The evidence for the resurection of Jesus

[leroy]

Prove it. Show that the majority of experts believe the nonsense that you posted.

Be specific, exactly which claim do you think is not supported by the majority of experts? So that I can support it

 

[Rival]

Elaborate your case for Krishna, and I ll be happy to provide my positive evidence for why I think you are wrong.

I'm not making a case for Krishna, I'm just using an example. Folks have experiences of their deities all the time, from all religions. Many folks from many religions believe they have spoken with angels, demons, spirits, gods and so forth.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes these are claims accepted by the majority of scholars, if you think there is a mistake then elaborate your case and explain why is that a mistake.

This article represent my view




The Resurrection of Jesus | Reasonable Faith






Yes this thread presupposes that you grant that the existence of God is possible (analogous to the existence of Aliens, Big foot, Unicorns etc)

With possible I mean “there is no conclusive evidence against the existence of God”

So under this definition do you grant that the existence of God is possible?

Oh my Gawd!! William Lane Craig?!? Are you kidding me?

You said experts. He is neither an expert nor a historian. You just shot your own foot off.

Support your claims. Do not link a dishonest and failed apologist.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Be specific, exactly which claim do you think is not supported by the majority of experts? So that I can support it

All of your claims in the OP need support.

 

[leroy]

I'm not making a case for Krishna, I'm just using an example. Folks have experiences of their deities all the time, from all religions. Many folks from many religions believe they have spoken with angels, demons, spirits, gods and so forth.

The experiences that Christians had 2,000 years ago are not analogous to the experiences with krishna.

1 Christians reported clear and unambiguous experiences where the talked to Jesus, touched him, ate with him etc…

2 this include group experiences, many people saw the same thing at the same time

3 Jews changed their faith and/or where willing to fight and die for their belif in the resurection and theior belif on the autenticity of the experience.

You don’t have anything analogous with Krishna, nor Aliens, nor spaghetti monsters …. Do you?

 

[leroy]

Oh my Gawd!! William Lane Craig?!? Are you kidding me?

You said experts. He is neither an expert nor a historian. You just shot your own foot off.

Support your claims. Do not link a dishonest and failed apologist.

The article written by WLC is just an article that represents my view, if you disagree with any claim in the article please let me know specifically what claim is that, and we can then go with the experts.

 

[leroy]

All of your claims in the OP need support.

Be specific, exactly which claim do you think is not supported by the majority of experts? So that I can support it

 

[Rival]

The experiences that Christians had 2,000 years ago are not analogous to the experiences with krishna.

1 Christians reported clear and unambiguous experiences where the talked to Jesus, touched him, ate with him etc…

2 this include group experiences, many people saw the same thing at the same time

3 Jews changed their faith and/or where willing to fight and die for their belief in the resurrection and their belief on the autenticity of the experience.

You don’t have anything analogous with Krishna, nor Aliens, nor spaghetti monsters …. Do you?

You do realise our only source for these things is the Christian Scriptures, which are written to convert folks - they even say this; it's the superscript in the Gospel of John - 'So that you might believe'. So there's a strike against them because obviously they are going to write these things that are attested nowhere else.

Secondly, there are 4 different accounts of what happened at the resurrection, who saw it, who was there, how many angels were there and so on. In Mark he has Mary Magdalene, 'the other Mary' and Salome at the tomb. In Matthew it was just the two Marys. Luke has Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, Joanna and other women. John has only Mary Magdalene.

Mark and Matthew have 2 angels at the tomb, while Luke and John only have 1.

According to Mark and Matthew, Jesus first appeared in Galilee, but in Luke he first appears around Jerusalem.

I'm sorry, but why should we trust any of these accounts when they can't even agree with each other?

 

[leroy]

I do not accept this point.
The existence of god might be possible. It also might not be.

It kind of depends on what you claim god is.
Not everything is possible by default.



Assuming Jesus was an actual person, which I would consider likely but certainly not certain, that might be true. Not an extraordinary claim at least, people were crucified all the time.



Perhaps, assuming he existed and was crucified. Although he would have died eventually anyway off course.

But specifically in the case of crucifixion... usually the body was just left hanging there. So this claim deviates from the norm here. On what evidence do you claim this?



So the story goes. Assuming he existed, was killed and got burried.



So it is claimed. Assuming all of the above again.

Also, you can go and meet people today that have had experiences that the interpreted as having seen Elvis, Michael Jackson or have been kidnapped by aliens and had weird anal sexual experiments performed on them aboard the alien space ship. Just to say, people "experience" a lot of crazy **** and "interpret" those experiences in a lot of different ways.


I pick secret unmentioned number 5 and reject your claim that the majority of scholars / historians accept all 5 points as established fact.

Be specific based on the evidence that you have seen, which of these claims do you think is more likely wrong than correct.

I pick secret unmentioned number 5 and reject your claim that the majority of scholars / historians accept all 5 points as established fact

Nobody is claiming that these are establish 100% certain facts, all I am saying is that based on the evidence that we have to date these claims are more likely to be true than false………………..if you disagree then please tell me which specific claims do you think are more likely false and why

 

[leroy]

You do realise our only source for these things is the Christian Scriptures, which are written to convert folks - they even say this; it's the superscript in the Gospel of John - 'So that you might believe'. So there's a strike against them because obviously they are going to write these things that are attested nowhere else.

Secondly, there are 4 different accounts of what happened at the resurrection, who saw it, who was there, how many angels were there and so on. In Mark he has Mary Magdalene, 'the other Mary' and Salome at the tomb. In Matthew it was just the two Marys. Luke has Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, Joanna and other women. John has only Mary Magdalene.

Mark and Matthew have 2 angels at the tomb, while Luke and John only have 1.

According to Mark and Matthew, Jesus first appeared in Galilee, but in Luke he first appears around Jerusalem.

I'm sorry, but why should we trust any of these accounts when they can't even agree with each other?

I need clarification,

Do you grant that probably some Jews 2000+ years ago had experiences that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus? (please pay attention to the red letters)

 

[Rival]

I need clarification,

Do you grant that probably some Jews 2000+ years ago had experiences that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus? (please pay attention to the red letters)

Yes.

But so?

 

[leroy]

You are right. I guess that the Iliad is an accurate history of Troy.

As usual you didn’t answer to my question.


original cliam

Historical events do not justify claims of supernatural events such as the Resurrection.

My question

why not?

 

[leroy]

Yes.

But so?

Ok, so you grant point 5 from the OP

Do you have any problem with points 1,2,3 or 4?


To accept these points simply means that you grant that they are more likely to be true than false......... (not that we have absolute and conclusive evidence for them)

 

[Rival]

Ok, so you grant point 5 from the OP

Do you have any problem with points 1,2,3 or 4?

Let's see,

1 The existence of God is at least possible (if you are an agnostic or even a weak atheist you should accept this point, only strong atheist that affirm conclusive evidence against God would deny this point)

Yes, I believe in God.

2 Jesus died on the cross

Yes.

3 Jesus was buried

Yes.

4 The tomb was found empty

I don't know. The only source for this is the Christian Testament. As no other writer even writes about Jesus, this is up in the air. Many tombs have been found empty over the years, so even were this true I'm not sure what the point is here. It could also indicate that Jesus were never buried at all, which is possible, or that they had the wrong tomb. There are a number of possible explanations for this, none of which I can conclusively go with; seeing as it's just much too vague a claim.

5 Early Christians had experiences that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus

Yes. However, this is quite common; especially with loved ones. My issue with this point is as I have mentioned above. The accounts vary far too much for me to take this as a verifiable historical account. That they believed they saw him is no issue to me; but this is only human to do. I myself believe I have had experience with ghosts and spirits, as do many of my kin, for example - but our accounts prove little.

 

[leroy]

I don't see how the possible existence of God would be necessary for the resurrection, only necessary for specific interpretations of it.

Because you need point 1 + all the others to establish that the resurrection probably happened…………the claim is that if you agree with these 5 facts, the resurrection becomes the best hypothesis to explain such facts. (any disagreement?)


.

I would question the tomb being found empty as a definitive fact. Is there anything outside the (somewhat inconsistent) Biblical depictions to support that assertion?

I am not claiming that it is a “definitive fact” all I am saying is that given the evidence that we have to date , the claim is more likely to be true than wrong. (any disagreement?)

That various people have claimed to have had experiences they (or others) interpreted to be the risen Christ is undeniable. The validity of any of those claims remains entirely unproven though.

ok so you agree with fact 5

So, I've gone with a mixture of 1 and 2 in the context of this thread then I guess.

It seems to me that you are accepting that all these 5 claims are probably true (more likely to true than false)………..is this correct? Or would you say that some of the claims are more likelyl to be wrong?

 

[leroy]

Let's see.

1 The existence of God is at least possible (if you are an agnostic or even a weak atheist you should accept this point, only strong atheist that affirm conclusive evidence against God would deny this point)

Yes, I believe in God.

2 Jesus died on the cross

Yes.

3 Jesus was buried

Yes.

4 The tomb was found empty

I don't know. The only source for this is the Christian Testament. As no other writer even writes about Jesus, this is up in the air. Many tombs have been found empty over the years, so even were this true I'm not sure what the point is here. It could also indicate that Jesus were never buried at all, which is possible, or that they had the wrong tomb. There are a number of possible explanations for this, none of which I can conclusively go with; seeing as it's just much too vague a claim.

5 Early Christians had experiences that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus

Yes. However, this is quite common; especially with loved ones. My issue with this point is as I have mentioned above. The accounts vary far too much for me to take this as a verifiable historical account. That they believed they saw him is no issue to me; but this is only human to do. I myself believe I have had experience with ghosts and spirits, as do many of my kin, for example - but our accounts prove little.

Ok so you accept points 1,2,3 and 5………….and point 4 (you don’t know)

Based on the arguments that you have seen would you say that point 4 is more likely to be wrong than true?




this is the evidence for the empty tomb..................
Remember the goal is not to support that the empty tomb is an undeniable and 100% certain historical fact, but rather the goal is to support that the empty tomb is more likely to be true thanwrong

FACT #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. Among the reasons which have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following:

1. The empty tomb story is also part of the old passion source used by Mark. The passion source used by Mark did not end in death and defeat, but with the empty tomb story, which is grammatically of one piece with the burial story.

2. The old tradition cited by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5 implies the fact of the empty tomb. For any first century Jew, to say that of a dead man “that he was buried and that he was raised” is to imply that a vacant grave was left behind. Moreover, the expression “on the third day” probably derives from the women’s visit to the tomb on the third day, in Jewish reckoning, after the crucifixion. The four-line tradition cited by Paul summarizes both the gospel accounts and the early apostolic preaching (Acts 13. 28-31); significantly, the third line of the tradition corresponds to the empty tomb story.

3. The story is simple and lacks signs of legendary embellishment. All one has to do to appreciate this point is to compare Mark’s account with the wild legendary stories found in the second-century apocryphal gospels, in which Jesus is seen coming out of the tomb with his head reaching up above the clouds and followed by a talking cross!

4. The fact that women’s testimony was discounted in first century Palestine stands in favor of the women’s role in discovering the empty tomb. According to Josephus, the testimony of women was regarded as so worthless that it could not even be admitted into a Jewish court of law. Any later legendary story would certainly have made male disciples discover the empty tomb.

5. The earliest Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body (Matt. 28.15) shows that the body was in fact missing from the tomb. The earliest Jewish response to the disciples’ proclamation, “He is risen from the dead!” was not to point to his occupied tomb and to laugh them off as fanatics, but to claim that they had taken away Jesus’ body. Thus, we have evidence of the empty tomb from the very opponents of the early Christians.
The Resurrection of Jesus | Reasonable Faith

 

[Rival]

Ok so you accept points 1,2,3 and 5………….and point 4 (you don’t know)

Based on the arguments that you have seen would you say that point 4 is more likely to be wrong than true?




this is the evidence for the empty tomb..................
Remember the goal is not to support that the empty tomb is an undeniable and 100% certain historical fact, but rather the goal is to support that the empty tomb is more likely to be true thanwrong

I'm honestly still unsure what's you're trying to prove with this thread though?

 

[leroy]

I'm honestly still unsure what's you're trying to prove with this thread though?

If you accept all these 5 facts , my suggestion would be that the resurrection is the best explanation for these facts.

Do you have a better explanation in mind?

For example the claim that early Christians had hallucinations of the risen Jesus fails because

1 the experiences where clear and unambiguous, the saw Jesus, touched Jesus ate with Jesus, (they didn’t see a distant shadow or something like that)

2 some occurrences happened in groups (it is nearly impossible that 2 persons or more had the exact same hallucination at the same time)


3 if it would have been a hallucination, at most they would have concluded that Jesus appeared to them in a as a ghost or spirit (not as a physical body)….


Other hallucinations (Alens, gohts, krishna etc) fail to have these 3 atributes.

 

[Subduction Zone]

As usual you didn’t answer to my question.


original cliam


My question

That was an answer. It showed why you were wrong.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Please be clear, explain explicitly which of these claims do you affirm are likely to be wrong and why

1. Well, the existence of fire-breathing dragons and Santa Claus are also "at least possible." What is it that would lead us to conclude that we should pay more attention, just in case it's true?
2. The statement that Jesus died on the Cross is certainly one made in the Gospels and Acts, but these had an agenda to sell. Also, lots and lots and lots of other people also died on crosses around that time.
3. Yeah, at that time, pretty much everybody who got dead also got buried. This doesn't provide much evidence of anything at all.
4. That the tomb was found empty is among the most inconsistent of stories in the NT. (How many women were at the tomb? Two, three, or over three? Who were the women? When Did they go to the tomb? "early, after the sun had risen" or "early, while it was still dark"? Was the stone rolled away before or after the women showed up? Who greets the women? A young man in the tomb? Two men who appear after the women entered the tomb? Two angels sitting inside the tomb? Two guards, along with one angel that arrives during an earthquake that rolls away the rock? It all depends which gospel you read!)
5. Lots of people have lots of experiences that the "interpret" in lots of ways -- some utterly ridiculous.

I don't see anything so far that looks like "evidence."

None of them -- in fact I wrote them because I think that they are right.

But they also provide nothing upon which I can build a logical argument for the existence (or lack thereof) of anything at all.