Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

[Brian2]

No, it is far from being "just an opinion". Perhaps your own losses have tainted your judgment.

Some background, the argument used was supposed to be a rational one. That is what the OP tried to claim. It wasn't. It was a failed argument.

The good news, just because it is a terribly failed argument it does not mean that your beliefs are automatically wrong. It only means that they are highly irrational and are not supported by reliable evidence.

If a case for the historical resurrection of Jesus is wrong, it does not mean that believing that someone rose from the dead is irrational. Whether evidence is reliable is a matter of opinion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

If a case for the historical resurrection of Jesus is wrong, it does not mean that believing that someone rose from the dead is irrational. Whether evidence is reliable is a matter of opinion.

What makes you say that? It is an awfully good indicator that it is an irrational belief. So much so that it clearly puts the burden of proof (heck the burden of proof was already there) upon those trying to claim that it happened. If you cannot find any good reasons to believe that then, yes, it is an irrational belief. And appealing to your mythical beliefs does not help.

 

[Brian2]

What makes you say that? It is an awfully good indicator that it is an irrational belief. So much so that it clearly puts the burden of proof (heck the burden of proof was already there) upon those trying to claim that it happened. If you cannot find any good reasons to believe that then, yes, it is an irrational belief. And appealing to your mythical beliefs does not help.

There is no burden of proof. It is not a matter of proof, it is a matter of faith and if you don't believe in God or that God can or did raise Jesus from the dead, that is as far as it goes really when it comes to proof.
If you think that believing in the resurrection of Jesus is irrational then it is irrational for you to believe that. IOW you would have to believe something irrational for you in order to believe Jesus rose from the dead.
But note that what is irrational for you might not be irrational for me. What is logical and rational depends on where we begin our reasoning from. If you begin with the idea that death is the end and there cannot be anything beyond that, then you end up in a different place with your reasoning about the resurrection.
But of course there is just one truth when it comes to the resurrection.

 

[Brian2]

Historically, there was a radical Jew named Jesus who was one helluva teacher. But how that gets you to resurrection, God and heaven/hell I don’t see. Some people saw some stuff and interpreted it a certain way. So?

Some people saw the risen Jesus and interpreted to mean that Jesus rose from the dead.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There is no burden of proof. It is not a matter of proof, it is a matter of faith and if you don't believe in God or that God can or did raise Jesus from the dead, that is as far as it goes really when it comes to proof.
If you think that believing in the resurrection of Jesus is irrational then it is irrational for you to believe that. IOW you would have to believe something irrational for you in order to believe Jesus rose from the dead.
But note that what is irrational for you might not be irrational for me. What is logical and rational depends on where we begin our reasoning from. If you begin with the idea that death is the end and there cannot be anything beyond that, then you end up in a different place with your reasoning about the resurrection.
But of course there is just one truth when it comes to the resurrection.

Wen you make that claim you are admitting that your belief is irrational.

You do not seem to even understand the concept of rational thought. That would explain your endless errors in that post.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Some people saw the risen Jesus and interpreted to mean that Jesus rose from the dead.

Or, much more likely, no one saw the risen Jesus.

 

[Brian2]

Captain Jack Sparrow told Davy Jones that he paid his debt by dying and Jones retorted that he didn’t stay dead. In a sacrificial death, resurrection is bouncing the check.

If God accepted the payment then it is paid.
Dying is dying, even if it was for a shorter time than eternity.
Jesus was sinless and so did not earn death and so it was unjust for Him to stay dead.
Jesus died, was killed, and God made it into an offering for sin.

Isa 53:10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

 

[Brian2]

Wen you make that claim you are admitting that your belief is irrational.

You do not seem to even understand the concept of rational thought. That would explain your endless errors in that post.

Well you can't expect much from someone who doesn't know what rational thought is.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well you can't expect much from someone who doesn't know what rational thought is.

I always have hope that people can learn. Religious beliefs all too often get in the way of acquiring knowledge. The more fundamentalistic faiths often realize that knowledge is a threat to their particular sect.

It is not as if you lack the intelligence. It is fear that appears to be your stumbling block.

 

[Eli G]

The Bible says quite frankly that Jesus' brothers were not among his followers (Matt. 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21; John 7:5). However, Paul says that Jesus appeared resurrected to James (1 Cor. 15:7), one of his half-brothers, while Luke places this brother of Jesus as one of the elders of Jerusalem (Acts 1:14; 12:17; 15:13; 21:18) in the newly formed Christian congregation shortly after Jesus' ascension.

Would James have converted to Christianism if his brother's resurrection had been a sham and he had not seen him risen himself?

Secular history shows that James was killed as a Christian martyr.

James was not the only half-brother of Jesus to become a Christian after his resurrection; We know that Jude, the author of the letter that bears his name, was another of Jesus' brothers. Surely both were included among those who before the death of Jesus thought that his brother had lost his mind:

Mark 3:21 But when his relatives heard about it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying: “He has gone out of his mind”.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

3 replys zero direct yes or no answers.

I answered. The answer was "in that case, yes". I also also exlained the problem with your question.
But you'll ignore that again off course.

I am talking about this world……

Show me such verifiable examples in this world instead of the world in your imagined hypothetical that allows for magic to occur.

……..if you make these observations………….. would you conclude that Gohst is a better hypothesis?

YES or NO

I already answered "yes". Yes leroy, in a world where magic demonstrably occurs it would be sensible to include it in explanations of certain things.
But once again leroy, we don't live in a world where magic and supernatural things occur. In fact, you even said you can't even define what "supernatural" means.
So even if it would occur, we wouldn't know because you can't define it. So it could be anything and everything.

1 You go to your house, and the drawers start to open and close

2 then you see a nebulous image of a friend of your that passed away few days ago

3 he talks to you and he explains to you that he is a ghost.

4 you have a conversation with him about a football game that you had with him in 3rth grade

5 other witnesses where with you and saw the same thing. and it was rcorded in a camera.




---

1 You go to your house, and the drawers start to open and close

2 then you see a magical dragon appear before you

3 he talks to you and he explains to you that he is a magical dragon from the realm of Dagonia, a parallell universe

4 you have a conversation with him about how they have been watching humanity since millenia

5 other witnesses where with you and saw the same thing. and it was rcorded in a camera.


So if that were to happen leroy, would it then be fine to include dragons of Dragonia doing stuff when explaining certain things?
Would it be fine to include visitors from other realms into hypothesis?





Are you starting to see your mistake yet?

 

[Brian2]

What you don’t seem to understand is that as a debater your “job” is to support your claims…..your job is not to “educate me” or “teach me lessons”

If your claim is that you already answered to a question your job is to show that to be true by quoting the question and the answer.

If your claim is that I made a mistake your job is to quote my comment and explain why is it wrong

If your claim is that I made logical fallacies, your job is to quote my comments and explain why are they fallacious. (as I do repeatedly with your posts)

That is your job regardless if I will ignore your comments or not………this is not about me….. External readers might beneficiate from your contribution.

You are not the judge, your role in this thread is being a debater, your job is to support your claims regadless if I will ignore them or not…………. This is for the benefit of external readers.

for example @Brian2 wouldnt you be interested in @It Aint Necessarily So quoting one of my mistakes or falacies followed by a justification for why he thinks that is a mistake or a fallacy?

aren´t you interested in @It Aint Necessarily So explainig and developing a hypothesis and expalining why is that a better hypotheiss that the resurection?


So @It Aint Necessarily So do you really think that external observers will beneficiate form answers such as "I already answered to that, but I will not tell you where, nor I will quote the post where I wrote that answer" ?

I think you are well suited to wearing down your skeptic debaters, even if you are surrounded by them.
@It Ain't Necessarily So likes to teach me about debating and how I have lost a point in the debate if I do not answer all points that he has mentioned.
I don't think he would want to lose any points if he could help it.
I wouldn't want to try to force him to answer if he does not want to, but I can understand your frustration when someone says they have answered a point and will not point to where or repeat the answer.
Actually my wife can be like that, so I know all about it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Whether evidence is reliable is a matter of opinion.

Must be fun with you in court.

 

[Eli G]

IKR, human courts in the light of truth and justice are quite funny.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The Bible says quite frankly that Jesus' brothers were not among his followers (Matt. 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21; John 7:5). However, Paul says that Jesus appeared resurrected to James (1 Cor. 15:7), one of his half-brothers, while Luke places this brother of Jesus as one of the elders of Jerusalem (Acts 1:14; 12:17; 15:13; 21:18) in the newly formed Christian congregation shortly after Jesus' ascension.

Would James have converted to Christianism if his brother's resurrection had been a sham and he had not seen him risen himself?

Secular history shows that James was killed as a Christian martyr.

James was not the only half-brother of Jesus to become a Christian after his resurrection; We know that Jude, the author of the letter that bears his name, was another of Jesus' brothers. Surely both were included among those who before the death of Jesus thought that his brother had lost his mind:

Mark 3:21 But when his relatives heard about it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying: “He has gone out of his mind”.

Who knows? James may have been more attracted to Jesus than others thought. Or perhaps Paul was stretching the truth. A lot. The letter of James in the Bible is of dubious authorship. We don't really know anything about the man.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I think you are well suited to wearing down your skeptic debaters, even if you are surrounded by them.
@It Ain't Necessarily So likes to teach me about debating and how I have lost a point in the debate if I do not answer all points that he has mentioned.
I don't think he would want to lose any points if he could help it.
I wouldn't want to try to force him to answer if he does not want to, but I can understand your frustration when someone says they have answered a point and will not point to where or repeat the answer.
Actually my wife can be like that, so I know all about it.

To wear someone down one has to be right at least part of the time I doubt if you can find even one of his arguments that has not been thoroughly refuted.

 

[joelr]

Again, people with psychosis don’t conclude that “someone resurrected” that has never been reported.

Why is this so hard to understand?

From: Paul had psychosis

You don’t get

Paul and the disciples concluded that Jesus resurected

Told you, you would ignore me.

There are many many reports of resurrection. It was especially popular around the time of Jesus. Persian resurrection first, which the Jews picked up on and then Greek resurrection with a spirit body, which the Christians picked up on.

The disciples are people from a story and any who are real are people who bought into a trending story and were primed by already believing Judaism and now the natural extention of it, Christianity.
This had been happening in every nation the Greeks occupied and introduced Hellenistic religion into. Israel was the last.

Paul also came across a new Jewish mystery religion and bought into it. Like thousands of others pushing a religion he added visions of the new savior deity.
Muhammad saw an angel, Joe Smith saw an angel, people make claims of sightings quite often. It's not uncommon.

Paul didn't conclude anything. He made a claim he saw an arc-angel. Probably because he bought into the mystery religion offshoot of Judaism. He heard Jews now have their own savior deity and embraced it. The "visions" are probably the same as Joe Smith and Muhammad. And any other claims of visitations by deities. Like Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta or Swami Prabhupada who had several real visions of Lord Krishna. Yes he also wrote letters, wrote for a publication and was tasked with spreading the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the English language. Hmmmm, sound familiar?




Paul and the disciples concluded Jesus resurrected because it's part of the new myth that was created several decades earlier.
A son or daughter of a supreme God who undergoes a passion and often a resurrection to defeat death and confer the benefits to the followers is what Hellenistic Greek salvation is. The hub of Christianity is Antioch, the center of Hellenistic culture.
Current books demonstrating Jesus is a Greek deity:
David Litwa, Lesus Deus
Richard Miller, Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity
Dennis McDonald, The Gospels and Homer

Hellenistic religion | Ancient Greek Gods, Rituals & Beliefs | Britannica

Hellenistic religion, any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of eastern Mediterranean peoples from 300 bc to ad 300. The period of Hellenistic influence, when taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most creative periods in the history of religions. It was a time of spiritual

www.britannica.com

-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.

-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.


-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.


-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme


-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.


-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)


-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century


- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.


-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.


-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)


-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)


- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries

This describes the change from OT to NT exactly yet is also describing what happened to many religions similar to Judaism in the Mediterranean . You could not get a more reasonable explanation. The idea that this one version is actually real, despite all the obvious reasons the myths were added on from Greek sources (also the Greeks invaded, another criteria for the creation of a mystery religion) is quite absurd.

 

[Eli G]

Not consistency at all:

first: "who knows?" and "or perhaps...",
and later: "we don't really know anything..."

These guys have nothing to take seriously.

 

[Eli G]

The resurrection of Jesus does not even remotely compare to any myth of any occult belief of paganism. It was an event that actually occurred in the 1st century with related historical records...not a traditional tale of which there are only religious mystical writings giving some esoteric insights into its pagan significance, which can be read in some book hidden in a private collector's library.... Comparing the life of Jesus to some ancient mythical religious figure is ridiculous.

 

[Ebionite]

The resurrection of Jesus does not even remotely compare to any myth of any occult belief of paganism. It was an event that actually occurred in the 1st century with related historical records...not a traditional tale of which there are only religious mystical writings giving some esoteric insights into its pagan significance, which can be read in some book hidden in a private collector's library.... Comparing the life of Jesus to some ancient mythical religious figure is ridiculous.

If it actually occurred then why isn't it supported by prophecy?

Hosea 6:2 is the best match for the validation text for Luke:

Luke 24​
46	And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

Hosea 6​
2	After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.

The resurrected are Ephraim and Judah, not the Messiah:

Hosea 5​
14	For I [will be] unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, [even] I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue [him].