Ella S.
*temp banned*
We have no evidence of a resurrection. At the most, we have the same quality of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus as we do the resurrection of Osiris and Dionysus, which is to say that we have an account of it happening within the context of a mythical narrative. "Mythical" here meaning "folklore with supernatural elements," not "false," although mythical might as well mean false. We have a pretty good understanding of where myths come from and how they develop without affirming the truth of their supernatural content, and any number of these processes are a more likely explanation of the resurrection myths than a literal resurrection.
There's simply no good reason to believe that the resurrection is anything more than a myth. However, even if it wasn't a myth, someone coming back from the dead is not proof that they were a messenger of God. God is, again, not a necessary explanation for such an event. The naturalistic explanations, such as swoon theory, are a priori more plausible than the supernatural ones because the supernatural either doesn't exist or it is incredibly rare. Even if we discount all of these, what about opposing supernatural explanations, such as Jesus being a sorcerer?
These are not presented as counter-arguments to the resurrection being caused by God. Even if you disproved every alternate theory, the point still remains that you have not demonstrated a direct link between a resurrection and God. There's no real connection between the two. There's no reason why a resurrection would entail the existence of God, much less that the person resurrected was a messenger of God. Even within the mythical accounts, Lazarus was also resurrected, and he wasn't a messenger of God.
As for prophecy, most of the prophecies Jesus supposedly filled were not considered to be prophecies about the messiah, but were instead attributed to him by Christians post-hoc, whereas most of the actual prophecies about the messiah went unfulfilled by Jesus with a promise that he would fulfill them after his Second Coming. Within the texts themselves, Jesus actively contradicts a number of messianic prophecies, such as the Davidic bloodline. Jews have been poking holes in the claims of Jesus's fulfilled prophecies for about as long as Christianity has existed.
It also fundamentally misunderstands what prophecy was to the ancient Jews. It wasn't fortune telling. It was more like giving people warnings about the consequences of their behavior or what needed to be done before a goal could be achieved. Many of the prophecies "failed" to make accurate predictions even within their own narratives, because they weren't meant to demonstrate omniscience or future-telling.
Much like with the resurrection, though, this is a complete and total red herring. Even if you could prove that the prophecies accurately predicted the future, that again does not get us any closer to proving that they came from God. More examples could be given about alternative explanations for successful predictions, and again many of these are naturalistic such as the use of ambiguous language and survivorship bias. It's just not enough.
So not only is there no basis for your additional claims, but even if there was it would still make no difference. The claim that Jesus was a messenger of God would remain baseless.
ETA: Not to mention that this supporting evidence isn't supporting evidence at all, but are claims that directly come from the scriptures themselves. You can't use the same text as supplementary evidence for itself.
I don't think I know the mind of God. I just know that you don't and that, if this is the best argument you have for the validity of your chosen messenger of God, then that pretty much ends the debate there because it's not even a valid argument.
Last edited:
