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The evidence for the resurection of Jesus
- Thread starter leroy
- Start date
Riders
Well-Known Member
Yes it is.
leroy
Well-Known Member
Should I include this in the list of claims that you will not support? Or are you going to make an exception in this case?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Why do you lie about others so much? I do support my claims. Not properly supporting claims is your sin. And why do you think that even needs support.
Here you go: We all know that hallucinations happen. There are countless reliable observations of hallucinations. We can even induce them chemically. There are no reliable cases of people being dead for over a day and coming back. You asked which is the more reasonable explanation. You asked which was the more reliable explanation. of the two.
By the way, what you asked was a false dichotomy. Do you know why?
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
My bad. I missed .
Regards
joelr
Well-Known Member
My post #333 has a link and time stamp to Ehrman saying this. "Historicity" in the history field means a man named Jesus lived and was later mythicized into a savior demigod.
Leading Scholarship
The principal works to consult on this (all of which from peer reviewed academic presses) are:
- Michael Bird & Joel Willitts, Paul and the Gospels: Christologies, Conflicts and Convergences (T&T Clark 2011)
- David Oliver Smith, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels (Resource 2011)
- Tom Dykstra, Mark: Canonizer of Paul (OCABS 2012)
- Oda Wischmeyer & David Sim, eds., Paul and Mark: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity (de Gruyter 2014)
- Eve-Marie Becker et al., Mark and Paul: For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark (de Gruyter 2014)
- Thomas Nelligan, The Quest for Mark’s Sources: An Exploration of the Case for Mark’s Use of First Corinthians (Pickwick 2015)
Paradigmatic Example: The Last Supper
Another example is “the last supper.” This began as a vision Paul had of Jesus relating to him what he spoke mystically to all future generations of Christians, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:23-27. As Paul there says, he received this “from the Lord.” Directly. Just as he says he received all his teachings (Galatians 1:11-12; Romans 10:14-15; Romans 16:25-26). In Paul’s version, no one else is present. It is not a “last” supper (as if Jesus had had any others before), but merely “the bread and cup of the Lord.” And Jesus is not speaking to “disciples” but to the whole Christian Church unto the end of time—including Paul and his congregations.
The text in Paul reads as follows (translating the Greek as literally as I can):
For I received from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus, during the night he was handed over, took bread, and having given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in the remembrance of me.” Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you might drink it in remembrance of me.” For as often as you might eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Notably, “until he comes,” and not “until he returns.” This becomes in Mark (emphasis added):
While they were eating, having taken bread, and having blessed it, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “Take; this is my body.” Then, having taken a cup, and having given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, that never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” And having sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Notice what’s changed. Paul is describing Jesus miming some actions and explaining their importance. His audience is future Christians. Mark has transformed this into a narrative story by adding people being present and having Jesus interact with them: now “they were eating” (Paul does not mention anyone actually eating) and Jesus gave the bread “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and instructs them to “take” it (no such instruction in Paul); and Jesus gave the cup “to them” (does not occur in Paul) and “they all drink it” (no such event in Paul); and Jesus describes the meaning of the cup “to them” (no such audience in Paul).
Then Jesus says he will not drink “again” until the kingdom comes, a statement that fits a narrative event, implying Jesus drank, and here drank, and often drank, and will pause drinking until the end times. Likewise Jesus “blesses” the bread (which also doesn’t happen in Paul), implying the actual literal bread he has in his hand is thereby rendered special to the ones about to eat it; whereas in Paul that makes no sense, because no one is there to eat it, Jesus is just depicting and explaining a ritual others will perform in his honor, not that he is performing for them. So it is notable that all of these things are absent from Paul. There is no narrative context of this being the last of many cups Jesus has drunk and of Jesus pausing drinking or of his blessing the bread and giving it to people present. In Paul, the whole scene is an instruction to future followers, not a description of a meal Jesus once had.
This is how Mark reifies a revelation in Paul, relating Jesus’s celestial instructions for performing a sacrament and its meaning, into a narrative historical event. Mark has even taken Paul’s language, about Jesus being “handed over,” which in Paul means by God (Romans 8:32, exact same word) and even by himself (Galatians 2:20, exact same word), not by Judas, and converted it into a whole new narrative of a betrayal by “the Jews” (the meaning of Judas, i.e. Judah, i.e. Judea). Paul has no knowledge of a betrayal. Indeed in Paul, all of “the twelve” get to see Jesus right after his death and are recognized as apostles (1 Corinthians 15:5; see Proving History, pp. 151-55).
Mark in fact constructed his own Judah-as-betrayer narrative and integrated it into his equally fabricated “last supper” narrative from a pastiche of scriptures, including lost scriptures, wherefrom Mark gets whole chunks of his narrative (see Proving History, ibid.). We are only lucky enough to be sure of this because it’s exposed by 1 Clement, who clearly wrote before Mark’s narrative existed (or was known to the author of 1 Clement). Clement also has no knowledge of any betrayal by anyone, much less a Judah—and also is unaware of the destruction of Jerusalem, so this letter must predate 66 A.D., contrary to a much later tradition placing it in 95 (see OHJ, Ch. 8.5). More importantly, Clement frequently quotes scriptures, both ones we know and ones now lost, as being “the words of our Lord Jesus,” evidently under the belief that Jesus spoke through the ancient prophets, and thus their words are his words.
Many more examples given here:
Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier
Also to the "oral tradition", when one finishes examining all of the places Mark likely used other sources to construct the story there isn't room left for any oral history.
"
Mark composed his mythical tale of Jesus using many different sources: most definitely the Septuagint, possibly even Homer, and, here we can see, probably also Paul’s Epistles. From these, and his own creative impulses, he weaved together a coherent string of implausible tales in which neither people nor nature behave the way they would in reality, each and every one with allegorical meaning or missionary purpose. Once we account for all this material, there is very little left. In fact, really, nothing left.
We have very good evidence for all these sources. For example, that Mark emulates stories and lifts ideas from the Psalms, Deuteronomy, the Kings literature, and so on, is well established and not rationally deniable. That he likewise lifts from and riffs on Paul’s Epistles is, as you can now see, fairly hard to deny. By contrast, we have exactly no evidence whatever that anything in Mark came to him by oral tradition. It is thus curious that anyone still assumes some of it did. That Mark’s sources and methods were literary is well proved. That any of his sources or methods were oral in character is, by contrast, a baseless presumption. Objective, honest scholarship will have to acknowledge this someday."
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Thanks for providing exquisite source.
Regards
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
"The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus", that never happened!
Friend @leroy
The creed of resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a later addition as is evidenced from the later/forged ending of Gospel of Mark by the Church.
(The original short ending of Gospel of Mark):
“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing (Mark 16:6-8)
And there the Gospel simply ends!
Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.
This original ending of Mark was viewed by later Christians:
“Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.”
Even though this ending is patently false, people loved it, and to this day conservative Christians regularly denounce “liberal” scholars who point out this forgery, claiming that they are trying to destroy “God’s word.”
“it is pretty evident that what the forger did was take sections of the endings of Matthew, Luke and John (marked respectively in red, blue, and purple above) and simply create a “proper” ending.”
OOO
James Tabor presents a fresh look at the original text of the earliest Gospel
The “Strange” Ending of the Gospel of Mark and Why It Makes All the Difference
Right?
Regards
Friend @leroy
The creed of resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a later addition as is evidenced from the later/forged ending of Gospel of Mark by the Church.
(The original short ending of Gospel of Mark):
“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing (Mark 16:6-8)
And there the Gospel simply ends!
Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.
This original ending of Mark was viewed by later Christians:
- as so deficient
- that not only was Mark placed second in order in the New Testament,
- but various endings were added by editors and copyists in some manuscripts to try to remedy things.
- The longest concocted ending, which became Mark 16:9-19,
- became so treasured that it was included in the King James Version of the Bible,
- favored for the past 500 years by Protestants,
- as well as translations of the Latin Vulgate, used by Catholics.
- This meant that for countless millions of Christians it became sacred scripture–but it is patently bogus.
- You might check whatever Bible you use and see if the following verses are included–the chances are good they they will be, since the Church, by and large, found Mark’s original ending so lacking.
“Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.”
Even though this ending is patently false, people loved it, and to this day conservative Christians regularly denounce “liberal” scholars who point out this forgery, claiming that they are trying to destroy “God’s word.”
“it is pretty evident that what the forger did was take sections of the endings of Matthew, Luke and John (marked respectively in red, blue, and purple above) and simply create a “proper” ending.”
OOO
James Tabor presents a fresh look at the original text of the earliest Gospel
The “Strange” Ending of the Gospel of Mark and Why It Makes All the Difference
Right?
Regards
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leroy
Well-Known Member
1 But the type of hallucinations required to explain the data (group hallucinations) don’t happen…. So you still need to invoke a miracle (or a ,mysterious mechanism ) anyway
2 The hallucination doesn’t explain the empty tomb.
3 It doesn’t explain the belief of the disciples in the resurrection, people have hallucinations all the type, and nobody ever concludes “ohhh bodily resurrection” so making an arbitrary exception with the disciples?
Riders
Well-Known Member
I believe if they are members of the same cult expecting Jesus to rise and they were drinking especially if they were drinking yea they would see the same thing, and even without alcohol.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
1 What are you talking about? There were no reliable claims of groups of people. Paul makes the claim but even he was not witness to the supposed group. His mention is hearsay at best.
2 There is no reliable evidence for a tomb. That there was no tomb explains the empty tomb.
3. You really do not know what the disciples believed. In fact if you read some of the material that has been linked to you you would have seen an explanation of why the bodily resurrection may have been an invention of the author of Mark. Do you know how myths start?
leroy
Well-Known Member
Changing the goal post (what’s the name of that fallacy?)
The claim is that if the 5 points of the OP are true, then “resurrection” is a better explanation than “hallucinations”
So you can ether:
1 disagree, accept your burden and show the opposite-----(show that hallucinations is a better explanation given those 5 facts)
Or
2 Accept the claim and move on (perhaps you can show an other objection like rejecting some of those 5 points)
leroy
Well-Known Member
That has never been observed, nor shown to be possible, even by definition 2 individuals cant hallucinate the same thing .
leroy
Well-Known Member
I have no idea if any of his books have been peer reviewd….
My question is , can you show a single peer reviewd article / book that concludes that Mark copied from Paul? (as you seem to suggest)
Please quote the relevant texts / provide a source and explain how do you know that it was peer reviewed.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Forget about the hypotheticals. That is no way to debate. Since the hypotheticals appear to be false what is the point of even asking?
In fact your failed hypotheticals were not even in the post that I responded to. It appears that you are trying to revive an argument that you lost on the first page.
joelr
Well-Known Member
The 5 papers I listed are all from historians and the article is from a peer-reviewed book. The article contains many thematic examples, paradigmatic examples and specific examples.
Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier
The principal works to consult on this (all of which from peer reviewed academic presses) are:
- Michael Bird & Joel Willitts, Paul and the Gospels: Christologies, Conflicts and Convergences (T&T Clark 2011)
- David Oliver Smith, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels (Resource 2011)
- Tom Dykstra, Mark: Canonizer of Paul (OCABS 2012)
- Oda Wischmeyer & David Sim, eds., Paul and Mark: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity (de Gruyter 2014)
- Eve-Marie Becker et al., Mark and Paul: For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark (de Gruyter 2014)
- Thomas Nelligan, The Quest for Mark’s Sources: An Exploration of the Case for Mark’s Use of First Corinthians (Pickwick 2015)
You seem to enjoy the use of inference when it suits you - "why would women find the tomb, why would.etc ....it must mean it's true...." but of course now I see you are going to be looking for 100% proof which isn't how history works. We cannot show Krishna didn't speak words to the Hindu Prince either. It's well established that Mark emulates stories and lifts ideas from the Psalms, Deuteronomy, the Kings literature, and so on, so the amounts of parallels to the Epistles are far far stronger inference than anything you have previously attempted to use.
The article itself is from a biblical historian and his conclusions are firm. The article contains his work and uses other scholars from the list as well.
Please quote the relevant texts / provide a source and how you know it's peer reviewed, that refutes any of these examples.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Group hallucinations do happen:
"A mass hallucination is a phenomenon in which a large group of people, usually in physical proximity to each other, all experience the same hallucination simultaneously. Mass hallucination is a common explanation for mass UFO sightings, appearances of the Virgin Mary, and other paranormal phenomena."
Here is something else that we know for a fact happens - religious mythology. RIght now 2/3 of all religious believers believe something you consider false. Showing billions of people can be completely wrong with belief in myths.
Here is another thing we know is fact. Since 1500 BC resurrection was a popular myth in religions of that region thanks to the Persians (Mary Boyce pg 12). There were at least 6 dying/rising savior demigods before Christianity only in that region.
Another proven fact - religious syncretism - blending of religious concepts between cultures, especially when located close by.
Judaism has no heaven for people for ~800 years then when invaded by Persian/Greek cultures they then have heaven and a savior?
So Judaism was a myth, was then Hellenized like all other religions in the Mediterranean, and that is by far the most likely explanation. We do not need to introduce mass hallucinations for any of the Gods, ever.
The disciples belief in the resurrection is a fact but the disciples themselves are far from fact. There is no mention of a missing body in Roman historical records (or even Acts). The 2nd century features at least 1/2 Gnostic Christian sects many who believed the passion happened in the celestial realm. The religion organized itself in the 3rd century. The disciples who actually knew Jesus are only featured in myths. Besides all of the Christian literature we know for a fact that is forged and fake, the evidence is vast that the other 3 gospels are re-writes of Mark and each one fully expected to become the standard version. Scholars believe those 4 were chosen because they were the gospels of the most favored churches at the time of the Nicean council. They assumed they would iron out the differences (they didn't). The only confirmed disciples are people way later who followed one of the 40 gospels and were going on faith. Like all religions before and since.
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leroy
Well-Known Member
again quote the exact text where the author concludes that mark copied from Paul
joelr
Well-Known Member
I touched on the fact that I knew you were going for a dishonest tactic last post but I thought I would wait and see if you were actually going that direction. You are.
No history is 100%, which is why so far all you have presented are inferences. I'm providing better evidence than speculation on inference, I'm providing analysis by biblical historians. They have already debunked your attempts at inference, which I have dealt with and now we can look at evidence that experts have presented.
So here is a PhD historian (actually 6) explaining we have excellent evidence that Mark copied Paul. Again, if you find an example in error or have alternate ways to explain them please provide a source and demonstrate where it's been peer-reviewed.
At some point you might provide some peer-reviewed scholarship that shows why borrowed myths and people believing myths are not the best answers for any of this? Even some layman apologetic answers are a place to start. This will help expose why apologetics does not follow logic in any sense but picks and chooses inference when it might support you (it never really does) but avoid it when you cannot answer questions.
"Mark composed his mythical tale of Jesus using many different sources: most definitely the Septuagint, possibly even Homer, and, here we can see, probably also Paul’s Epistles. From these, and his own creative impulses, he weaved together a coherent string of implausible tales in which neither people nor nature behave the way they would in reality, each and every one with allegorical meaning or missionary purpose. Once we account for all this material, there is very little left. In fact, really, nothing left.
We have very good evidence for all these sources. For example, that Mark emulates stories and lifts ideas from the Psalms, Deuteronomy, the Kings literature, and so on, is well established and not rationally deniable. That he likewise lifts from and riffs on Paul’s Epistles is, as you can now see, fairly hard to deny. By contrast, we have exactly no evidence whatever that anything in Mark came to him by oral tradition. It is thus curious that anyone still assumes some of it did. That Mark’s sources and methods were literary is well proved. That any of his sources or methods were oral in character is, by contrast, a baseless presumption. Objective, honest scholarship will have to acknowledge this someday."
The empty tomb only occurs in the fictional gospels. 3 of them are re-writes. Matthew is doing a re-write clearly because people started asking how did they know the body wasn't just stolen?
Again, as I look through the work of Bible historians I can't find any who don't think the gospels are myth? Even the sort of believer John Dominick Crossan believes empty tomb and resurrection are a parable? He is the only historian who still calls himself a Christian.
leroy
Well-Known Member
there is a big difference between seeing a distant light and say" oh its the virgen Marry"........... and having an experience where one actually talked, touched and even atte with Jesus...... mass hallucinations of this sort have never been reported,