Oh right.

Sorry, the argument, for those who don't know, is that the resurrection must really be true or else these guys wouldn't have gone to the grave with it, so consistently. If it was a conspiracy or something, you'd think they would have cracked.

And even then its a stupid conspiracy because it's not like they were getting rich off it or something. Famous maybe but... is that really worth it? There are other ways to get famous than to propagate a giant lie. I think one of them would have cracked if that's all it was. I would have cracked. Shit. I don't care about fame that much.

So anyway. It's also like this: people who have the vision that the apostles sat around in some room after Jesus' death and were like "LETS INVENT A RELIGION THAT WILL KEEP THE COMMON MAN DOWN FOR CENTURIES" are kind of crazy in my view. Maybe people later perverted it for that reason, but certainly not the original guys.


This is not meant to a be a religious debate I only want to see things pertaining directly to this argument.

What about every other individual who went to a painful and crappy death preaching something? People can be mistaken or just wrong. Dying painfully doesn't mean you were right, just that you died painfully.

The Gospel of Thomas doesn't even mention the resurection.

Was it not important to Thomas? is his gospel a fiction or was it supressed by the early church because it contradicted their teachings? If one gospel can be a fiction why are the others to be believed (i assume your answer is because they were the ones promoted by the Church as 'cannon')

I mean that other people said Jesys existed is support for the historical stuff, but I don't know what i should believe, and believing in the resurection and miracles is rather difficult, I don't believe in Faeries or Unicorns either. The magic in our world is cool illusion and trickery, which fools us, and we know it.

Hmm. Okay to both of you (btw this entire thing is being devil's advocate) I would say this:

Stukus: can you name a similar example in which many people who were all ostensibly witnesses to the same thing went to their deaths like that?

It's one thing if a lone person does it. They could just be nuts or delusional. But the notion that several people who knew each other and the person they are preaching about are all delusional in the same way is hard to believe.

So they're not delusional. I think we can rule that out.

Maybe they didn't really know Jesus. Okay... that's a strange claim but I want to explore everything.

So they didn't know him. Even then, it doesn't explain why the lot of them taught the same thing and died for it.

Okay so that's out.

Another possibility: Jesus told them he would be resurrected. They believed him hardcore (like cult people do today) and when he died, they all believed he was resurrected. They didn't need to see any evidence, they just all believed it. Then they agreed they'd have to tell people they'd seen Jesus, else no one would believe. So that's what they did.

That's easier to believe. I guess maybe that's my explanation. Still though... I don't know about this whole "let's sit down and hammer out our lie that we'll tell people" idea. Seems nuts. Especially for, like, fishermen who didn't really know anything except what Jesus had told them. And one of the things he told them was not to lie. So yeah... but still. Maybe that's it.

Also I'm not really talking about the Gospels. That's a whole different thing. It's not clear who wrote them and when. So that's not what I'm referring to.

Though if I'm not mistaken, all stories of Church "suppression" aside, the Gospel of Thomas is on even weaker ground than the others.

If your arguement for the Gospel of Thomas bieng 'on weaker' gruond than the other is that it was made up, why am i supposed to believe that any other writings about Jesus were not also made up?

That they were popular writings with a certain religious cult 2,000 years ago does not make them factual. Just as the book of Mormon isn't made factual because many people believe it, or the writings of L. Ron Hubbard.

Basically the Arguement against Christianity is that stories are easy to make up and pass on to other people. Once someone believes a story it will be passed on by them as truth.

Ugh, I hate this... I'd love to get involved with this one, but otto & buddhism :-/

gotta pick my battles I guess. I hope a Chrisitian might be along to comment at some point.

"...it shall be legitimate and appropriate to use lies as a remedy..." - Eusebius of Caesarea, Bishop of Caesarea, in Palestine, early 4th Century...

Says Wikipedia: He was a historian, exegete and polemicist is one of the more renowned Church Fathers. He was a most diligent investigator of the Canon. Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel, and On Discrepancies between the Gospels were among his scholarly works. As "Father of Church History" he produced Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, Chronicle of Universal History and On the Martyrs.

With folks like that (who directly promoted lying as a means to an end) in the center of the formation of the church, what else can be said?

I've heard it argued that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, he just went into some kind of comatose state (probably induced by a drug administered through the wine Jesus was fed from a reed) before being taken down after a few hours (death from crucifixion usually takes at least a day, and the two thieves were both still alive when they were taken down at the same time as Jesus). To all observors, it would certainly appear that Jesus had died and had been resurrected, when instead he simply awoke from a drug-induced coma. Jesus had more than 12 followers, of course, and it may've been possible that the apostles weren't 'in the loop' and really thought he'd risen from the dead. Jesus may've even believed it himself.

Not saying this is what I believe - it is an explanation I've heard put forth by others (which sounds less incredible than rising from the dead).

@ Tolstoy Druging a crucified person would only speed up death. It is beleaved that as soon as a person is unable to hold up their own weight they sufficate with in minutes. Also the body was kept up in place for days. So you can rule that out. Check Wiki's cause of death under crucifcation

Actualy he was saved by the People's Judean Front's suicide squad.

@ dexter

Eusebius was certainly quite a character in Chuch history. If you look further down on the page though it also says that he was suspected of ascribing to the Arian heresy. If he were that influential among the council the Arians probably wouldn't have lost. Bishop Athanasius who actively opposed the Arian heresy was arguably more influential in deciding the canon. It seems that Eusebius was willing to lie to promote Arianism, but rather than becoming part of Christianity it was shot down during the canonization process.

@ orathaic

The Gospel of Thomas doesn't raise too many questions for me as it was tied to Manes and Manicheanism. This was treated early as a Christian heresy, but was really an attempt at taking the religious traditions of the area (Persia) and combining them. A resurrected Christ, that was actually the son of God would have been a problem for them. Mani was setting himself up as a prophet and actually beginning a distinctly different religion. So had at least as much reason to deny Christ's divinity as anyone.

Okay can we get back to my point.

I am not talking about the 4th Century or Christianity as a whole.

Only the testimonies (NOT the Gospels) of those who were in direct contact with Jesus.

Also the "he didn't die on the cross theory" has been pretty well refuted in my mind.

However I won't go into obviously.

That's for another thread.

I would like people's views on the original question.

When you say the testimonies, can you give me an example of which ones you have in mind?

Okay, I finally found the question. sorry

I agree with your argument as to the resurrection. Here is a thread from a long time ago when we discussed it.

The strongest argument that I've heard was from orathaic & it was along the lines of "well we've got this much invested; he didn't come back, but we may as well finish his work anyway"

My counter to that would have been the supposition that it inappropriately projects atheistic ideals to people whom we don't have any reason to believe thought that way. If they believed in God; and they taught others that Christ was his son in error, then they are committing blasphemy. THey're in a bigger pickle now, not only at the forces of earth against them they also have God mad at them when they die. That argument truly takes all motive away for them to lie.

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=493738&page-thread=3#threadPager

Here's the thread, the resurrection argument starts on page three of it.

Surely this can be no more persuasive than any other argument from miracles?

Indeed, this is an argument that says the following:

P1: You only would die a martyr if you truly believed something
P2: The Early Christians died martyrs because they thought Jesus rose from the dead
IC: The Early Christians truly believed that Jesus rose from the dead.
P3: If people truly believe a miracle to have happened, it (probably) happened
C: Therefore the resurrection of Jesus probably happened.

P3, however you express it, is weak. I would begin by attacking that.

Just a point. Jesus was crucified fwith two thieves. Why were the three of them crucified at all? The Jewish way of execution was stoning (which is what happened to St Stephen for blasphomy) While the Roman execution method was crucifixtion. Crucifixtion was for the enemies of the state (Rome). Also, why did it take over 1000 men to arrest Jesus and 11 desciples, (a cohort plus the Temple Gaurd)? The truth will never be known, but the New Testiment leaves a lot of things unanswered.

I do love the forums on this website

Shafto, one answer: fear of the people.

regarding TGMs P3 - people don't believe that modern magicians do anything supernatural, but some of them do: because they can't come up with a better explaination.

People like coming up with an explaination, that doesn't mean the know how to best find truth (scientific method does a pretty good job, not perfect, but always refining adeas...)

If there are multiple versions of the truth, the only one can be accepted - hence any alternative gospels must be supressed - however we weren't there so can't tell who wrote what, and what was true.

@Thucydides "Only the testimonies (NOT the Gospels) of those who were in direct contact with Jesus." - i have access to no Testimonies which i can verify.

None of the people who were actually in contact with Jesus were alive to provide me with their testimant. - also i have more D points than you so i can hardly see how you are not convinced by everything i say (thats how you earn D , right?)

I should know better, but I'll say something here.

In the 1st century, written evidence was less important than oral evidence. Think about it--back then, most people couldn't read, and even if you could read, you had no way to verify the real author of a document. A real person, whose identity could be verified, standing in front of you and speaking, was far more trustworthy than a piece of papyrus. As long as Jesus' original followers were around to tell the story, they didn't need a document to describe what happened.

In any case, the Gospel of Thomas was not suppressed by "the church." There has never been any time in the history of Christianity when the whole Christian church was unified under a single authority. Since there was no "church authority," there was no one to suppress books from the Bible.

Shafto: while the New Testament tends to gloss over the political side of Jesus' movement, it's clear that he was seen as a dangerous rebel. "Christ" is a political title as well as a religious one. And the description of crowds welcoming Jesus into the Jerusalem indicates a threat in Jesus' movement. And the Book of Revelation looks forward to and celebrates the future destruction of the Roman Empire.

Back to the original question...I think that this is a strong argument, but I'm not out to disprove it. :) It's worth noting also that the disciples were totally shocked both by Jesus' death and by his resurrection, and that it took time for them to agree on what happened.

It's clear that something happened that day...one of the most interesting pieces of evidence is Matthew 28:11-15 (http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=133672567). That passage is designed to disprove the unbeliever's claim that the disciples stole Jesus' body. If Christians and non-Christians were arguing about *how* Jesus' body vanished from the tomb, they must have agreed *that* Jesus' body vanished from the tomb.

If I recall, don't they take a long time to agree on what happens? Like, after Jesus's death they all vanish together for a while before appearing again? They could easily have convinced each other of a single story. I don't ascribe malice to them, or even deceit. I just believe they were mistaken. You don't have to picture them consciously hammering out the details of a lie to spread. But research shows again and again that human memory sucks and false memories are easy to create.

@ ghostmaker

P3 is weak the way that you wrote it but it seems to be artificially weakened. "If people truly believe a miracle to have happened (It probably happened)" That really isn't the argument that we're making. That would lead to the counter assertion that suicide bombers must be right because the truly believe. The weakness there is that suicide bomber (although apparently sincere in his belief) doesn't have any actual experience of the truth of his claim not having been there to see. If he did then we’d have to consider his claim equally as seriously as the apostles’ claims.

The apostles (aside from St. Paul) were there and could see with their own eyes what had happened. The measuring stick here isn't science (as there is nothing for science to measure having no access to the evidence 2000 years after the fact), but law and assessment of historical evidence. The testimony of all the eyewitnesses to an event, however unlikely it might seem, has to be given consideration. It's a situation in which the prosecution has nothing. So, we have to absolve the apostles’ of lying unless we can come up with better evidence.

@ ghostmaker (again)

So let’s rewrite P3 this way:

Multiple eyewitnesses attest to their true belief that a miracle took place. We don't have data to analyze or eyewitness testimony to the contrary, so we must conclude that the miracle is likely. Therefore if we doubt the resurrection of Jesus, we are doing so by both:

A) Ignoring the extant testimony in favor of the event

And

B) Making a conclusion in the absence of specific evidence that pertains to this event to support our doubt.

It becomes much stronger and applies better to the actual event we’re discussing.

@ stukus

I think your point is a bit artificial as well. Certainly for small thing that might be the case. We have to realize that a lot of people saw their friend (whom they'd known for years) after he was dead. Not only one or two but all.

Just "getting together" doesn't mean "concocted a conspiracy" even unintentionally. That line of reasoning would make it very easy to convict lots of people of conspiracies of lots of issues. I also think it relies a bit on the "well they were just superstitious and primitive and likely to believe anything" argument that is really a stereotype and doesn't bring any real eviedene to support it. We cannot know what they were likely to believe, indeed we can't know what are neighbor is likely to believe unless we talk with him.

I've been told by a historian that Jesus did not die at all. Crucifixion is not lethal, the only reason you die of it is because you stay there until you die of starvation and dehydration. Therefore, he was simply removed from the cross and hidden in a tomb, before leaving for asia a short while later. I believe this was done with the support of the romans, because his preaching of pacifism made him much more desirable than the zealots who were preaching violent revolt and undermining roman rule, but they had to arrest him because for show because very prominent jews saw his pacifism as a threat.

His explanation was logical, strong, and exhaustive, but I'll admit to not knowing what his sources were. However, I'd like to know what your sources are as well, that "it's pretty well documented that they all preached the resurrection under persecution". And as someone said, maybe they didn't know better, maybe they weren't told he just went away? Maybe they thought it a good way to spread the message of love and peace? Who knows.

"Also the "he didn't die on the cross theory" has been pretty well refuted in my mind." Has it? :P

I'll have to read up on that, now. I don't really have an opinion on all of that because I know that I only have biased and incomplete information, just saying what I was told.

Oh lol, first link I come up on and open has as a header: "Evidence for God", and then starts citing the testament for proof.

I think I'll skip that source...