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The Resurrection is it provable?

Sheldon

Veteran Member
What i think is often overlooked in these discussions is that even if we had signed and thumb printed testimonies of those who knew Jesus that he rose from the dead all that would evidence is that they were most probably liars owing to the non-repeatable nature of the resurrection experiment.

For Jesus to prove that He could resurrect people He would have to prove it to each generation by actually doing it for each generation and allowing us all to personally be witnesses.

In my opinion.

I agree, the extraordinary nature of the claim, that defies natural and scientific laws, would need a lot more than subjective unevidenced claims from people to have witnessed something extraordinary they couldn't explain, even from an otherwise reliable and confirmed source.

I have point ted this out in previous discussions of the resurrection. The response is usually accusations of bias, as if people accept these kind of claims all the time, when the opposite is true.
 
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Sheldon

Veteran Member
Most scholars accept that

1 Paul Jonh and the Mark , are independent sources

Of course Paul is not an independent source, and the other gospels are anonymous, so you are simply making wild assumptions about the source(s).

2 the gospels and Paul where written by "fist generation " Christians

The author of the Harry Potter books is alive and well, this doesn't make the magic she imagines in the books real.

3 Paul and the Authors of the gospels honestly reported what they thoureaññy happened

Who cares what Paul believed, people believe all sorts of false things, and again the gospels are anonymous, so your claim is absurd.


Claiming that the authors of the gospels where anonymous is just a dishonest red haring .

It is an historical fact they were anonymous, and it is red herring, like the fish. However yes this is a largely moot point, since you could have signed affidavits from Pilate, each of the disciples, and Jesus's mother, that they all testify to the claims in the anonymous gospels, and it would still just be subjective unevidenced claims, that made broad unevidenced appeals to mystery and magic.

The fact however is the gospels are anonymous, and thus just unevidenced hearsay.



Well my options are

1 trusting scholars

2 trusting a random and anonymous guy from a forum

You only "trust" scholars based on them affirming your beliefs with they own subjective beliefs, you ignore the broad scholarly consensus that it is an historical fact the gospels were anonymous. This is also a text book false dichotomy fallacy.


You cant blame me for taking option 1
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Firstly, I was quoting Paul. Do you believe Paul when he said that his information about Jesus came from visions of Jesus rather than other humans? If you believe Paul was mistaken, that's quite an admission.

Secondly, Paul says very little about the crucifixion.
Ok so you no longer claim that Paul got everything from visions right ?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
1 Paul claimed to have experiences of visions of Jesus

2 atleast some of the information that he received from the visions is true - pure unevidenced assumption.

3 therefore the experience was reall, Paul really and trully saw Jesus -pure unevidenced assumption.

There is no evidence Paul knew or even met Jesus, believing claims for magic won't change this fact. If you make unevidenced assumptions about the things your arguing for, this is called a begging the question fallacy.
Once again you are responding to a comment without understanding the context of the conversation.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
It's a shame you didn't actually read the article I cited for you. It actually presents both sides of the argument.

Interesting that you think I didn't read it. Of course it has both sides of the argument. Why would I read just one side of an argument? Do you?

Ken...have you read any non-canonical early Christian writings? How about the Gospel of Thomas? It starts like this: "These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down."

Yes. I have. relevance?

Your initial claim was: "He is preaching the resurrection. So, obviously, he must have known what happened." That doesn't follow logically, Ken. Does the fact that someone preaches something mean they must have accurate information about it? Does this apply to Joseph Smith, who also had visions of Jesus and then preached about it?

Please don't use straman tactics by using Joseph smith. Your point is so illogical as to eradicate history. Show me one evidence that Paul didn't preach the Gospel

Is this really honest discussion?

I keep asking you for witnesses and you have yet to name any.

Actually I did. Maybe you forgot? Peter, John, Matthew, and quite possibly Mark. Luke spoke to the witnesses.

I have no clue. And neither do you. And neither does anyone else. That's the point. It's just a bald claim with nothing to substantiate it.

Back to just erase all witnesses.

This is an argument from silence.

Vs Fallacy of logic?

Where in the Declaration do people walk on water, get magically cured of every disease, float up into the sky, magically turn water into wine, or rise from the dead? Indeed...comparing the DoI and the Gospels is apples to oranges. But that doesn't help your case.

I just applied your logic. I'm glad you see the absurdity of it. But if the issue is that there are miracles and THAT is why you doubt it... why didn't you say that from the beginning?

No, it doesn't eradicate all that was written in early Christianity. It actually takes broader account of all that was written in early Christianity, which included many pseudepigraphal writings that circulated between churches.

Which Peter is not.

Which facts? Which history?

???

LOL. Brilliant attempt to pass the buck, Ken. The case to be made is yours. You claimed there were witnesses to the resurrection. I've asked you who they were. You haven't been able to come up with anything. So either start showing us receipts, or admit that you made a claim you can't back up.

Nice side step.

The invincible ignorance fallacy also known as argument by pigheadedness, (according to wikipedia)

Signing out on our discussion. :)
 
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leroy

Well-Known Member
Of course Paul is not an independent source, and the other gospels are anonymous, so you are simply making wild assumptions about the source(s).



The author of the Harry Potter books is alive and well, this doesn't make the magic she imagines in the books real.



Who cares what Paul believed, people believe all sorts of false things, and again the gospels are anonymous, so your claim is absurd.




It is an historical fact they were anonymous, and it is red herring, like the fish. However yes this is a largely moot point, since you could have signed affidavits from Pilate, each of the disciples, and Jesus's mother, that they all testify to the claims in the anonymous gospels, and it would still just be subjective unevidenced claims, that made broad unevidenced appeals to mystery and magic.

The fact however is the gospels are anonymous, and thus just unevidenced hearsay.



Of course Paul is not an independent source
With independent I simply mean that Paul didn't copied from the gospels nor the gospels from Paul.

Given this definition do you still claim that Paul is not independent?

You only "trust" scholars based on them affirming your beliefs with they own subjective beliefs, you ignore the broad scholarly consensus that it is an historical fact the gospels were anonymous. This is also a text book false dichotomy fallacy.


You cant blame me for taking option 1
that they all testify to the claims in the anonymous gospels, and it would still just be subjective unevidenced claims

Perhaps we should go back a few steps ...

how do you define evidence / what would count as evidence for a historical event ?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
We value archeological finds and old records because of what they can teach us, not because they are proofs. Rather than a hard standard, historical evidence has a point. If it proves to be a resource and something to learn from then we value it as historical evidence, but if its something like the Turin Shroud then its merely a circus attraction. People investigated the Turin Shroud to learn what they could. They learned some things, and that became its value. The same goes for ancient Greek poems. A good artifact is always unique in someway but blends in holistically and seamlessly with History. If it doesn't blend it only stirs controversy and makes us question what we know of History. That's what a fake artifact does. So the value of any historical evidence depends upon it fitting in with the build of historical evidence and also its value depends upon what it can teach us and what is can do to make us better.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
Again

The point the point that I made is :

The fact that the authors of the gospels didn't mention the 500 strongly suggest that these authors didn't copied from Paul nor had Paul as a source.


Will you ever address this point ? Or are you going to continue with your random and unrelated comments?

I did address it, it is just an assumption you're making. You have no way of knowing who their sources were, and the gospels are anonymous, thus making assumptions about the source is just a second layer of hearsay. Just because two written versions, from decades after the events they claim to describe, differ on some points, is not evidence they were from different sources. However even were this true, the amount of people who relate an unevidenced claim tells us nothing about the validity of the claim. Especially if the claim itself is an unevidenced extraordinary appeal to mystery and magic, that defies known scientific and natural laws.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
Citation needed, and remember apologeticists are not scholars.
Well they can be of course, what @leroy doesn't seem to understand or acknowledge, is when they are offering historical facts and scholarly opinions that will stand up to peer review by other historians, and when they are offering subjective religious beliefs and bending that evidence or exaggerating it to suit those beliefs.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
It is the Church that attributed Apostles names to the otherwise anonymous writers. No Gospel, outside of John, names himself.
That's why God gave us a brain.

I'm not saying who is answering your post... but I'm sure you can figure it out. ;)
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
Once again you are responding to a comment without understanding the context of the conversation.
I was minded to correct your assertions for clarity, since you seem to believe because you hold a strong but subjective conviction that something is true, you have a tendency to word unevidenced claims as if they are accepted facts. Whatever the context, this is misleading.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
Actually I did. Maybe you forgot? Peter, John, Matthew, and quite possibly Mark. Luke spoke to the witnesses.

Firstly the gospels are anonymous, but even if one held the unevidenced subjective belief that the names assigned were genuine, the claims are still unsubstantiated hearsay. Just because an author makes a claim to have spoken to an eyewitness, doesn't mean we can reliably assume there was an eyewitness, and beyond that what they claim this alleged eyewitness(es) saw, is even less reliable if there is no evidence to verify or substantiate what is being claimed, and worse still if the claims defy or are contradicted by natural and scientific facts.

Finally people were obviously ignorant of a great deal of natural and scientific facts we now understand, and highly superstitious as a result. So unevidenced appeals to mystery or the supernatural, or assumptions that defy or are contradicted by natural or scientific laws speak for themselves. I wouldn't accept such hearsay claims in any other context, so why would I accept these?
 
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Sheldon

Veteran Member
The invincible ignorance fallacy also known as argument by pigheadedness,

Except you have not presented eyewitnesses, only unverifiable claims for the same. What objective or historical evidence, independent of the subjective claims in the bible and your religion, can you demonstrate that these eyewitnesses existed, and that the claims as to what they witnessed is accurate?

Even then you'd have all your work before you, since you'd still have to evidence the assumption that what they saw justifies the assumption a supernatural event occurred.

If I wrote a story claiming that several eyewitnesses claimed to have seen Elvis walking around after he'd been dead for days or weeks, and didn't author it, you'd not lend it much credulity, so why would the addition of 2 millennia, and large following of the claims add any objective value?
 

1213

Well-Known Member
There is however conclusive evidence from many historical events. There is none of the resurrection, or anything assigned Jesus in the bible, except the crucifixion, and that is scant at best.

To me the Bible with its many witness testimonies is conclusive evidence.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Finally people were obviously ignorant of a great deal of natural and scientific facts we now understand, and highly superstitious as a result. So unevidenced appeals to mystery or the supernatural, or assumptions that defy or are contradicted by natural or scientific laws speak for themselves. I wouldn't accept such hearsay claims in any other context, so why would I accept these?

You don't have to accept these. I'm not here to try to convince you.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Except you have not presented eyewitnesses, only unverifiable claims for the same. What objective or historical evidence, independent of the subjective claims in the bible and your religion, can you demonstrate that these eyewitnesses existed, and that the claims as to what they witnessed is accurate?

It is freely available on the internet. Please don't ask me to do your work.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
Perhaps we should go back a few steps ...

how do you define evidence / what would count as evidence for a historical event ?
Same as I have every other time you asked this question, why you insist on endlessly repeating this question is baffling, since the answer has never changed and never will, it is defined in any dictionary, just Google it.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
I did address it, it is just an assumption you're making. You have no way of knowing who their sources were, and the gospels are anonymous, thus making assumptions about the source is just a second layer of hearsay. Just because two written versions, from decades after the events they claim to describe, differ on some points, is not evidence they were from different sources. However even were this true, the amount of people who relate an unevidenced claim tells us nothing about the validity of the claim. Especially if the claim itself is an unevidenced extraordinary appeal to mystery and magic, that defies known scientific and natural laws.

Wrong if 2 different testimonials differ on some points, this counts as very strong evidence that the testimonials are independent rather than one copying from the other

And deep inside you agree with this statement, it is just that you are on "debate mode"
 
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