made up per se. Obviously they could be made up, fabrications of our minds, or maybe as people in Biblical times believed, visions of the divine. I have no doubt they saw Jesus. But what does that mean? That has to be clarified. The believer and unbeliever draw from the same well of evidence (the Gospels). I think the Gospels are reliable eyewitness accounts, in that I have no reason to believe the apostles and Jesus's disciples were lying when they say they saw him. But did they fabricate it all in their minds or were those visions somehow true? I mean really, who among mortals can say?
FYI, I happen to believe in Jesus's resurrection and that they were true visions of God himself, but it's not on the basis of the evidence in the Gospels, because those could have been mass hallucinations. In fact I don't think you can know it, and I agree it is 'implausible'. The best evidence for me comes when you step into a church and meet Jesus's people. The evidence really lies there - in love God and your neighbor.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Ok develop your case.


Why is fiction a better explanation?


Develop you hypothesis explain exactly what you mean by fiction and show that it is a better explanation than a resurection.

Better in terms of
1 explanatory scope
2 explanatory power
3 predictive power
4parsimony
5 less adhoc
6 plausibility
And other criteria comonly used to stablish than an explanation is better.
It has already been explained to you how your 1-6 list fails. Why are you still using it? By the way, it is impossible to get more adhoc than claiming a miracle happened. Why even include one that is so weak for you that it makes the whole list an automatic loss?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Dead people stay dead. That one is rather well known. I am surprised that you were unaware of that.

There no law in science that says dead people stay dead.

Did I say impossible? All that you have to know that it is far far rarer than the explanation that I gave.
You haven't gave any explanation



Perhaps I should have used a qualifier, for all practical purposes they do not exist.
Ok we have a "because I say so" argument
 
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