@ Crazy Anglican : first, yes we all agree that Jesus is a histroical person who they evidence suggests existed - those who don't agree to this might aswell leave...

second:
"That's true, but how many of Elvis's closest friends testify that he is still alive in the face of torture to get them ot deny it? That's hardly an apt analogy." - touche. How and ever you force me to point out the important difference in Elvis being alive (implying some kind of conspiracy, perhaps he faked his own death to hide from public view) and Jesus coming back from the dead (implying he came back from the freakin' dead! or he was the son of God and a martyr to his cause who came back as proof of his divinity...)

My point being - that 'some people' think/say he and elvis were still alive does not make them right, however the question of whether Jesus was still alive had much more signifigance to people's lives (as his message was about how to live your life, and him being resurected proves his message as truth)

So you have people who once they believe are willing to die as Jesus did, (just as suicide bombers today are willing to put their lives on the line to further their religion - not comparing Islamic fundamentalists to Elvis believers in case any of those groups are getting offended) So they truely believed - but humans can truely believe in something and it still not be true.

That leaves his close friends; and you've rather got me there. If i do claim that the Gospel of thomas as a true gospel (written by an apostle) and i don't know that it is, and i go on to claim that the fact that he wrote this butfailed to mention Jesus was the son of God - implies he didn't believe it.

Now this is a rather shakey arguement - given that just because I don't mention something doesn't mean I don't believe it happened - but it is possible that writings describing a different Jesus were supressed by, lets say, Peter's Church. (for arguements sake, the Gospel of Thomas does state James the righteous was to lead his followers when Jesus was gone) - hence there may be evidence that some of Jesus' follower/close friends didn't believe he was resurected - I am no biblical scholar, so i do not claim that i have such evidence, but I'm also not convinced by your arguement either - if i cite lack of evidence either way will i manage to leave the conversation with my head intact?

@TGM

Simply put again

The evidence that we have states that the Resurrection occured. If you reject it ... fine, but you are doing so by rejecting the only available evidence.

There can be no independent scientific study of the event and therefore science can't comment other than to attest that if it did occur it was exceedingly rare. If science at some point reaches the place where resurrections are possible, then your argument completely loses ground as primitive 21st Century nonsense.

Forget the idea that I'm trying to prove God's existence. This is argument is historical, not theological. In that light, can you really deny my rewrite of your P3 statment. I still propose it seriously as a statement that better takes into account the reality of the historical account as best we can determine.

@Crazy Anglican:
Yeah, lunatic fringe, like the Earth being flat, or the Earth being the center of the Universe. Creationism also flies in the face of current scholarship, of course that doesn't stop it from being voted on every election. I am also not sure Young Earth Creationism is as fringe for Christians as you are pretending it to be.

I imagine some guy named Jesus existed, but since there is so little written outside of the biased bible about his life, we have no real sources for what really occurred. Since, there are arguments that he didn't exist, how can you say that there is proof the Resurrection happened?

@ orathaic

I did look into the Gospel of Thomas and there are two major problems that I could find. The first is the assertion that it was not written by Thomas but by a follower of the prophet Mani. Manicheanism was an attempt to start a different religion in which traditions of all the extant religions were included (Kind of like early Bai hai). The idea of Christ being divine was therefore a problem for them. If the Christian God is the true God then why follow Mani?

The second problem that I could find was second Century Gnosticism. As I was discussing with otto, Gnosticism does have alot to do with Buddhsm. A question comes up immediately. Were the Gnostic quotes added as influence of Buddhism and Gnosticism began to assert themselves and then rejected because the people at the time knew what they were and that they weren't part of the actual story. I think that two stories told side by side probably borrowed from each other in the retellings and resulted in Gnosticism. When going back to the texts know to be authoritative, it became obvious what to drop.

What I'm finding in my study of Buddhism is that, aside from two dudes who most certainly had clue saying things that sounded similar at times, these overlapping elements of the stories are either overgeneralizations or they were eliminated as non-canonical. I've actually been impressed at how well the early Church fathers weeded out some of the ideas. The Gospel of Infancy is one from which a lot of the Buddhism crossovers come was caught by the canonization process. Admittedly I'm just beginning in preparation from an onslaught by otto. Please send good vibes my way; I kinda know how David must have felt going up against that Goliath guy.

@Tantris

Welcome to the acceptance of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. As to the idea of the Resurrection that's the discussion at hand.

@ orathaic

How sound is it that merely because someone is important different logical rules need to apply?
RE: Elvis and Jesus

Off to dinner with friends. Wow a whole day on this on and off :-S

I think I'll have to start ignoring the one liners and stick to the more complete arguments; it's just too time consuming.

@ Crazy Anglican, I was literally just trying to establish the Premise that the resurrection, if it happened, was a miracle.

So, Crazy, if you were not a Christian before the inquiry, would you or would you not believe in the resurrection of Jesus?

Again, just asking purely factual questions to try to work out your position.

I would probably posit that something happened, and be looking for any possible way to interpret it as something other than Christ's divinity I suppose. I can't say for certain as I'm not a non-Christian.

I think you're actually asking an opinon question and a hypothetical one at that though.

To be more clear:

I am not asking about whether the resurrection happened, or if it did happen, whether it was because Jesus was drugged or actually was supernaturally raised.

I'm asking:

Why would the disciples have all held that he was risen and been put to death for saying so? Why would they have, besides for the reason that they actually saw what they said they saw?

Some things I think we can agree on, to jump off of:

-These men knew Jesus well and would not have mistook someone else for him.
-There were twelve of these men, and the chance that all twelve of them could have truly deluded themselves to believe something that none of them had experienced, and deluded in such great detail, is a small chance.
-That they were lying is also unlikely, given that they were brutally executed in almost every case.
-That they had any sort of ulterior motive, whether physical (fame or money etc), or religious (if they thought that their actions would get them into Jewish heaven).


Okay so the strongest thing I am hearing so far is this:

The disciples strongly believed the words of Jesus (not unimaginable), including the part about how he would rise from the dead. When he did not rise from the dead, they believed he had anyway. They could not actually get to the tomb (guarded), so they just assumed he had left.


Still..... that leaves a serious hole. It would mean they would actually have to LIE about how they saw him more than once, up close and personal. I can't see that. You don't get eleven people lying about that independently when you're burning them alive etc. No one does that unless they really believe what they say, and no one really believes what they say unless they really experienced what they say they did.

So what is it?

Again.... this is in no way trying to get at anything religious. Maybe after a while it would, but not before an impartial conclusion is reached.

Maybe Jesus was resurrected, maybe he wasn't. Maybe he never died on the cross, maybe he did. Maybe he just died. I don't know, and that's not what I'm talking about.

I would like to say that I am not accepting anything from the Bible as proof for these things. This is the scenario I see, then, sans Bible:

11-odd guys come from the Roman province of Judea, recently after the death of a Jewish religious leader called Jesus. Jesus had been rather popular but it now seemed his revolution was over. However news now comes that these 11 men are now preaching that, in fact, Jesus had returned from death, that hey had seen him, and that he then ascended to heaven, all before their eyes.

Okay fine. I am a citizen of Rome hearing about this. The logical thing is to say: oh they're just crackpots. That didn't really happen they're just trying to get famous, some poor old Jewish fishermen. They'll go away.

They don't go away. In fact, their movement grows rapidly and even spreads out of Judea. Okay that's weird. The other day at the Forum I actually heard some of these Christians preaching. Very strange. I thought they were just crackpots but apparently they have appeal.

Well whatever. They'll go away, or maybe just be another cult religion. Whatever.

But no. They grow so fast that now the authorities are noticing. They are bothered. This is dangerous, they think. So their reaction is to begin hunting for these 11 guys that started it all.

First comes James in 44 AD. He was beheaded.
Then others:

Philip, crucified. Bartholomew, skinned then beheaded. Matthew, imapled. Thomas, impaled. James son of Alphaeus, stoned, crucified, and beaten to death. Jude, crucified. Simon, crucified. Andrew, crucified. And Peter was crucified upside down in Rome. Only John died naturally.

So yeah..... you'd think, you really WOULD think that at least one of them would have been like... okay FUCK this, after they heard about, I dunno, Bartholomew probably would have gotten to me. Skinned THEN beheaded.

Yeah at that point I would have gone to the Emperor and said, "Hey I'm perfectly willing to preach a sermon telling all to worship you, followed immediately by me bowing down and praying to you, oh Mr. Nero sir."

Or at least run away. The last thing I would do, supposing I were Jude or someone like, would be to go on defiantly preaching the same damn thing, only to get crucified.

You'd think maybe John, after all his friends were dead, there in exile with years to think about it, might have written a sort of tell all confessions? Instead he wrote Revelation..... which we'll get into later. For all I know he wrote it because he literally lost him mind. But anyway.

That's all I'm saying is, I'd like to hear an explanation besides "it just happened like they said" that isn't weak as hell.

@Thucydides, IMO the biggest problem with that hole in the story is that fact that it is a story... that was passed orally for many years among true believers before being written down. Who's to say that all eleven originally made the claim? (for that matter, who's to say that all eleven got martyred?) We don't have their original testimony... what we have is complete hearsay... several layers deep. We might as well be talking about an urban legend, for how much we can depend on it.

Oh - and as far as claiming they saw him up close and personal... (some) people claim that sort of thing - even in these modern days... that they talked to God, or that God told them x or y. ...and they believe it. The disciples are certainly not the only people who have gone to their deaths refusing to recant something they've claimed... (and probably believed).

...and speaking of history and how its collected... how much is gathered by using hearsay? The story of Troy in the Illiad was considered only a myth and not considered likely to have existed by most historians... until the ruins of what was apparently Troy were uncovered. The discovery of Troy, however, did little to make anyone believe that Achilles actually was dipped in special water by his mother that made him invulnerable to weapons except for his heels (where his mother was holding him)... even though that was written about in the Illiad. Proof of Jesus existing... does nothing to prove that he had seemingly mythical powers (much like Achilles) even though that other more fantastic claim is made in the same document (Bible or Illiad, depending).

@ CA "I would probably posit that something happened, and be looking for any possible way to interpret it as something other than Christ's divinity I suppose. I can't say for certain as I'm not a non-Christian.

I think you're actually asking an opinon question and a hypothetical one at that though."

I'm basically arguing, does your interpretation of the resurrection as a miracle require Christianity as a premise or not?

Sorry, I mean ASKING not ARGUING. My mistake.

"There were twelve of these men, and the chance that all twelve of them could have truly deluded themselves to believe something that none of them had experienced, and deluded in such great detail, is a small chance." - this is of course the easiest solution - i can see the newspaper headlines
- Jesus witnessed after his 'crusifixtion'

- Cult leader lives again

- Did he fake his own death?

- Investigation of Roman officers indicates that they did in fact kill Jesus...

and so on.

You paint Jesus as a great illusionist. Entirely plausible explaination of the rest of the behaviour from his friends that you also paint.

It is the only explaination of events which you portray so clearly that also makes sense. Of course it is not neccesarily true.

"The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." - Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace, mathematician and astronomer

...so, the burden of proof that Jesus existed is light. ...the burden of proof that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead is heavy. (same as with Achilles)

thats not how the cross worked though. It was not starvation and dehydration that would of killed Jesus. How the cross worked was everytime a person needed to inhale a breath he had to push up with his feet. As you could imagine it would of been difficult being nailed there to keep this up so you would eventually not be able to breath. Also Jesus was pierced in the side with a spear. Also since when did the Romans let someone being executed live? If a soldier let a prisoner live or get away he would have to pay for it with his own life.

oh wow i didn't move pages. sorry that was like the first page.

@ dexter

Your stance once again falls into the category of allowing you to deny anything in history whatsoever so long as you, personally, feel that it's fishy. It's a sure fire way to argue that everything that has ever happened has done so exactly as you assume it should and that you don't need to be bothered with finding evidence to the contrary.

The Iliad as a factual account lacks the element of eyewitness account who went to their deaths. It's therefore not a valid analogy. The accounts of the apostles martyrdom is written off as well? Even in the face of a well documented tendency on the part of Roman authority to martyr Christians. To use Pierre-Simon against you, it would seem that the burden of proof for the aposltes martyrdom would be the lightest of all. It agrees perfectly with the treatment that we'd expect and is not unusual at all. How then do you so casually write it off as fabrication with no actual contradictory evidence?

@TGM

"I'm basically arguing, does your interpretation of the resurrection as a miracle require Christianity as a premise or not?"

I think by any stretch of the imagination, If a guy were to be shown to have said I'm gonna be killed and three days later will rise again, and then actually does it. That would probably be said to be a miracle and wouldn't need the acceptance of Christianity. Even an atheist might be impressed with the singularity of the event, but would likely interpret it in light of his beliefs. That's purely specualtion though; I do not know how others would react.

@ orathaic

There is a problem with this line of reasoning imo.

"You paint Jesus as a great illusionist. Entirely plausible explaination of the rest of the behaviour from his friends that you also paint."


If Jesus were merely an illusionist, then he'd presumably have lots of stuff to carry around with him (being one myself I've got bags of junk to prefprm with). The disciples would have served as plant in the audience, or assistants. Your argument has them as the chief audience (he fooled them into beleiveing that he'd been resurrected), but also as the guys who traveled with him for three years setting up in town after town. If they were his roadies and assistants, then they'd be much more likely to know what was going on instead of less so.

Quoting the bible to prove the resurrection is circular logic. "The bible's account of the resurrection is true because the bible says so".

As for the book I cited, it does indeed seem that a lot of its content was disputed, but so far I have yet to see dispute over its interpretation of the resurrection.

If you put aside the bible, no, you don't have evidence to say it is true. The only thing you can say for certain is that IF he was put on a cross, and IF he had been scourged in the vilest way, and IF he was stabbed through the heart and lung, etc., then, sure, a miracle is a more "likely" explanation than a "natural" explanation of the resurrection. As I agree, there's no way he could have survived what is told in the bible. However, you can't prove that what is said in the bible actually happens. And quite frankly, it sounds like rubbish, as it all portrays the worst treatment possible, just to make him more of a martyr and support the claim of divinity.

Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can beleave anything... just give him time to rationalize it.~Robert A Heinlein. This sums up my view on the whole ressurection ideal.

@ CA

Ok, so we do genuinely disagree on one point: Could testimony alone ever be sufficient to establish a miracle.

Suppose we take that we have no prior reason to suppose that the supernatural occurs. Now we must understand miracles to be by definition the most improbable thing possible, because they contravene the established physical law. If we accept their possibility, that implies their probability is as little above zero as possible. Now, that means that if there is any explanation of events that does not contradict physical law, no matter how unlikely it is, it is more likely than the miracle having taken place, so the testimony needs to expressly preclude any natural occurrence. This is clearly impossible for testimony, so testimony can never be sufficient evidence for a miracle.

@CA:
I accept that some guy named Jesus might have existed, though Josephus was writing about events he hadn't seen. If he did exist, he was someone with very little information about them that people wrote stories about.

No other religions of the time had stories of death and resurrection? Are they all true?

You know what is really surprising. Odysseus encountered Sirens, witches, and a cyclops. Now, if I can prove Odysseus existed, can we then use the Illiad and Odyssey as reputable sources?