Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

[shunyadragon]

Well the OP is building a case for the resurection that only uses verifiable historical facts.

By historical academic standards, there are no verifiable hid]storial facts for the resurrection nor any other miraculous events in any other ancient religions.

There is not a 'building a case' because this is simply a repeated apologetic argument found in thousands of books and internet references without citing anything new.

The OP doest presuposes that the new testament is true or even reliable, it only uses the bits of data are are considered to ve true by the majority of scholars.

Not true. Only believing Christians and Christian scholars consider the miraculous events in the Bible as true. The majority of scholars do not consider the miraculous events in the Bible as true.

As previously summarized there are not any independent historical records even for the life of Jesus during his lifetime.

 

[shunyadragon]

But still you are avoididing my question

What would falsify naturalism?

I believe that this has been addressed many many times. Methodological Naturalism based on 'objectively verified evidence'falisies naturalism beyond any reasonable doubt.

And even more important .....you are refusing to provide (and develop) an alternative explanation for the resurrection which is the topic of the OP.

Why did you even participate in this thread if you are ignoring the OP?

Alternatives are not difficult. Like ALL ancient religions, belief in miraculous and supernatural events is believed and used to justify their beliefs. The miraculous events in the life of Jesus are not unique to Christianity.

 

[Colt]

Here's the "If you don't know everything, you don't know anything" argument many theists are fond of when confronted with contradictory thinking. It's an attempt to dismiss all knowledge out of hand. The problem with that argument is that it would apply to themselves and their claims as well.

"Doctrines of doubt"? Do you mean skepticism? To the best of my knowledge, I have no unsupported beliefs, including that one. The value of skepticism is empirically demonstrable, and knowing that requires no faith. It reshaped the world and greatly improved the human condition, and it's been invaluable to me personally. It reshaped my life and greatly improved it.


I'm tired of this Leroy. I'm tired of your intellectual shortcomings being framed as my character defects. I'm only willing to discuss that with you at this point, not your religious beliefs.

Doctrines of doubt are for those who have no faith in their creator but can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. They strongly believe that life invented itself via some abiogenesis event.

 

[shunyadragon]

Doctrines of doubt are for those who have no faith in their creator but can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. They strongly believe that life invented itself via some abiogenesis event.

Very poor comprehension of not only the English language but basic high school science.

Natural Laws and processes do not invent anything.

 

[Brian2]

What I asked was, "Is your god conscious? If so, it exists and changes in time as its mental states evolve. Does it create? If so, it exists and acts in time." I don't see your answer in that apart from telling me that I don't know what God changing means. I know what consciousness is - a perception of time and an evolving mental state. You're claiming this god lives outside of time and doesn't change. I'm saying that that is an internally contradictory proposition (incoherent), that as it thinks, time passes and it changes.

If God is thinking as we do then time passes as God thinks but I doubt that we can compare ourselves to God.
But also we have not got a good idea of what timelessness it and what can or cannot be done there.

You originally implied that they know less than others: "A problem we have is that science does not really know what it is talking about when it comes to spirit and timelessness and spacelessness." Now you say nobody knows. OK. That's correct. These are unfalsifiable claims about reality.

Yes.

That's not knowledge as I use the word. That's insufficiently justified belief (faith).

Yes I know.
Your sufficiently justified belief is not my sufficiently justified belief.

I asked you to delineate the differences between things that do exist like wolves and those that don't like werewolves, and that was your reply - a special pleading fallacy. Both I and Tagliatelle Monster gave you the same suggested answer: things that exist [1] occupy space [2] in time and [3] interact with other existing things. The nonexistent do none of them.

What can I say? God is a special case.

 

[blü 2]

Both seem ok to me.
........

Imagine that there are 100 neighbors living in a building and someone left his trash in the lobby.

The intrinsic probability that any specific neighbor did it (say John) is 1%.

In this context any bit of information that makes john more likely to be guilty than 1% would be evidence in favor of the John did it hypothesis

Moving the probability from 1% to 2% would be week relatively evidence

Moving the probability from 1% to 50% would be strong evidence

Moving the probability to 80% is convincing evidence

99.99% conclusive evidence

So in this case, what exactly are we seeking evidence for (or against)?

 

[Brian2]

For example.... take energy.
Did you know that the total amount of energy of the universe can be said to be 0?

Well if an atomic bomb explodes the total amount of energy in the explosion is 0 just as at the BB.
Add it all up vectorially and it is 0.
But maybe the physicists do it a different way.

In any case, the universe can't have a cause. Causality, to the extent it even is a thing, is inherently temporal in nature.
It is not applicable in a setting where time doesn't exist.

As I said, if the cause and effect happened at the same time, T=0, what is the problem.

I would rather not even try because I'll probably do it wrong anyway.
It seems to be related to relativity of time and time dilation through gravity.

To take an extreme example, say that what is like 1 second to some alien in another galaxy, is like 1 million years to someone on this planet that is observed relative to that alien due to some extreme gravity well.
That's enough time for humanity to evolve, go through its entire evolutionary history and go extinct in a nuclear war.

Now... did that alien live simultanously with Julius Ceasar as well as with David Bowie? All in that one second?
What is a "moment"?

It is far above my paygrade. But it seems to me that that is the type of stuff it tries to deal with.

Yes OK maybe if someone getting sucked into a black hole can look at someone further away from the hole, us on earth, and see many of our years go by in one of their seconds. That is easy to understand but does not mean much really except that time goes slower or faster in different places.
But maybe the physicists do it a different way.
Maybe God going at the speed of light can make time stop. Maybe if God goes faster He can go backwards in time. Who knows, who cares.
I wonder if you can travel at the speed of light when time has stopped for you. Well light does it so it can be done. It's all relative to others anyway.
No I'm not stoned, just raving.

 

[Brian2]

I am not misrepresenting you. It was your choice to use the word "scientists". Why else would you do that, if not to draw science into it.

You should have used the word "people" instead.

I used the word initially because I was replying to Ain't Necessarily So's post and his image of deGrasseTyson saying "that is the same definition as the definition for nothing".

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If God is thinking as we do then time passes as God thinks but I doubt that we can compare ourselves to God.

I'm saying that thinking requires time and involves change. You seem to agree. Yet you also claim that God is outside of time and never changes.

we have not got a good idea of what timelessness it and what can or cannot be done there.

You don't? I do. Here's what can be done with no time passing: nothing.

Your sufficiently justified belief is not my sufficiently justified belief.

Yes, I know. We use different rules of inference to connect observation and conclusion. I don't think you have any consistent rules. I don't think that you can write out the steps that connect what you call evidence for your beliefs to those beliefs. Any critical thinker can, and those rules will be the same for the next critical evaluation of other evidence and the same as with other critical thinkers.

What can I say? God is a special case.

But you can't say that to a critical thinker without justifying it. Double standards need to be justified. We have different standards for adults and children regarding driving, drinking, smoking, and the like, and we can justify them. But when we have different standards for men and women in these same areas, we can't justify them. The faithful commonly say the rules don't apply to their gods but can't give a reason why better than, "because he's God." That makes their claim a special pleading fallacy, just as it is when asked why women shouldn't be allowed to drive and the answer is "because they're women".

Doctrines of doubt are for those who have no faith in their creator but can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. They strongly believe that life invented itself via some abiogenesis event.

It would be helpful if you used standard language. I'm reading that as skepticism is for agnostic atheists, who accept the likelihood of naturalistic abiogenesis. If that's what you mean, I don't disagree.

 

[Colt]

Very poor comprehension of not only the English language but basic high school science.

Natural Laws and processes do not invent anything.

You do condescension really well. Natural laws don’t create the “spark of life” life, nor are they minded to improve themselves.

“The mechanistic philosopher professes to reject the idea of a universal and sovereign will, the very sovereign will whose activity in the elaboration of universe laws he so deeply reverences. What unintended homage the mechanist pays the law-Creator when he conceives such laws to be self-acting and self-explanatory!

3:6.5 (53.3) It is a great blunder to humanize God, except in the concept of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, but even that is not so stupid as completely to mechanize the idea of the First Great Source and Center.” UB 1955

 

[Subduction Zone]

Your hability to run away when you are cornered is amazing.

You have never cornered anyone. Why make such obviously false arguments?

Stop claiming that there is not reliable evidence if you are not willing to define what you mean.....,remember you have your own personal language where words have different definitions from their real definitions , this is why you have to define dome terms.

But I gave you a definition. There was a price involved to have it repeated to you. You were not willing to pay the price. If anyone has been running away it is you.

Stop the hypocrisy I have accepted you "reasonable offers" multiple times and you always find am excuse for not defining your terms or explaining your views.

No, you never do that. You always try to strawman the offer.

Here is the challenge
1 define "evidence"
2 explain why doesn't the information in the OP (and his source) qualify as evidence for the resurrection
3 explain how alternaive naturalistic hypothesis do have evidence.

Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. It is time to move on.

Dont worry this is just a joke, nobody in this forum expects you to answer to this challenge.

It was not a challenge. You forgot that you took away your ability to make a challenge. One has to be an honest interlocutor to issue one in the first place.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Crucifixion was a "vague" way to go? Try it yourself! If resurrected, then you will ask for beheading next time!

You missed the point of her post.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I find that definition to be ok, I would only add that such información has to make the proposition more likelly to be true, than without such información)in order to qualify as evidence.......but @Subduction Zone wont accept it, because he has his own language and has his own definitions for words.

Not necessarily. There is plenty of such "evidence" that does nothing or next to nothing to make a claim "more likely".

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

If there is a God and Jesus claimed to be his unique eschatologial agent among other things, then that God has a chance to confirm this or deny it and one way that can happen is resurrecting Jesus.

I don’t see how this follows at all.

 

[paarsurrey]

Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus​

Left Coast said: #8
Because people don't come back alive after being dead for days, as a rule. It's a one way trip. Any claim of some miracle explanation for a phenomenon that violates everything we know about how the world works is going to have automatically very low plausibility.
Apologes said: #10
We know that people don't rise from the dead on their own, true, but here we are talking about God raising someone from the dead. This isn't going against how the world works as its not the laws of nature that are raising the dead but an act of God. On what basis would you assign a low plausibility to God choosing to raise Jesus from the dead a priori?
paarsurrey said: #421
Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah rising from the physical dead is against Sign of Jonah, I (therefore) must say (Jesus did not resurrect at all), as I understand?
Right?

paarsurrey said: #430
Jonah did not die in the belly of the fish so Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah could not and did not die on the Cross or in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, please, right?

paarsurrey said: #449
Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah pegged the Sign of Jonah to be shown to the Jews and the Jews knew as per Book of Jonah that (1) Jonah entered the belly of fish alive, (2)remained alive in the belly of the fish and (3)came out alive from the belly of the fish, so if the Sign was for the Jews then Yeshua had to remain alive and he did remain alive (1) on the Cross, (2) in the tomb where he was laid and (3) afterwards as he was seen by many, please, right?

paarsurrey adds:#476
Since Jonah was a truthful prophet of G-d so applying the same criteria Jesus/Yeshua- the Israelite Messiah was also a truthful prophet, please, right?

• paarsurrey#540
• There are many clues in the Gospels itself that Yeshua- the truthful truthful Messiah did not die on the Cross in the firs place so there is no question of his being resurrected from the dead, please, right?

1. Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah prayed in the garden of Gethsemane most fervently to G-d (whom he used to call God-the-Father) that his life may be saved:

Matthew 36-40
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. 38 Then he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” 39 And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” 40

So G-d willed and accepted Yeshua's prayer to the astonishment of Pauline-Christianity people and saved the life of Yeshua against all the odds, please, right?

Regards

First Clue in the Gospels :“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me "

• #776

So, G-d made it possible to let the cup pass from him. Yeshua's prayer was accepted by G-d.
Right?

Regards

 

[Colt]

" “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me "
So, G-d made it possible to let the cup pass from him. Yeshua's prayer was accepted by G-d.
Right?

Regards

No! The answer was No! The Fathers will was for the Son to lay down his mortal flesh, die for all to see and then return in a new form 3 days later. Jesus accepted his fate and his Fathers will.

 

[joelr]

So your evidence does not support your belief, it is so convincing that your beliefs are facts in your opinion.

I'm confused why you would say this?

But your beliefs/facts start off with the presumption that Jesus did not exist and that is the presumption and belief that means that the New Testament has to be 100% made up. Without that presumption we can see that the New Testament has it's roots in what the Hebrew OT says.

No my beliefs are based on what evidence presents. In the historical NT field there are 2 options, Jesus was a human Rabbi who was later made into a Greek savior demigod in stories OR the Jesus character is completely made up. The NT story about salvation, devils, and God/supernatural things is a myth. It's set in real places and among some real people in the story.

Christainity is a Jewish version of the Hellenistic myth with Persian elements as well. So of course it ties to the OT? Why wouldn't it?

Again, the evidence does support Genesis being a reworked Mesopotamian myth and the NT is a Jewish version of the Greek/Persian trend of mystery religions (local religions with a supreme God and a son/daughter of the god who undergo a passion, sometimes death and resurrection and bring salvation to followers. Members are baptized into the cult, a communal meal is part of the ritual and so on.

The NT is vert different from the OT. They do have some messianic predictions (Persian influence) but Yahweh was a typical Near Eastern deity, Heaven was only for God, souls did not go to heaven or need salvation. Resurrection was bodily and at the end of time after the final battle (Persian myth they used) and the NT resurrection is spiritual, a Greek idea.

If you had evidence that Jesus did not exist then you would not have to make up things about the gospels.

There is good evidence Jesus is completely made up, mostly the lack of evidence for Jesus. Everything else I say about the gospels is standard knowledge in historical academia. Because you attend some church and members may refuse to accept what is known in academia doesn't make your revision of history true. It means they won't accept what the evidence shows because they already have beliefs to uphold and refuse to let go of them.
It's not worth arguing mythicism with a fundamentalist. That is a debate for those who like to dig deep into the history. The consensus in historical fields is Jesus was a human who was mythicized into a demigod in the folktales in the Gospels.

So What About Hannibal, Then? • Richard Carrier Blogs

This kind of argument has been tried again and again and again. I’ve discussed every one. (See Okay, So What about the Historicity of Spartacus?) It’s always of this form: P1. We should not doubt [x] existed. P2. The evidence for Jesus is better than for [x]. P3. The same standards of evidence...

www.richardcarrier.info

All mainstream scholars agree Jesus as demigod is a mythical savior deity. They all agree the Gospels are myths about him. They simply conclude that those myths contain some kernels of fact, and that Jesus was originally not a flying, magic-wielding supergod. But they agree the super-Jesus, the only Jesus about whom we have any accounts at all, didn’t exist. They think some mundane Jesus did, who was dressed up with those legends and beliefs later. But that still admits he belongs to a reference class that the Hannibals of the world do not: that of mythically-attested savior gods who speak to their followers in dreams and visions. So we actually need more evidence for Jesus than we have for Hannibal, to be sure Jesus isn’t just like all other mythical savior gods, who also had amazing stories about them set on earth history, and who also appeared to people in dreams and visions—yet never plausibly existed.

 

[joelr]

Well the OP is building a case for the resurection that only uses verifiable historical facts.

The OP doest presuposes that the new testament is true or even reliable, it only uses the bits of data are are considered to ve true by the majority of scholars.

It isn't a historical document and it isn't reliable. From a NT historian who echoes the consensus in th efield:



Genesis, White Jesus, and Debating the Resurrection (with Dr. Bart Ehrman)

22:50 It has to do with how do you know what happened in the past. Can you say somebody was raised from the dead never to die again? Is that like a historical statement or…it’s a Christian belief, but is it historical? How do you decide what’s historical? How many historians who write books about the 2nd World War claim that the allies won because God intervened at the Battle of the Bulge? If you are going to do it with Jesus how do you justify that?


25:17 No historian (from that time) chronicles any events you find in the Gospels, there are huge historical problems with the Gospels.

26:30 He (Mike Licona) is wrong, the implications that you can prove Christianity to be true are troubling and problematic.

28:23 The Gospel accounts of Jesus resurrecting are not historical and do not pass any historical criteria.
(After this interview Ehrman held a day long debate with Apologist/fundamentalist Mike Licona explaining why the Gospels are not history)

Side note, Licona admitted in a debate that the story about Saints raising from the grave during the resurrection were not literally true. He was immediately fired from the fundamentalist university where he worked.
32:12 Jesus central message was wrong. He believed the end of the world was coming in his own generation, all the forces of evil would be destroyed, resurrection of the dead, kingdom of God would come. (This is a Persian myth, Dr Ehrman doesn’t get into other myths, he just deals with what’s in the Gospels and it’s OT origins)

 

[joelr]

Here is the challenge
1 define "evidence"
2 explain why doesn't the information in the OP (and his source) qualify as evidence for the resurrection
3 explain how alternaive naturalistic hypothesis do have evidence.

Then let a NT historian say it.
"Critical scholars recognize sources are not reliable and one must be skeptical to get history from them."

Most People Have No Clue What The Gospels Are!

10:09 Did the disciples write the Gospels, no, historical evidence says no. There are very good reasons how this is known. They do not claim to be eyewitnesses and written by very high level Greek writing. The illiterate people in the story were not the writers.


12:35 Did the Gospel authors care about what actually happened. -


The Gospels contain historical information and they contain legendary information.

14:40 Can we trust the canonical Gospels? Gospels date probably from 40-65 years after Jesus death. NT writers would not have known eyewitnesses but may have sources who knew stories.

These stories have been passed down for many many years. Each writer probably thought they were writing the “one” Gospel.

wwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klf7rbYsXzg&t=203s


1:45 Critical scholars recognize sources are not reliable and one must be skeptical to get history from them.


1:57 The Gospels are not pretending to be history, they are making some proclamation about Jesus. So to read them just as history is a bit silly, it’s like trying to read David Copperfield as history. You can get some history out of that but…it’s fiction.


The Gospels have legend in them. They are important books and not without some history.

3:04 There are atheist scholars, like me. You don’t just trash works because of legends. You try to find out what’s history.

3:45 Fundamentalists say “there can be nothing wrong in the Gospels”, conspirators atheists say “there can be nothing right”, both sides are not correct.


4:55 What scholars do is analyze the sayings of Jesus and try to figure out what is real or fiction.

7:10 Storytellers were making up sayings for Jesus after his death.

 

[joelr]

And even more important .....you are refusing to provide (and develop) an alternative explanation for the resurrection which is the topic of the OP.

Again, let a different historian explain the resurrection.


“What traits did Christianity share with other mystery religions or cults of the first century?”


At the time that Christianity began you have to understand that the whole Mediterranean was being influenced by Hellenism. A lot of Hellenistic ideas going through all the cultures - Syrians, Anatolians, Jews, Egyptians….

Trends are going around, one particular trend was the mystery religions that spread. There was a variety of these religions. Every national culture that came under the influence of Hellenism developed their own version of the mystery religion. Every one is different because you take the local religion and combine it with Hellenism. Osiris and Isis in Egypt, Adonis in Syria, Thracians has Zalmoxis cult, all these different religions, you see Savior Gods, they are not the Supreme God, they are a demigod/child of God. They are savior figures and undergo some sort of struggle or suffering, sometimes a death and resurrection. Through that Passion they gain victory over death and share that with their followers.

This is done through the followers sharing communion, common meals and baptism.

These religions are very cosmopolitan - uniting all races and genders, everyone is part of a fictive kin group. Syncretism is another feature, you have a core model and each religion creates something new. Individualism -original pagan cults were communal for the benefit of crops or people as a collective. The mystery cults were all about personal salvation - getting a good place in the afterlife.

They are also Henotheistic. One supreme God and all other Gods are subordinate and created by him. Judaism is henotheism, lesser deities not called Gods but has angels, demons, devil and hierarchy of deities.

Judea was the latecomer of this religion. Consciously or unconsciously they are influenced by this model and trend. They develop their own version of this mystery religion, it’s very Jewish but conforms to the new trends. They make them Jewish and sell them as Jewish “this has always been Gods plan”.

Christianity starts out as this Hellenized Jewish offshoot sect. Originally you had to become a Jew to join. Paul comes along and realizes he could be a big figure in this cult and realizes it could be more popular if the Jewish requirements were lowered. This led to the shift into a more Gentile religion.

Judaism in the 1st century had about 9 known sects so they were already experimenting with changes, no surprise that Christianity pops up.

Christianity uses common Essenes Jewish wisdom. Hillite wisdom also shows up in Christianity so there are fragments of many Jewish sects written into the Gospels. We cannot say for sure if Christianity was an offshoot of Essenes or combinations of sects.


10:50 - no free Gospels, they all use Mark as a source, even John.

12:30 - where Mark explains he’s making a mystery religion “these are the mysteries of God I’m telling you”