Historicity of Claimed Miracles

[roger1440]

In 1973 George Davis was instantly healed of a heart condition at a Kathryn Kuhlman Christian service.
A pacemaker was placed inside his body several months before. As well as being healed the incision scar dissappeared from his body and the pacemaker disappered fron inside him.
His surgeon was so upset by what happened he had him examined by a group of seven cardiologists one from the medical board at Harvard. They had no explanation except "its the strangest case weve ever seen"

Davis appeared on national television, was interviewed by newspapers and written about in Kuhlmans biography making it wide open for investigation and to be disproven. If anyone tried they have remained very silent about the results.

One of his doctors Dr Geoge Johnston of Philadelphis stated"I can confirm Davis had a heart attack, that a pacemaker was placed in his body and that now the pacemaker and the five-inch incision scar are gone. Its all in the record"

If you put "faith healer pacemaker miracle kuhlman" in google search the first item should be a newspaper article from September 1973 where he was interviewed by the Baltimore Afro American.

I did a search as you suggested, only one site come up.
Baltimore Afro-American - Google News Archive Search
Do you know of any other sites?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Oh, yes. That is indeed my argument.

You have answered that there are thousands of tombs which aren't made into shrines.

Which makes no sense. No one rose alive from those thousands of tombs, did they?

And thats exactly why I said if my grandmother was raised from her grave, I wouldn't make a shrine out of her burial site. There is just no point, in my opinion.

But someone did rise from Jesus' tomb... so the story goes.

So I'm asking why no one even remembered the location of that very special tomb.

They didn't forget, they just didn't do it. And as I said to another, even if they did, all you would do is ask "how do we know that this is where Jesus was actually buried??" So it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

And thats exactly why I said if my grandmother was raised from her grave, I wouldn't make a shrine out of her burial site. There is just no point, in my opinion.

Even if you considered your grandmother to be God Incarnate, with a new religion growing up around her within weeks or months of her death and resurrection?

They didn't forget, they just didn't do it. And as I said to another, even if they did, all you would do is ask "how do we know that this is where Jesus was actually buried??" So it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

Nonsense. Do you know anyone who asks, "How do we know that this is the actual location of the Alamo?"

No. It's been preserved since the events that happened there.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Now you’re being facetious.

Am I?

There’s no lapse of memory, it is one of my favourite arguments.
Mines too. And I’ve reviewed all of our discussions on the Ontological Argument and some of my objections and counter arguments don’t appear to have had a proper reply.

Well, I beg to differ. Not only do I think I responded properly, but I think I refuted everything you said in regards to the OA, and of course I don't expect you to agree with me.

I’m sorry but I don’t know what you mean by ‘in the box’?

In the PM box.

That is a diversionary straw man. I don’t believe-in those things you mention, and certainly not in the same way as your committed belief-as-faith. I only believe-that evolutionary theory is probable until and unless it is proved otherwise or corrected, which it might be.

So you don't believe in the supernatural, and you also don't believe in abiogenesis? I won't even push you to an explanation for this because I know, just like other times, you are going to respond and leave me with more questions than I would like to ask. So forget this ever came up.

It isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool world view that allows absolutely nothing to count against it in any respect, quite unlike religious dogma. Now back to the point, the concept and the very account of the risen Christ is utterly dependent upon a miracle of the dead coming back to life but if miracles are a fact as the Bible would have us believe, then why are there no modern day resurrections (as opposed to resuscitations)?

That is a personal question that you would have to ask the one that is the ultimate source of miracles, God himself. If God exist can he raise more people from the dead? Absolutely. Why doesn't he? I don't know. Maybe because he just doesn't want to.

And as I’ve already mentioned, there are not even any instances of limbs growing back or dead tissue being regenerated, never mind cases like the parting of the Red Sea or dead bodies standing up and walking after four days (Lazarus).

And?

That’s not the point. If this is history, as theists insist on telling us, then all those graves opening is of enormous historical importance.

And Jesus' Resurrection is even more important.

Perhaps! It seems likely that it was done to emphasize and venerate the magnitude the whole affair.

That is your opinion. To me it seems likely that it was done because it was the truth, and he simply mentioned what happened.

So they claim, or believe!

So once again, do you believe that the disciples BELIEVED that they saw the risen Jesus? Yes or no?

So that might not have been true either?

Im not sure how that follows.

I believe it says the graves were ‘opened’. Matthew’s words appear to describe events as they were happening, rather than giving an account of events after they had occurred. ‘The saints which slept arose’. And we are told the men ‘went into the holy city’ and not ‘the men came into the holy city’.

As they were happening? So are you suggesting he was standing right by the graves with a pen and pad in his hand writing stuff down as it occurred?

Matthew is speaking as if those things were seen to happen as they occurred and not merely as conjecture linking the discovery of empty graves and the saints strolling into the city unannounced.

Wowww that is quite a radical interpretation you have there, cot.

But equally this story could have been contrived to sensationalize further the other more significant event that supposedly occurred that day, and hence we have no witnesses in either case.

If you won't believe in the Resurrection of Jesus despite the fact that it has been historically claimed that he was seen by his followers and also others (which would make them witnesses), then it is unlikely you would believe in the resurrection of these other men, even if the event was recorded in the other Gospels.

Betrayal and death, I’m not at all surprised that he could see that coming due to the enmity that his preaching caused in certain quarters.

Yeah, even MLK had a feeling he would be killed because of his message, but he didn't know when and by who. Jesus knew who would betray him, when they would betray him, and even how long it would be before his Resurrection (3 days).

And the Resurrection is the very point in question, which some may have decided to make happen after Jesus’ death – at least as far as appearances are concerned.

Did the disciples believe that they saw the risen Jesus?

Yes, quite! And that’s why I say the graves opening is also a fiction, an embellishment to create a sense of awe and magnitude in Jesus’ supposed resurrection, all the greater to convince people to believe it happened.

Ok, that is your interpretation of it. I disagree.

His body was removed and buried elsewhere.

Ok, that explains the empty tomb, but that doesn't explain the disciples beliefs in the post-mortem appearances.

 

[Nakosis]

Even if you considered your grandmother to be God Incarnate, with a new religion growing up around her within weeks or months of her death and resurrection?



Nonsense. Do you know anyone who asks, "How do we know that this is the actual location of the Alamo?"

No. It's been preserved since the events that happened there.

Seems likely that Jesus was not considered a person of any consequence during his life. "God" walked among us and no one noticed.

If Rome had not adopted Christianity and made it into a political tool? Perhaps another religious movement that few would even know of today.

However his teachings were preserved and what he taught did change the world. I think much of what he taught is important and worthy of consideration.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Even if you considered your grandmother to be God Incarnate, with a new religion growing up around her within weeks or months of her death and resurrection?

Not me, no.

Nonsense. Do you know anyone who asks, "How do we know that this is the actual location of the Alamo?"

No but if there were skeptics around town who doubt that the battle of the Alamo ever took place, that is EXACTLY what I would expect to be asked.

No. It's been preserved since the events that happened there.

We care less about the preservation of the tomb, and more about the preservation of the message. The message was preserved, that is all that matters. Plus we have external biblical sources that tell us that Jesus was crucified, so it isn't a matter of if Jesus lived/died or not...your concern is whether or not the tomb would have been preserved as a shrine of some sort...but the fact of the matter is, such a thing was just not necessary.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Seems likely that Jesus was not considered a person of any consequence during his life. "God" walked among us and no one noticed.

So a person has more followers after his death than he did when he was alive. Now that is what you call POWER.

If Rome had not adopted Christianity and made it into a political tool? Perhaps another religious movement that few would even know of today.

Foolishness. Christianity was already out of control in Rome at least 200 years before Constantine became emperor.

However his teachings were preserved and what he taught did change the world. I think much of what he taught is important and worthy of consideration.

Now this is what I can live with :yes:

 

[allright]

This sounds interesting but do you have any information beyond the one article in a small newspaper?

I've tried google.

Kathrine Kuhlsman autobiography

He aslo appeared on her national television show. dont know if
copies are around

 

[outhouse]

In 1973 George Davis was instantly healed of a heart condition at a Kathryn Kuhlman Christian service.
A pacemaker was placed inside his body several months before. As well as being healed the incision scar dissappeared from his body and the pacemaker disappered fron inside him.
His surgeon was so upset by what happened he had him examined by a group of seven cardiologists one from the medical board at Harvard. They had no explanation except "its the strangest case weve ever seen"

Davis appeared on national television, was interviewed by newspapers and written about in Kuhlmans biography making it wide open for investigation and to be disproven. If anyone tried they have remained very silent about the results.

One of his doctors Dr Geoge Johnston of Philadelphis stated"I can confirm Davis had a heart attack, that a pacemaker was placed in his body and that now the pacemaker and the five-inch incision scar are gone. Its all in the record"

If you put "faith healer pacemaker miracle kuhlman" in google search the first item should be a newspaper article from September 1973 where he was interviewed by the Baltimore Afro American.

There is nothing there that is credible evidence.


And if it happened once, it should be happening all the time. Sorry I don't see anything that could viewed as a miracle, nor used as evidence towards one.



Not only that kuhlman has no credibility.

Kathryn Kuhlman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


others would suggest that she was a false prophet, exercising a "spirit" that masqueraded as God

Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute, considering Kuhlman to be an influential forerunner of a false Christianity that robs people of their money and propagates a distorted substitute of true Christian teachings.



Following a 1967 fellowship in Philadelphia, Dr. William A. Nolen conducted a case study of 23 people who claimed to have been cured during her services.[3][4][5][6] Nolen's long term follow-ups concluded that there were no cures in those cases. One woman who was said to have been cured of spinal cancer threw away her brace and ran across the stage at Kuhlman's command; her spine collapsed the next day, according to Nolen, and she died four months later

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Seems likely that Jesus was not considered a person of any consequence during his life. "God" walked among us and no one noticed.

If Rome had not adopted Christianity and made it into a political tool? Perhaps another religious movement that few would even know of today.

However his teachings were preserved and what he taught did change the world. I think much of what he taught is important and worthy of consideration.

Actually I think it most likely that no real, identifiable Jesus existed and that the teachings accrued slowly as the NT writers went about their work.

Just my opinion.

 

[allright]

There is nothing there that is credible evidence.


And if it happened once, it should be happening all the time. Sorry I don't see anything that could viewed as a miracle, nor used as evidence towards one.



Not only that kuhlman has no credibility.

Kathryn Kuhlman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


others would suggest that she was a false prophet, exercising a "spirit" that masqueraded as God

Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute, considering Kuhlman to be an influential forerunner of a false Christianity that robs people of their money and propagates a distorted substitute of true Christian teachings.



Following a 1967 fellowship in Philadelphia, Dr. William A. Nolen conducted a case study of 23 people who claimed to have been cured during her services.[3][4][5][6] Nolen's long term follow-ups concluded that there were no cures in those cases. One woman who was said to have been cured of spinal cancer threw away her brace and ran across the stage at Kuhlman's command; her spine collapsed the next day, according to Nolen, and she died four months later

There are over 200 healings confirmed by the healed persons doctors

Hank Hangraaf never even spoke to Katherine Kuhlman His charges are uninformed slander
They accused Jesus of performing miracles by the power of Satan.
The last refuge of someone determined to avoid the truth at all costs
In doing so they both confirm the miracles are real
"If you have something against your brother go and speak with him"


Dr Nolen appeared on television with another doctor who brought medical proof X-Rays etc to verify people healed of incurable diseases at Kuhlsmans services. Nolen's reply when he was given the proof he was seeking
"I still cant accept it"
Dr Nolen research was a short slop job. Nothing was going to convince him.

Give me one example out of the dozens of people whose healings were published in her books who was later shown not to have been healed including George Davis

 

[outhouse]

There are over 200 healings confirmed by the healed persons doctors

Hank Hangraaf never even spoke to Katherine Kuhlman His charges are uninformed slander
They accused Jesus of performing miracles by the power of Satan.
The last refuge of someone determined to avoid the truth at all costs
In doing so they both confirm the miracles are real
"If you have something against your brother go and speak with him"


Dr Nolen appeared on television with another doctor who brought medical proof X-Rays etc to verify people healed of incurable diseases at Kuhlsmans services. Nolen's reply when he was given the proof he was seeking
"I still cant accept it"
Dr Nolen research was a short slop job. Nothing was going to convince him.

Give me one example out of the dozens of people whose healings were published in her books who was later shown not to have been healed including George Davis

Sir

it is on you to provide credible CREDIBLE evidence. Not some apologetic doctor who sided with a scam artist.


You cannot prove she wasn't a scam artist let alone healed anyone.

Mt friend, that is all pseudoscience your producing.

 

[outhouse]

Nothing was going to convince him.

It sounds like nothing will convince you.


But we are beyond convincing, we are dealing with credible evidence.




If this was true, then why isn't there tons of credible evidence?

 

[roger1440]

In 1973 George Davis was instantly healed of a heart condition at a Kathryn Kuhlman Christian service.
A pacemaker was placed inside his body several months before. As well as being healed the incision scar dissappeared from his body and the pacemaker disappered fron inside him.
His surgeon was so upset by what happened he had him examined by a group of seven cardiologists one from the medical board at Harvard. They had no explanation except "its the strangest case weve ever seen"

Davis appeared on national television, was interviewed by newspapers and written about in Kuhlmans biography making it wide open for investigation and to be disproven. If anyone tried they have remained very silent about the results.

One of his doctors Dr Geoge Johnston of Philadelphis stated"I can confirm Davis had a heart attack, that a pacemaker was placed in his body and that now the pacemaker and the five-inch incision scar are gone. Its all in the record"

If you put "faith healer pacemaker miracle kuhlman" in google search the first item should be a newspaper article from September 1973 where he was interviewed by the Baltimore Afro American.

How is it none of the major news agencies in the United States picked up on the story. ABC, CBS, NBC has nothing. Neither does Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, US News & World Report has anything. There must have been a reason none of these agencies found the story news worthy. Maybe this sort of thing happens often and it would have been a waste of print. I’m no expert on miracles, but I’m a little suspicious one only one newspaper does a report on the story. A newspaper with a small circulation at that.

 

[Copernicus]

Not every instance? So some aspects of the statue drinking milk can be explained, but other aspects of the statue drinking milk can't be explained? ...Siddhartha Guatama never performed any miracles...It is common knowledge that Muhammad never performed miracles in the Quran, Cop.

I actually share your skepticism of those miracles, but I wanted you to express your skepticism, because that underscores the point I wanted to make about miracles. A great many Buddhists and Muslims do attribute miracles to their objects of worship. You can argue with them over how likely it is their miracles were, but you must agree that people of faith invent miracles all the time and attribute them to holy figures. So there is no reason to assume that the Christian ones reported in NT scripture were not similarly invented.

And where has it ever been argued that Jesus' body was returned to his family?

The Romans usually did not allow those executed for treason to be released to anyone.

Cmon now, cut the crap. Even if the bible recorded the exact location of Jesus' tomb, you would be on here saying "How do we know that this is the location of the tomb??? Just because the bible says it is doesn't make it true". The same way you are raising these objections and doubts about other things, this whole "tomb location" business would be added amongsts the other list of things you are skeptical about. So don't make it seem as if the location of the tomb is this big missing link between your belief and non-belief.

All I said was that the location of such a tomb, given the importance of the resurrection story, would have been something that one would expect Christians to have preserved.

No we don't have the same evidence that those other Gospels were written by the people named in their titles. The early Church apparently felt as if these books were uninspired and I happen to agree...

Good. You accept that people made up such "gospels" and falsely associated them with the names of important figures.

I am relying on what the devout believers of the early church said, not people who are making educated guesses some 2,000 years later. There is no known writings of the early church bickering about who wrote the Gospels. They purposely included the book of Matthew because according to them, it was written by Matthew, tax collector, and disciple of Jesus. They said that of the 12 disciples, two of them wrote Gospels about Jesus, and of all of the 12, one had a disciple named Mark that wrote a Gospel about Jesus, and one man named Luke who was a companion of Paul (former skeptic), wrote a Gospel about Jesus. So of the four Gospels, two weren't even authored by disciples of Jesus, so obviously there is nothing to lie about....now why is that so hard to believe/accept?

Why? Because these were not objective observers. So why should it surprise you that there aren't records of "bickering about who wrote the Gospels"? For such records to exist, they would have needed to be preserved through the filter of the centuries-old copying process.

Well Mark was a disiple of Peter, and last I checked, Peter would be a good source to get information from, considering he was Jesus' right hand man and all. Second, the book of Matthew has wayyy more chapters than Mark does, so there is only so much "relying on Mark" that could have been done.

There is an interesting trend here. Most scholars take Mark to be the earliest Gospel, and John the latest. The trend is for the story to get more and more elaborate in details as the record gets further from the time of the original events. In other words, there is an apparent trend of embellishment, with later authors seeking to "improve" and "refine" the message of earlier accounts. Ehrman makes a very interesting case that each Gospel author had somewhat different theological concepts that they wanted to get across. So they sometimes altered the details of the older stories in order to make their points more effective to the audience.

So what? If every canonical Gospel was exactly the same, word for word, we wouldn't need all four now, would we? Each wrote from a different perspective, as you said, but nevertheless all four agree that Jesus lived, was crucifed, buried, and rose from the dead 3 days later.

Their consistency is easily attributed to the desire of the orthodox movement (and Irenaeus's seminal role in it) to promote a consistent Christian doctrine. That is why they cherry-picked those four gospels from the myriad of other choices.

Easy to confuse people? Paul became converted after Jesus spoke to him personally. He wasn't going by what he was told from others (at first).

How would you know that? Is it impossible to believe that his visions were caused by mental illness? Or that they were misinterpreted dreams? Or that he made stuff up to impress people with his divine revelations? There are all kinds of possibilities that do not require belief in divine revelation, yet you choose to focus on just one possibility.

Paul may have been silent on the life of Jesus, but he wasn't silent on the Resurrection of Jesus. The point was not to talk about Jesus' life, but his Resurrection, and also how we should live our lives.

He was certainly silent on the details of that "resurrection". Given that the Gospel of Peter was suppressed as docetic heresy, is it possible that Paul, who was allegedly part of Peter's cult, also believed in docetism? Of course, this would not have seemed possible to those who rejected docetism as heresy, so how difficult would it have been for them to believe that any records to the contrary were considered apocryphal? If what you see contradicts your most cherished beliefs, how do you handle it? Not everyone sees it as a refutation of faith.

Wait a minute, this is funny lol. "They had no way to know or verify what Christians were saying, because they were writing many decades after the death of Jesus"....yet, scholars of today act as authorites on matters concerning history and write books CENTURIES later after most events that they write about...and yet in a above quote you were telling me about the "scholarly" opinion of today? Taxi cab fallacy.

Scholars of today have much better tools to explore and analyze data. The people who left records back then were neither scholars by current standards nor in possession of the tools that we have today. Scholars today work on the information that is available to them, not the say-so of ancient writers, who were known not to be consistently reliable.

Wait a minute once again, Jospheus work was called Antiquities of the Jews, and he lived during a time at which the early Christians were being persecuted and killed by the Roman emperor Nero, so Jospheus knew EXACTLY what Christians were saying, so you are just completely wrong.

Er, not exactly. Nero died in 68. Josephus was not a Roman citizen, but a Jewish rebel, at the time. He was captured and liberated by Vespasian, who adopted him in 69. After that, he was a Roman citizen, who wrote for a Roman audience about Jewish history. Basically, his good fortune stemmed from his early claim that divine revelation from the Jewish God predicted that Vespasian would become emperor, which--surprise, surprise--he did. So Vespasian gave him his freedom, because he was obviously a true prophet. Anyway, the passages in Josephus that refer to Christ are quite controversial, because there is some reason to believe that some, or all, of them were forged by Christian scribes. Again, at best, they only attest to the existence of Christians, not the veracity of their doctrine.

Wait a minute, so their writings aren't good enough to "know or verify what Christians were saying", but their writings are good enough to "testify to the existence of people that worshipped Christ". Makes no sense. Second, you do a horrible job of trying to downplay the fact that each one mentions refers to Jesus and speak of him as a man that existed in the first century AD.

First, those writers did absolutely nothing to endorse Christian doctrine. They may or may not have believed that Christ was a real person, but they had no way of knowing. Tacitus certainly did not cite any Roman records backing up the assumption. Moreover, it is entirely possible that the few words--passing references in Tacitus--were inserted by Christian scribes, since we no longer have the autographs. It is quite possible that, given the claims of Christians about the historical execution, Romans simply accepted the claim uncritically that Christ had really existed. How would they know otherwise?

Yeah the famous interpolation passage regarding the reference of Jesus in Jospehus' work. If you omit the interpolation, you still have the historical Jesus. No harm done here.

False. All you have is acceptance of the claims that Christians existed and that their claims of a historical Jesus might be true. This is not evidence of historicity, but of belief in historicity. At best.

That does not even begin to explain how your God is distinguished from all those gods you believe to be false.

Yes it does. If my God is the Judeo-Christian God, then how can it not?

How? Easy. You are begging the question.

 

[yoda89]

Miracle is just another word for something we wish to give attributes. When we truly do not understand its causes or implications. Some things we may never understand given there date of occurrence and the level of understanding at the time. Others never even happened.

 

[allright]

Sir

it is on you to provide credible CREDIBLE evidence. Not some apologetic doctor who sided with a scam artist.


You cannot prove she wasn't a scam artist let alone healed anyone.

Mt friend, that is all pseudoscience your producing.

There are over 200 hundred medically verified healings all confirmed by their doctors.
Many appeared on her national television program with their doctors.
I repeat again please show me even one that was shown not to be true

 

[cottage]

Well, I beg to differ. Not only do I think I responded properly, but I think I refuted everything you said in regards to the OA, and of course I don't expect you to agree with me.

Then I do think we need to revisit some of those arguments.

In the PM box.

Why are you keen to exclude the public from seeing or contributing to the discussion? We can either continue the in a new thread or pick up where we left off in ‘The battle of evolution and creationism’?

That is a personal question that you would have to ask the one that is the ultimate source of miracles, God himself. If God exist can he raise more people from the dead? Absolutely. Why doesn't he? I don't know. Maybe because he just doesn't want to.

You must admit it seems terribly convenient that God no longer brings about miracles now we’re in a less superstitious age, with instant communication all over the world and access to medical and scientific knowledge, which would have seemed miraculous to those of the biblical era. The RC Church still records miracles but they’re lightweight compared with nature being controlled and folk jumping out of graves all over the place the way it apparently happened two-thousand years ago.

And?

What do you mean ‘And’? You’ve chopped a sentence out of the paragraph; if you reinstate it then I’m sure the relevance will become apparent.

And Jesus' Resurrection is even more important.

Well of course, but that’s quite beside the point that I’m making, which is that with all those cadavers wandering about it would have had a historical impact that went far beyond those who are disposed to mysticism and religious beliefs. But of course it isn’t history, its theology. Scientists and biologists aren’t scratching their heads over the claim and school children don’t learn about The Day the Graves Opened in history discussions. It’s just a faith based subject, and a trivial one for believers: a load of dead people hiking their way to the city is irrelevant compared with the Resurrection, the main object of their belief. But from a historical and scientific perspective it is a case of life from non-life, the very thing that theists say cannot happen!

That is your opinion. To me it seems likely that it was done because it was the truth, and he simply mentioned what happened.

So who saw the holy men come into the city; who were the witnesses? And did the holy men remain alive, or did they return to their graves?

So once again, do you believe that the disciples BELIEVED that they saw the risen Jesus? Yes or no?

I’m not sure. Either they believed it was Jesus, whether or not it was Jesus; or they were complicit in a ruse; or the testimonies of the Evangelists are copies of copies that were enhanced or otherwise not faithfully reproduced.

As they were happening? So are you suggesting he was standing right by the graves with a pen and pad in his hand writing stuff down as it occurred

No, of course I’m not, but that’s how he tells it. And that’s why it looks like fabrication.

Wowww that is quite a radical interpretation you have there, cot.

But that is how it reads.

If you won't believe in the Resurrection of Jesus despite the fact that it has been historically claimed that he was seen by his followers and also others (which would make them witnesses), then it is unlikely you would believe in the resurrection of these other men, even if the event was recorded in the other Gospels.

As I’ve said, in historical terms the coming to life of many dead saints is more miraculous and of greater importance than the controversy concerning an empty tomb and witness statements of those claiming a miracle in the case of one individual, regardless of the hysteria that followed him.

Yeah, even MLK had a feeling he would be killed because of his message, but he didn't know when and by who. Jesus knew who would betray him, when they would betray him, and even how long it would be before his Resurrection (3 days).

So it is written.

Did the disciples believe that they saw the risen Jesus?

That’s a good question. Perhaps they wanted to believe they did.

Ok, that explains the empty tomb, but that doesn't explain the disciples beliefs in the post-mortem appearances.

I’ve answered this already, further up the page.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You can argue with them over how likely it is their miracles were, but you must agree that people of faith invent miracles all the time and attribute them to holy figures. So there is no reason to assume that the Christian ones reported in NT scripture were not similarly invented.

Not even close, cop :no:

The Romans usually did not allow those executed for treason to be released to anyone.

Released to anyone like who? Either way, the body had to be taken down and someone had to retrieve it, right? Whether to the Roman authorities or otherwise.

All I said was that the location of such a tomb, given the importance of the resurrection story, would have been something that one would expect Christians to have preserved.

Maybe, maybe not. That is highly subjective. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I can't see why someone would preserve it, under those circumstances, but it is not a shock to me as to why it wasn't preserved.

Good. You accept that people made up such "gospels" and falsely associated them with the names of important figures.

That may be true, but all cases are not equal. And I don't see how Mark, and Luke were considered "important figures", especially not more important than Peter or maybe Mary.

Why? Because these were not objective observers. So why should it surprise you that there aren't records of "bickering about who wrote the Gospels"? For such records to exist, they would have needed to be preserved through the filter of the centuries-old copying process.

Paul was an objective observer, and his message in 1Corin 15:3-7 corroborates the most important message in all the Gospels, and that was that Jesus lived, died, was buried, and raised on the third and appeared to the disciples and even Paul himself. Paul received this message and wrote about it before the Gospels were even made, yet the Gospels corroborate this message?? Hmmm.

There is an interesting trend here. Most scholars take Mark to be the earliest Gospel, and John the latest. The trend is for the story to get more and more elaborate in details as the record gets further from the time of the original events. In other words, there is an apparent trend of embellishment, with later authors seeking to "improve" and "refine" the message of earlier accounts.

Well I don't know about getting "more and more elaborate in details". If Matthew borrowed from Mark, and if he wanted to give his own independent account, we should expect parallels from Mark, and also material that Mark didn't cover.

Their consistency is easily attributed to the desire of the orthodox movement (and Irenaeus's seminal role in it) to promote a consistent Christian doctrine. That is why they cherry-picked those four gospels from the myriad of other choices.

That still doesn't account for the letters of Paul, and we have good reasons to believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written well after the first century AD, even after the Gospel of John.

How would you know that? Is it impossible to believe that his visions were caused by mental illness? Or that they were misinterpreted dreams?

No, because even James, brother of Jesus, became converted after the appearances...so we have two former skeptics that were converted because of the appearances. So I guess James would have had a mental illness or a misinterpreted dream as well?

Or that he made stuff up to impress people with his divine revelations? There are all kinds of possibilities that do not require belief in divine revelation, yet you choose to focus on just one possibility.

Impress people with what? The man went from a life of persecuting the early church, having a high position in the Jewish community...to a life of being beaten, imprisoned, and possibly martyred. I am not sure how that would impress people.

He was certainly silent on the details of that "resurrection".

He said that Jesus resurrected and appeared to more than 500 people? How is that silent on the Resurrection?

Of course, this would not have seemed possible to those who rejected docetism as heresy, so how difficult would it have been for them to believe that any records to the contrary were considered apocryphal? If what you see contradicts your most cherished beliefs, how do you handle it? Not everyone sees it as a refutation of faith.

It would be nice to have scriptural evidence to support either Paul's or Peter's belief in docetism. Peter gave no indication of this belief in the book of Acts, so where is it coming from? From uninspired heathens.

Scholars of today have much better tools to explore and analyze data. The people who left records back then were neither scholars by current standards nor in possession of the tools that we have today. Scholars today work on the information that is available to them, not the say-so of ancient writers, who were known not to be consistently reliable.

So what are these magical "tools" that the scholars of today have that people back then didn't have. I will trust the words of those that are living 100 years after the fact, than the words of people that are living 2,000 years after the fact. It is a double standard, actually. The Gospels are often critisized for allegedly having been written so many years after Jesus' death...which is like a newsflash compared to those living today writing books and popular journals regarding events that happened 2,000 years after the fact, yet no one says anything about this. Swept under the rug. But it is so hard to believe that at least two Gospels were written by FRIENDS of the disciples? Critics can't even grant that???? Not the disciples, but FRIENDS of the disciples....can't even get that much?? It is a double standard, and quite pathetic, in my opinion.

Er, not exactly. Nero died in 68.

And the fire which lead to the persecution of early Christians occurred in 64.

Anyway, the passages in Josephus that refer to Christ are quite controversial, because there is some reason to believe that some, or all, of them were forged by Christian scribes. Again, at best, they only attest to the existence of Christians, not the veracity of their doctrine.

Yeah, the passages in Josephus were controversial, at one point in time. But now, it is pretty much known and accepted that part of the passage was interpolated. But if you omit the obvious interpolations, you still have a historical Jesus, and Christians can live with that. And if you omit the interpolation, you don't have a doctrine of Christ, you are left with the historicity of a man named Jesus who is the central figure in the religion of Christianity. So again, Christians can live with that.

First, those writers did absolutely nothing to endorse Christian doctrine.

Oh, I agree. But they do endorse the fact that Jesus lived in the first century AD, which is more than most of you people (and skeptics in general) would like to admit.

They may or may not have believed that Christ was a real person, but they had no way of knowing.

Both said that he was put to death by Pilate, cop. And we know that Pilate was a real person. So if they didn't believe that Christ was a real person or had no way of knowing, why would they claim that Pilate put him to death. Tacitus was certainly in a position to know about the political stuff that was going on in the past.

Tacitus certainly did not cite any Roman records backing up the assumption.

So what? The fire that Tacitus mentions is historical, and since Nero blamed the Christians, Tacitus briefly mentioned Christ, since he was the ultimate origin of these group of people and their beliefs. It is all in context, cop.

Moreover, it is entirely possible that the few words--passing references in Tacitus--were inserted by Christian scribes, since we no longer have the autographs.

Oh please. The man mentions Christ ONE time, very briefly, without mentioning any doctrinely related stuff about him, and you can't even give him that much??? My goodness man. Going through great leaps and bounds here, aren't you?

It is quite possible that, given the claims of Christians about the historical execution, Romans simply accepted the claim uncritically that Christ had really existed. How would they know otherwise?

No because Paul was alive during that time and in that region, and he also mentions James, brother of Jesus...and if Jesus had a brother, he must of existed.

False. All you have is acceptance of the claims that Christians existed and that their claims of a historical Jesus might be true. This is not evidence of historicity, but of belief in historicity. At best.

:no: There are only certain parts of it that historians believe are interpolated. If you take out the interpolations, which are quite obvious, actually..you will get a historical Jesus. Even the most radical skeptics of Christianity admit that Jesus is a historical figure in history..the man existed in history...even Bart Erhman, the man you cited above admits that Jesus existed in history.

How? Easy. You are begging the question.

No I am not...I said "if". I didn't say "since".

 

[outhouse]

There are over 200 hundred medically verified healings all confirmed by their doctors.
Many appeared on her national television program with their doctors.
I repeat again please show me even one that was shown not to be true

The doctors were apologist working with the supposed healer.


There is nothing there that is credible evidence.

There is nothing there that science would look at.



There is nothing verified to be true. If I lay hands on someone and they get better with time, is it a miracle too?