What would it take to prove that Jesus rose from the dead?

[McCulloch]

What would it take to prove that Jesus rose from the dead. giving that it happened way before cameras etc were invented?

P4JC

Good question P4JC.

[Pastor4Jesus]

I am afraid that this debate is going to go the way of most debates of this type. I am going to claim that there exist credible documents and such to support a circumstantial case for the resurrection. Those of you that do not agree with such things will attempt to discredit such documents etc and say if there is no hard evidence that they will remain unconvinced. I do wonder if it will be worth our time on either side if this is going to be the case.

Other subjects went well in debate except for a few items. For example, I think the KCA debate went well, because of its philosophical nature. Anyway as I said I am going to claim the Gospels can't be proven untrue as well as the extra biblical sources that lend credence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Maybe we will all learn something with this go around if everyone thinks we should continue it.

Secondly, again the number of atheists and agnostics are mounting so I may request that you pick one person to debate me or another Christian in this thread.

P4JC

[Goat]

I am asking you for evidence that it was an insertion. You are making that claim, its an document and if one claims that a historical document isn't true the burden of proof is your responsibility.

I do thank you for putting the rebuttals in your own words.

P4JC

Other than the fact that even the most ardent supporters admit it's tamptered with, I think the arguemnts presented about why antiquites 18:1 is spurious in the early christiain writings site is very telling. Although you mumble and grumble about cut/pastes, it does sum up the arguments nicely.

From http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... l#spurious


There are several arguments of various quality that aim to show that the Testimonium Flavianum is entirely spurious.

1. It is sometimes argued that the phrase "to this day" at the end of the passage indicates the perspective of a writer who was writing long after the events in question and that Josephus was too close in time to make it believable that he would have used the expression. On the contrary, a span of 60 years time after the death of Jesus is sufficient to cause some surprise at the survival of the cult. According to the speech of Gamiliel in Acts 5:35-39, most movements disbanded shortly after the death of the leader.

2. It is often argued that the description of Jesus is unusually short for Josephus. For example, Josephus devotes over twice as much space to the description of John the Baptist. Although suggestive, this argument is not conclusive. Professor Sanders considers this passage to be "the best objective evidence of the importance of Jesus during his own lifetime. The gospels create the impression that the entire populace was vitally interested in Jesus and what happened to him. Certainly he did attract attention. But if we measure the general impact of prophetic figures by the degree of disturbance they caused, we shall conclude that Jesus was less important in the eyes of most of his contemporaries than were John the Baptist and the Egyptian..." (pp. 50-51)

3. Earl Doherty argues: "In the section on Pilate in the earlier Jewish War, written in the 70s, Josephus outlines the same two incidents with which he began chapter 3 of Book 18 in the Antiquities of the Jews, incidents which caused tumult in Judea during the governorship of Pilate. In the Antiquities, these descriptions are immediately followed by the Testimonium about Jesus. In Jewish War (2.9/169-177) no mention of Jesus is included." (p. 222) This is also suggestive but inconclusive. Robert Grant notes that "none of them [John the Baptist, James, or Jesus] is to be found in the parallel passages in his earlier War; presumably Christians had become more important in the interval." (p. 291)

4. It is sometimes claimed that manuscripts before Eusebius do not have the passage in question. This is simply not true; there are no extant manuscripts before Eusebius. It is also sometimes pointed out that the Josippon, a medieval Hebrew version of Josephus, lacks the passage in question. However, Josippon is dependent on the text of the Antiquities preserved by Christians, so it is clear that the author of Josippon does not represent an independent manuscript tradition but rather purposely omits the passage.

5. R. Joseph Hoffmann notes: "Further, the language used to describe John is very close to the language used to describe Jesus, leading some to theorize that the original version of the Antiquities carried no reference to Jesus at all." (p. 54)

In Ecclesiastical History 1.11, Eusebius writes: "After relating these things concerning John, he makes mention of our Saviour in the same work, in the following words..." This suggests the possibility that the Testimonium was inserted in some manuscripts after the passage concerning John.

6. Louis H. Feldman writes (Josephus, Judaism and Christianity, p. 57): "The fact that an ancient table of contents, already referred to in the Latin version of the fifth or sixth century, omits mention of the Testimionium (though, admittedly, it is selective, one must find it hard to believe that such a remarkable passage would be omitted by anyone, let alone by a Christian, summarizing the work) is further indication that there was no such notice..." I regard this as an important and powerful piece of evidence, although one that doesn't get much attention.

7. It is argued that the reference to "the tribe of Christians so named from him" requires the earlier phrase "He was the Christ."

Meier writes: "But as Andre Pelletier points out, a study of the style of Josephus and other writers of his time shows that the presence of 'Christ' is not demanded by the final statement about Christians being 'named after him.' At times both Josephus and other Greco-Roman writers (e.g., Dio Cassius) consider it pedantry to mention explicitly the person after whom some other person or place is named; it would be considered an insult to the knowledge and culture of the reader to spell out a connection that is taken for granted." (p. 61)

This reply is seen to be insufficient. Pelletier points out the example of Antiquities 17.5.1, where Josephus explains the name of the port Sebastos by saying: "Herod, having constructed it at great expense, named it Sebastos in honor of Caesar." Josephus leaves out the technical explanation that Caesar's honorific name in Latin is Augustus, which was translated into the Greek language as Sebastos. It may be assumed that the reader would be aware of Caesar's title. However, it cannot be assumed that the reader would be aware that Jesus was known as the Christ.

Some would avoid this problem by substituting "He was believed to be the Christ" or "He was the so-called Christ" in place of the phrase, "He was the Christ." This is possible, though not without its problems. Meier argues that the statement "seems out of place in its present position and disturbs the flow of thought. If it were present at all, one would expect it to occur immediately after either 'Jesus' or 'wise man,' where the further identification would make sense. Hence, contrary to Dubarle, I consider all attempts to save the statement by expanding it to something like 'he was thought to be the Messiah' to be ill advised. Such expansions, though witnessed in some of the Church fathers (notable Jerome), are simply later developments in the tradition." (p. 60) It is also problematic that Josephus would have introduced the term Christ here without any explanation of its meaning. This problem will be considered in more detail in relation to the 20.9.1 passage.

8. Steve Mason states: "the passage does not fit well with its context in Antiquities 18. . . Josephus is speaking of upheavals, but there is no upheaval here. He is pointing out the folly of Jewish rebels, governors, and troublemakers in general, but this passage is completely supportive of both Jesus and his followers. Logically, what should appear in this context ought to imply some criticism of the Jewish leaders and/or Pilate, but Josephus does not make any such criticism explicit. He says only that those who denounced Jesus were 'the leading men among us.' So, unlike the other episodes, this one has no moral, no lesson. Although Josephus begins the next paragraph by speaking of 'another outrage' that caused an uproar among the Jews at the same time (18.65), there is nothing in this paragraph that depicts any sort of outrage." (p. 165)

Earl Doherty argues: "G. A. Wells and others have argued that the continuity of the flanking passages works best when no passage about Jesus intervenes. The final thought of the previous paragraph flows naturally into the words of the one following, whereas the opening of the latter paragraph does not fit as a follow-up to the closing sentence of the Testimonium. This argument is somewhat tempered by the fact that since the ancients had no concept of footnotes, digressional material had to be inserted into the main text, as there was nowhere else to put it. However, one might ask whether the Testimonium should be considered digressional material, since it continues with the theme of Pilate's activities and about various woes which befall the Jews. One might also suggest that, digression or no, once Josephus had written it, his opening words in the subsequent paragraph ought to have reflected, rather than ignored, the paragraph on Jesus." (p. 207)

The fact that Josephus was prone to digressions does allow that Josephus could have inserted this passage here simply because it relates to Pilate. Meier suggests the following explanation: "In the present case, one wonders whether any greater link need exist for Josephus than the fact that the account of Jesus (who is crucified by Pilate) is preceded by a story about Pilate in which many Jews are killed (Ant. 18.3.2, 60-62) and is followed by a story in which the tricksters are punished by crucifixion." (p. 86)

However, the real difficulty is not that the content of the Testimonium is only tangentially related to the surrounding content; the real difficulty is the way that Josephus begins the subsequent paragraph with a reference to "another outrage," a reference that skips over the Testimonium entirely and points to the previous section.

9. No form of the Testimonium Flavianum is cited in the extant works of Justin Martyr, Theophilus Antiochenus, Melito of Sardis, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Pseudo-Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Methodius, or Lactantius. According to Michael Hardwick in Josephus as an Historical Source in Patristic Literature through Eusebius, each of these authors shows familiarity with the works of Josephus.

Jeffery Jay Lowder writes: "Assuming that contemporary reconstructions of the passage are accurate, it is difficult to imagine why the early church fathers would have cited such a passage. The original text probably did nothing more than establish the historical Jesus. Since we have no evidence that the historicity of Jesus was questioned in the first centuries, we should not be surprised that the passage was never quoted until the fourth century."

John P. Meier argues: "One possible explanation of this silence would jibe well with my reconstruction of the Testimonium and my isolation of the Christian interpolations. If until shortly before the time of Eusebius the Testimonium lacked the three Christian interpolations I have bracketed, the Church Fathers would not have been overly eager to cite it; for it hardly supports the mainline Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God who rose from the dead. This would explain why Origen in the 3d century affirmed that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah (Commentary on Matthew 10.17; Contra Celsum 1.47). Origen's text of the Testimonium simply testified, in Christian eyes, to Josephus' unbelief -- not exactly a useful apologetical tool in addressing pagans or a useful polemical tool in christological controversies among Christians." (p. 79)

Earl Doherty counters: "Meier's argument is that the Christian Fathers would have recognized that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, or believe that he had risen from the dead. The Testimonium witnessed to Josephus' unbelief and was therefore avoided. But should the apologists have found this disconcerting in a non-Christian? They dealt with unbelief every day, faced it head on, tried to counter and even win over the opponent. Justin's major work, Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, did just that. Origen, in his own confrontation with Celsus, did not shy away from criticizing Josephus for attributing the fall of Jerusalem to God's punishment on the Jews for the death of James, rather than for the death of Jesus (see below). In fact, Origen refers to the very point which Meier suggests Christian commentators shied away from, that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah. It hardly seems that the silence on Antiquities 18.3.3 by all the apologists prior to Eusebius can be explained in this way." (pp. 209-210)

So there was some cause for the early Church Fathers to have quoted from a reconstructed Testimonium. Consider Origen, who quoted from the Antiquities of the Jews in order to establish the historical existence of John the Baptist even though there is no evidence that the historicity of John the Baptist was questioned. If Origen found it useful to quote Josephus in order to establish the historicity of John, how much more so would Origen be eager to quote Josephus in order to establish the historicity of Jesus? Indeed, Origen cites Josephus to establish the existence of the Baptist even though Celsus represented the Jew in his discourse as accepting the historicity of John (Contra Celsus 1.47). Celsus grants that Jesus performed "miracles" for the sake of argument but attributes them to sorcery. Interestingly, Eusebius' motive for quoting Josephus in the Evangelical Demonstration is precisely to establish that Jesus performed true miracles, not merely to establish the historicity of Jesus. Thus, there was a motive for the early Church Fathers to have quoted a reconstructed Testimonium.

10. Steve Mason indicates several ways in which the Testimonium deviates from Josephan style.

First, Mason writes:

It uses words in ways that are not characteristic of Josephus. For example, the word translated "worker" in the phrase "worker of incredible deeds" is poietes in Greek, from which we get "poet." Etymologically, it means "one who does" and so it can refer to any sort of "doer." But in Josephus' day it had already come to have special reference to literary poets, and that is how he consistently uses it elsewhere (nine times) - to speak of Greek poets like Homer. (p. 169)

Second, Mason observes:

Notice further that the phrase "they did not cease" has to be completed by the translator, for it is left incomplete in the text; the action which his followers ceased must be understood from the preceding phrase. This is as peculiar in Greek as it is in English, and such a construction is not found elsewhere in Josephus' writing. (p. 169)

Third, Mason argues:

Again, the phrase "the tribe of the Christians" is peculiar. Josephus uses the word "tribe" (phyle) eleven other times. Once it denotes "gender," and once a "swarm" of locusts, but usually signfies distinct people, races, or nationalities: the Jews are a "tribe" (War 3.354; 7.327) as are the Taurians (War 2.366) and Parthians (War 2.379). It is very strange that Josephus should speak of the Christians as a distinct racial group, since he has just said that Jesus was a Jew condemned by Jewish leaders. (Notice, however, that some Christian authors of a later period came to speak of Christianity as a "third race.") (pp. 169-170)

Finally, there is a peculiarity with the reference to the "principal men among us." Josephus elsewhere refers to the "principal men," but Josephus consistently refers to the principal men "of Jerusalem" or "of the city," using these phrases instead of the first person plural. In his autobiography, Josephus refers to the "principal men of the city" (2), "the principal men of Jerusalem" (7), the "principal men of the city" (12), the "principal men belonging to the city" (12), the "principal men of the city" (12), and the "principal men of Jerusalem" (44). In each case Josephus identifies the leading men as belonging to Jerusalem.

11. Ken Olson indicates several ways in which the Testimonium aligns with the style and argument of Eusebius of Caesarea.

Olson writes:

In Adversus Hieroclem Eusebius argued that if he had to accept the supernatural feats attributed to Apollonius, he must regard him as a GOHS [wizard] rather than a wise man (A.H. 5); here he has Josephus call Jesus a 'wise man' and thus, implicitly, not a GOHS.

Olson states:

The term PARADOXWN ERGWN POIHTHS is markedly Eusebian. POIHTHS never occurs in Josephus in the sense of "maker" rather than "poet," and the only time Josephus combines forms of PARADOXOS and POIHW it is in the sense of "acting contrary to custom" (A.J. 12.87) rather than "making miracles." Combining forms of PARADOXOS and POIHW in the sense of "miracle-making" is exceedingly common in Eusebius, but he seems to reserve the three words PARADOXOS, POIHW, and ERGON, used together, to describe Jesus (D.E. 114-115, 123, 125, H.E. 1.2.23)

Olson argues:

Eusebius' opponents were not denying that Jesus was crucified by the Roman and Jewish authorities; this was probably a main part of their argument that Jesus was a GOHS. Eusebius, however, cleverly inverts this argument. If Jesus had been a deceiver, and his followers had been deceivers, would not self-interest have compelled them to abandon his teachings after they had witnessed the manner of his death at the hands of the authorities? The fact that they did not abandon Jesus after witnessing the punishments he had brought upon himself can only mean that the disciples had recognized some greater than normal virtue in their teacher. This argument is developed at great length in D.E. 3.5, but I shall quote only a part of it here, "Perhaps you will say that the rest were wizards no less than their guide. Yes - but surely they had all seen the end of their teacher, and the death to which He came. Why then after seeing his miserable end did they stand their ground?" (D.E. 111).

Olson concludes: "the Testimonium follows Eusebius' line of argument in the Demonstratio so closely that it is not only very unlikely that it could have been written by Josephus, but it is unlikely it could have been written by any other Christian, or even by Eusebius for another work. There is nothing in the language or content of the Testimonium, as it appears in the Demonstratio Evangelica, that suggests it is anything other than a completely Eusebian composition."

12. Earl Doherty states: "the entire tenor of such an 'original' does not ring true for Josephus. In the case of every other would-be messiah or popular leader opposed to or executed by the Romans, he has nothing but evil to say. Indeed, he condemns the whole movement of popular agitators and rebels as the bane of the century. It lead to the destruction of the Temple, of the city itself, of the Jewish state. And yet the 'authentic' Testimonium would require us to believe that he made some kind of exception for Jesus." (pp. 210-211)

Doherty argues: "To judge by the Christians' own record in the Gospels and even some of the epistles, 'the tribe of Christians' toward the end of the first century was still a strongly apocalyptic one. It expected the overthrow of the empire and established authority, along with the transformation of the world into God's kingdom. What would have led Josephus to divorce this prevailing Christian outlook - for which he would have felt nothing but revulsion - from his judgment of the movement's founder?" (p. 212)

Crossan emphasizes that the description of Jesus by Josephus is "carefully and deliberately neutral," indicating "prudent impartiality" on his part (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pp. 162-163). However, there was no reason for Josephus to be neutral concerning Jesus. Doherty argues:

His readers were primarily Roman, some Jewish. What reason would he have had for being, in Meier's phrase, "purposely ambiguous"? He had nothing to fear from Christians, and no reason to consider their sensibilities. Regardless of what he may have thought about the character of Pilate, if Pilate had executed Jesus, then there had to have been - in official Roman and Flavian eyes - a justification for doing so. Crucifixion was a punishment for rebels, and Jesus' crucifixion would have been seen as part of Rome's ongoing campaign to deal with the problems of a troubled time in a troubled province. (p. 213)

Thus, the fact that the reconstructed Testimonium has nothing but nice things to say about Jesus tends to work in favor of its inauthenticity. Consider the reference to Jesus as a "wise man" (sophos aner). Josephus reserves this phrase elsewhere for such worthies as King Solomon (Ant. 8.53) and the prophet Elisha (Ant. 9.182). Mason notes, "If Josephus said it, it was a term of high praise." (p. 171) But it is inconceivable that Josephus should have such high praise for one who is only given so little space and who is attributed with such negative characteristics (to Josephus) as apocalyptic prophecy and the cleansing of the Temple.


It is nice, to the point, and has references.

[Pastor4Jesus]

Other than the fact that even the most ardent supporters admit it's tamptered with, I think the arguemnts presented about why antiquites 18:1 is spurious in the early christiain writings site is very telling. Although you mumble and grumble about cut/pastes, it does sum up the arguments nicely.

Well I like the way its presented, thanks. You do know at the outset that I did say that I did say that a lot of Josephus work has been questioned. Still I think his writings have some merit. I have provided a link for anyone to read at their leisure and I may refer to it as source material in the future.

http://www.livius.org/jo-jz/josephus/josephus.htm

In this link it does not seek to cover up Josephus's questionable writing and his claims etc.

Ok can we take a head count? Who believes that Jesus was Crucified by Pontius Pilate?

P4JC

[Goat]

Other than the fact that even the most ardent supporters admit it's tamptered with, I think the arguemnts presented about why antiquites 18:1 is spurious in the early christiain writings site is very telling. Although you mumble and grumble about cut/pastes, it does sum up the arguments nicely.

Well I like the way its presented, thanks. You do know at the outset that I did say that I did say that a lot of Josephus work has been questioned. Still I think his writings have some merit. I have provided a link for anyone to read at their leisure and I may refer to it as source material in the future.

http://www.livius.org/jo-jz/josephus/josephus.htm

In this link it does not seek to cover up Josephus's questionable writing and his claims etc.

Ok can we take a head count? Who believes that Jesus was Crucified by Pontius Pilate?

P4JC[/q]

Welll.. when it comes to the TF, it presents an argument that can be disputed, and has been very successfully...

And appeals to popularity mean nothing. The evidence in Josephus is corrupted beyond the ponit it can be reliable.

SO, what evidence do you have that it is merely modifed, rather than inserted?

Having a 10th century quote that was paraphrased is not evidence of the passage existing before the 4th century.

[bernee51]

To the kepad !!! ; I believe Christ's resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any well known, believed and well-documented (secular) event in ancient history. I have attempted to explain it in a brief abstract of a well known theory taught at many seminary and posted on various web sites, the first part is below;

To prove the validity of the resurrection we need to suppose only two things, both are hard data empirical data that hardly no one denies i.e. the existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence, but not necessarily the truth of the Christian religion as we have it today. So the question will be which theory about what happened in Jerusalem, on the first what we now call 'Easter Sunday' can account for the data?

There are five explanations which could explain the writings of the Romans Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and what is called ‘swoon‘. If this is compatible with everyone I will proceed in my next post. *Heh heh* rubbing hands together and stroking Goatee....

I have read through the entire thread since this claim was made and have yet to see you present any evidence supporting the validity of the resurrection. No one doubts the existence of christians and what they believed – which is all the Roman writers referred to.

You mention only five explanations – could this be a ‘false quinlemma’? Is it possible that you are not considering other alternative?

From what you have written I have no doubt that you believe what you claim to believe – that Jesus lived, was executed and was raised from the dead. You have ‘heard the stories’ and believe them to be the truth.

The same for the writers of the gospels: they ‘heard the stories;’, the ‘urban legend’, wrote what they believed and believed what they wrote.

There is no evidence that the gospels are any more reflective of ‘fact’ than any other religious writings. Why should these stories be treated any differently than claims that Krishna and Arjuna met on the battlefield where Krishna showed Arjuna his ‘true face’?

To get back to the OP " What would it take to prove that Jesus rose from the dead? "

Quite simple really - what would it take for someone to 'raise from the dead'? - Divine intervention? Proof there was a 'divine' to intervene would go a long way to support the possibility of resurrection.

There is no need nor reason for, nor any evidence of, any god.

[McCulloch]

[/quote]

First we must agree that Jesus existed as a historical person. If we don’t agree with that we don’t have a debate for even the crucifixion of Jesus. So this is a conversation for those that agree that the historical Jesus existed. I would ask that everyone that responds indicate if they believe in an historical* Jesus. If the answer is 'no' I think someone should create another thread to debate if Jesus existed at all.

I remain agnostic with regard to the existence of an historical Jesus. However, for the purposes of this debate, I am willing to assume that there was a Jesus of Nazareth, that he was an early first century Jewish messianic leader and that the Romans executed him.

I would argue that the gospels themselves are evidence for the crucifixion but debating the that topic (defending the Gospels) of this is beyond this threads intent and scope.

If the record of the resurrection found in the Gospels is put forth as evidence of the resurrection having happened then a defense of the Gospels is not beyond the scope of this thread.

So I will simply say that personally it satisfies me that the gospels agree with written history, and are not debunked in the historical extra biblical writings. Ie when Taticus and others wrote about Jesus they were not debunked as liars etc by those that had a vested interest in doing those things.

I am happy for you that your lack of skepticism allows you to be personally satisfied with the mere lack of conflict with historical extra biblical writings. Personally, I find it rather unsurprising that Taticus and others writings about Jesus match with the Gospel accounts. After all, that is probably the source of whatever knowledge they pretend to have about him.

[Goose]

Maybe you could propose a concise question for debate. As it stands what you have proposed isn't really a question.

We will apply the methods outlined by this article on the historical method to assess the relative probability of the actual occurrence these two events:

1. In the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed much of the Temple in Jerusalem.
2. Jesus of Nazareth, after being crucified by the Romans, rose from the dead, as described in the New Testament.

Question for debate: which event is more probable to have actually occurred based on an evaluation of the available evidence using the aforementioned historical method?

I'm in. I'll let you set up the thread as you are an admin. We can hammer out other minor details via PM.

McCulloch, is our head-to-head still on or not? You've posted six times in this thread since aggreement to go head to head last Thursday. You've also not responded to my last PM. If you are no longer interested just say so. But please don't leave me hanging.

[Goat]

McCulloch, is our head-to-head still on or not? You've posted six times in this thread since aggreement to go head to head last Thursday. You've also not responded to my last PM. If you are no longer interested just say so. But please don't leave me hanging.

It does not appear that you have been left hangings, since a thread was opened up in the head to head section. Maybe you can look at the start of the header, and evalute if what he said is proper for the debate?

[Goose]

McCulloch, is our head-to-head still on or not? You've posted six times in this thread since aggreement to go head to head last Thursday. You've also not responded to my last PM. If you are no longer interested just say so. But please don't leave me hanging.

It does not appear that you have been left hangings, since a thread was opened up in the head to head section. Maybe you can look at the start of the header, and evalute if what he said is proper for the debate?

Yes, McCulloch opened the thread after my post here. And I thanked him for doing that in a PM. I think McCulloch is going to post first by Wednesday.