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Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Like you lied about the proof, you mean?

You made the false claim about Ron Wyatt, not me.

No. I offered to provide sources if you asked politely. You were never polite. Go back and read my posts. There were two of them I linked to the one that you quoted where I specifically said that you had to ask politely. Don't you read anything? You quoted it and it is in your post.

And I did not lie at all about Wyatt. Prove that I lied. Find reliable sources, not crazy Christian ones, that show that he was a well respected archaeologist. I can guarantee you that you will not find any such sources. Once again, no crazy Christian sources allowed. The man was a fraud.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Historical evidence is not anywhere near as reliable, but one things that historians do is to pretty much ignore religious claims. So Romulus and Remus, the involvement of gods in the Trojan war, and the miracles of Jesus all get the same treatment by historians.
Sure, but the historical sciences have their own methods also for verifying records and historical claims.
Plausibility can be assessed by holding it up against other corroborating data (or data that should be corroborating).


You are correct off course about magical claims being discarded at face value.
It's the only thing you can do with them...
 

Ebionite

Well-Known Member
Yes, you did. Ron Wyatt did not find everything that was missing and the wheels were not solid gold.
And lets not forget that you falsely accused me and then deflected. That shows intent to deceive.

Ron Wyatt apparently found everything that was missing in the Bible. You should read his list of claims. Those wheels were modern valve wheels. Egyptian chariots. even the few decorated ones would not have had solid gold wheels.

And finally, in 1988, Ron found the 4-spoked gold chariot wheel, which looks almost perfect. The reason this one was so well preserved is that coral does not grow on gold. The wood inside the gold “veneer” was deteriorated, which made it very fragile and for that reason, he has not attempted to retrieve it from the water.


 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Sure, but the historical sciences have their own methods also for verifying records and historical claims.
Plausibility can be assessed by holding it up against other corroborating data (or data that should be corroborating).


You are correct off course about magical claims being discarded at face value.
It's the only thing you can do with them...
And that is something that our two opponents do not seem to understand. They try to claim to have "historic evidence" with claims that would be rejected. Or at least @leroy seems to do that. @Brian2 will not clearly state his "evidence" probably because he knows that it is of no value.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Yes, you did. Ron Wyatt did not find everything that was missing and the wheels were not solid gold.
And lets not forget that you falsely accused me and then deflected. That shows intent to deceive.
Those are just valve wheels. Try to listen very carefully. For a find to be valid one has to have clear directions so that others can observe it for themselves. That is how archaeological evidence is reliable. If others cannot confirm one's find the find is worthless. One also has to have some sort of scale device so that people can judge it size. Those wheels could be just a foot and a half across there is nothing for scale. Worse yet nothing is growing on them. That does not happen in the ocean. Trust me, life likes to grow on things. Those were clearly recent artifacts. You are not reasoning critically.

LOL!! You can only shoot yourself in the foot when you link to a known fraud's museum. He claims that coral does not grow on gold. How does he know? That sounds like an ad hoc explanation. In a real paper there would be links and sources that support that claim. Ron always had excuses for his lack of evidence or the fact that no one could confirm his "finds". You cannot find one serious scholar that thinks that he was anything but a charlatan.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Yes, as a theist I think there are good arguments for the existence of God, which is why I think miracles and resurrections are realistic possibilities.

A God being real wouldn't make a story true and more that it would make other stories true such as Angel Moroni visiting Joseph Smith and delivering golden plates or God sending Gabrielle to speak to Muhammad.
But even assuming agnosticism (I don’t know if God exists or not, probability arround 50% / 50% ) the resurrection would still be realistic.

Only form the point of view of a strong atheist who claims to have conclusive evidence against the existence of God, the resurrection becomes non-realistic

Any disagreement form your part?
Incarnate sons or daughters of a god who dies and then rose from their deaths to become living gods granting salvation to their worshippers were a common and peculiar feature of pagan religion when Christianity arose, so much so that influence from paganism is the only plausible explanation for how a Jewish sect such as Christianity came to adopt the idea. (see below *) For example you won't find this trend in ancient China. No such gods are found there. If Christianity had begun in China it's claims would be unique and astonishing. Yet in it's actual Greco-Roman context it was neither unique nor astonishing. Thus it cannot be a coincidence that Christianity arose with an idea matching a ubiquitous pagan type unique to the very time and place it was born..


In the middle of the 2nd century Justin Martyr wrote:

"when we say that the Logos, who is the firstborn son of God, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was pronounced without sexual union, and was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven. we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call sons of god......."

Thus even Christians acknowledged the ubiquity of the dying and rising son of god theme in their surrounding pagan culture, and recognized it as a common theme even when every story differed in details from every other. Of course Justin claims Satan did all this to fool Christians.


(*)The earliest known from of Christianity was a Judeo-Hellenistic mystery religion. This is also beyond any reasonable doubt, yet frequently denied in the field of Jesus research, often with a suspiciously intense passion. Christianity wasn't a copy of another mystery it was it's own version.

Besides syncretism of savior resurrection there are many trends of Hellenistic religion that Christianity picked up, a monotheistic trend, a shift to individualism, cosmopolitanism. Four features known to all mystery religions.

Much of this is from Dr Carriers OHJ and shows that an unverified folk story about a resurrection, besides not at all being evidence, is extremely likely a syncretic trend in Judaism. The Greeks occupied Judea and Christianity started in the hub of Hellenistic culture Antioch.

I don't even know how to begin to quantify the likelyhood and how orders of magnitude it is that this story about a resurrection is a product of Jewish culture adopting Persian theology and then Greco-Roman theology. Which all other nations also did when occupied by them.

We already know Judaism is starting out rewriting the Mesopotamian creation and flood story, using Egyptian stories for Moses childhood and 10 commandments, on entire Proverbs is an Egyptian work verbatim and all proverbs are similar to all other wisdom traditions from Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Then the idea of God vs a devil, humans having freewill to choose, a final battle where all followers are resurrected in a paradise on Earth and live forever in bliss, a supreme God is is uncreated, all came into Judaism from Persian thought. So even syncretism is a trend.

The idea that it isn't that at all and even though you could guess at what Christianity was going to be once the Greeks occupied Judea, it just happened to all happen that way except it actually happened for real, is so absurd and improbable, it's basically impossible.
Christians didn't even gain any new information, it's repackaged Greek theology and House of Hillel teachings - the golden rule, non-judgment, be kind to enemies and so on.
But you still want to fit a real deity in there? No chance. The resurrection is a religious myth. Every detail of how it came about is known. You were never taught that because the church and apologetics avoids the facts like the plague.


Plutarch (On Isis and Osirus) summarizes the gospel of Isis and Osirus, a typical mythic narrative of events transpiring on earth leading to Osirus's death and resurrection. He also brings up the resurrection of other demigods in other mystery cults as well.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
It certainly is part of the record.
If people these days what to define the historical record as being only those parts that do not contain any supernatural elements, that is their prerogative but has no bearing on what the actual record tells us.
So you consider it history that Muhammad was visited by an angel and given a new version of Christianity? It's History that Joseph Smith was given serious updates on Christianity and Jesus by the angel Moroni? Both have primary sources and witnesses, Christianity has none except a man who claimed visions. But the Quran and Mormon Bible are on much stronger footing. Why don't you convert then?
We also have Bahai with many witnesses and many writings, an extention of Islam. Far stronger so you must consider them all historical. Since they are updates (the NT is also an update) you should be taking them very serious if you don't have a supernatural bias.


The "supernatural bias" doesn't just work when you need it.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
That's a pretty grandiose claim. Do you know which deity or deities were involved in promoting the story of the resurrection?
No I said how it came about, where the trend comes from and previous examples of syncretism.
Also the location, Antioch was the hub of Hellenistic culture. And prior the Greeks occupied Judea for over a century. Hellenism has a huge influence on all the religions it came into contact with and Judaism was shown to be open to evolving through the centuries. They took on many Persian ideas over time. Then they took Greco-Roman ideas over time.



20:29 Osiris, Bacchus, Adonis, Mithras, Hercules, Zalmoxis, Dolichenus, Demeter & Persephone


All savior Gods


All sons/daughters of God


All undergo a passion (patheon)


All obtain victory over death, which they share with their followers…


Often with baptism and communion


Their stories are set in human history


None of them really existed

 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Yes, you did. Ron Wyatt did not find everything that was missing and the wheels were not solid gold.
And lets not forget that you falsely accused me and then deflected. That shows intent to deceive.

Wow, so truth is not something you care about.

Ron Wyatt Archaeological Research​

Fraud Documentation​

(If the reader is looking for quotes on war(s) visit: quotes on war The following is an expose of W.A.R., Wyatt Archaeological Research and Ron Wyatt.)

Since the magazine "Dew from Mount Hermon" published the article "A Great Christian Scam" exposing the so-called discoveries of Ron Wyatt as nothing more than a great hoax perpetrated upon the Christian community for money and fame, Joel Davenport, the manager of WAR's Internet site has published an article located at their web site accusing me, Gary Amirault, of not telling the truth. In the article I did not disclose the names of my sources since the article only went to a few hundred subscribers who trusted my reporting. I didn't feel providing names and addresses was necessary. But since Mr. Davenport's extremely distorted assessment of the accuracy of "A Great Christian Scam," and since WAR and associates are continuing to defraud the Christian community by selling videos, books, speaking engagements, trips to Israel, enticing investors in further digs, etc., all based upon discoveries which were never made, I feel it is time to lay out enough evidence to make it perfectly clear to any sane individual that we are dealing here with nothing short of an outright scam.

I have telephone interviewed most of the people on WAR's Noah's Ark video. Not one single person I spoke with on that video presently believes that Ron Wyatt's site is Noah's Ark. Some are outraged that Wyatt is still using film clips which make them look like they are substantiating Wyatt's claims when, in fact, the opposite is the case. Listed below are some of the individuals who appear on the video. Compare the story WAR continues to sell with the actual words written by the scientists after doing extensive research on the site. They no longer believe it is Noah's Ark. They believe it is a natural geological formation. As to the so-called discoveries on Ron Wyatt's video entitled "Presentation of Discoveries," those interviewed whom Ron Wyatt presented with his "facts" put little or no archaeological value on any of the material. "Fraud" was the word most often used when discussing these so-called discoveries. Read the letters from archaeologists within Ron Wyatt's own denomination, Seventh Day Adventist, and you will see that even those who would have an interest in substantiating Ron Wyatt's claims find little or no scientific evidence to support any of these discoveries.

As to Ron Wyatt's organization being non-profit and as such having no investors, I spoke to businessmen and television producers who have invested money into Wyatt Archaeological Research for television rights. There have been many tens of thousands of dollars invested in WAR. To date, none of those who invested this money has seen a shred of scientific evidence substantiating Ron Wyatt's claims. Where is the report from the blood sample analysis of what Ron claims is the blood of Jesus Christ? Where is the Ark of the Covenant? Which museum is housing the ancient chariot wheels he claimed to have been from the Red Sea Crossing? There is no evidence because the video is a fraud. On the Noah's Ark video, all the so-called scientific data cannot be duplicated, a clear sign that what was given the labs was false data. (Read John Baumgarten's and Tom Fenner's letter)

In summary, "A Great Christian Scam" was written to warn the readership of "Dew from Mount Hermon" magazine of Ron Wyatt's deception. That was as far as I planned to tell the story. Since the story appeared on the Internet, we have received many inquiries from many Christian organizations asking for more information. Since Joel Davenport has chosen to publish a very misleading article written to discredit my article, I felt it necessary to release further documentation of the overwhelming evidence against WAR's claims of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. Read the letters. Write or call some of them. Those professionals who have seen the evidence (or lack thereof) and those who have had dealings with Ron Wyatt will make it plain to anyone that WAR's discoveries are hoaxes.

Since this report has been published, Ron Wyatt died. Yet there are many individuals who are promoting Ron Wyatt's claims. Here are a few such individuals: Jim and Penny Caldwell, Richard Rives, Pinkowski, Mary Nell Wyatt, John McCoy, Bill Fry, Kevin Fisher, Jonathan Gray, Rebecca Samsing, Lenneri Moller and Henry Gruver, and Jim Bakker.

For other reports on Wyatt Archaeological Research see the following Internet sites:

Christian Information Ministries
Bill Crouse, President
Christian Information Ministries

Creation Magazine
Amazing Ark Expose'
Andrew A. Snelling PhD. Geology
Answers in Genesis






Ronald Eldon Wyatt (June 2, 1933 – August 4, 1999) was an American nurse anesthetist noted for advocating the Durupınar site in Turkey as the location of Noah's Ark's landing place, along with almost 100 other alleged bible related discoveries.

Wyatt's claimed discoveries have been criticized by scientists, historians, biblical scholars, as well as some creationists, and are not considered credible by professional archaeologists and biblical scholars.

Archaeologist Joe Zias of Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has stated that "Ron Wyatt is neither an archaeologist nor has he ever carried out a legally licensed excavation in Israel or Jerusalem. In order to excavate one must have at least a BA in archaeology which he does not possess despite his claims to the contrary. ... [His claims] fall into the category of trash which one finds in tabloids such as the National Enquirer, Sun etc."[4]
......... As far as we are aware nothing was ever discovered to support his claims nor have we seen any evidence of biblical artifacts or temple treasures.[3]



It isn't our fault that actual archaeologists are finding the Bible is in no way true as written and the history of the Israelites is much different than the stories would have you believe. That is called evidence.

 

joelr

Well-Known Member
What do you think I wrote that was untrue?
Sourcing Wyatt as if he is credible, using a known fraud as evidence demonstrates a weak standard of evidence and a willingness to believe crank as long as it supports what you want to be true. You have left truth behind in favor of sketchy evidence of claims.

"Wyatt's claimed discoveries have been criticized by scientists, historians, biblical scholars, as well as some creationists, and are not considered credible by professional archaeologists and biblical scholars."
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Yeah, @Subduction Zone couldn't cope with proof either.
Oh my. You keep telling us that you cannot reason rationally. This is not a question of "proof". This is a question of evidence. You were given quite a bit of evidence that he was a fraud. What evidence do you have that he isn't a fraud?

You do not seem to understand the burden of proof. Once others have supplied evidence against your claims the burden of proof is now yours to show that you are correct.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
The claim of "you would like" is an evasion and a lie. People accept evidence for things that they do not like every single day. Your evidence is not rejected because someone does not like it. You evidence is rejected because it is crappy evidence.

I thought you were offering sound advice until I got to the last 2 words.
 

Ebionite

Well-Known Member
I provided two sources that described how he was a fraud. @joelr just gave you a long long post that explained how he is a fraud. It seems that you have a problem reading.
No, you have a problem with **Staff Edit* Fraud is not the same as being rejected by orthodoxy.

 
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