Why believe in resurrections?

[marco]

We learn that Lazarus was already decomposing when Jesus asked him to step back to life. And he did. This is so absurd that one wonders how anyone could accept it. But many do.


Jesus went a step better and, having died, rose up. The effect is spoiled by silly details: he folded his funeral vestments up and left an angel in the sepulchre to explain his absence. Next he played hide and seek, disappearing somewhere and returning through walls. People still believe this all happened in the time when Rome was building roadways across Europe and North Africa, and doing so without a wand.


Why are these stories believed by intelligent people?

What extra part in them turns them from absurdity into truth?

[Zzyzx]

.

That is the question why was it accepted 2 millennia ago. Death was just as final as it is today. People were more associated with death because it was all around them. So why was it accepted?

Two thousand years ago, when people had less knowledge of nature, myths and legends of gods and godmen coming back to life were evidently commonly accepted -- including to the Jesus tale. Some similar 'back to life' tales include:

Attis
Quetzalcoatl
Krishna
Tammuz
Lemminkainen
Ganesha
Odin
Osiris
Persephone
Dionysus

Some modern people still cling to the gods came back to life tales, particularly tales of their favorite deity (while disbelieving similar tales about competing gods).

Why would a bother who thought Jesus was crazy while living become a "slave of the Lord Jesus Christ" after His death?

I have no idea THAT any brother of Jesus did such things (i.e., that the unsubstantiated tales are true) OR, if one did, what his motivation might have been. Who is qualified to determine the motivations of people living two thousand years ago?

These are the questions that do need to be answered.

A more fundamental question might be " What verifiable evidence (outside the tales themselves) shows that the religious tales are true? There isnt much sense in trying to guess why a story character did something unless it can be shown that such thing actually happened (unless one is attempting to interpret fiction or mythology.

[marco]

Why would it be absurd that the One who could heal people from disease, restore or give sight to the blind, who cure (and so reverse the effects of) leprosy and other diseases of the flesh... could not restore a man to life and reverse any effects of death that had begun to set in after three days?

I agree that with faith there are no limitations on what one believes.

People will be resurrected after having been dead much longer than three days.

I can accept that science will eventually reconstruct humans from DNA or do similar marvels. I do not believe that corpses rise to a human voice. One is progress and the other superstition. There's a difference.

And an angel is a messenger, is he not? So this seems to be right on par with something an angel would do.

Semantically, yes. Angels bring messages. How many have been seen doing this?

People still believe this all happened in the time when Rome was building roadways across Europe and North Africa, and doing so without a wand.

Not sure what that has to do with anything.

Let me explain, then. On the one hand we have some character in Rome's unruly province raising dead people and operating as a doctor with unconventional tools and then we have a powerful empire that has handed down to us the skills for building our roads and cities. Their presence announces itself today. Christ is SAID to have cured leprosy, but hundreds of years passed before others actually did find a cure. I am comparing fact and real achievement with myth.

How could He speak to us and teach and keep His promises if He were not alive to do so?

Obviouly through the rich and willing imagination of ordinary mortals! As a boy I sampled some of that intensity of faith, certain that Jesus walked in my steps; I was Christopher bearing the weight of God in Jesus. But the magic vanished with the idylls of childhood. It would be wonderful to suppose that a force for good roams the earth, comforting children in a Holocaust and raising its hands against volcano and tsunami. Alas, we can but dream. Experience tells us otherwise.

[FWI]

It is a beautiful thought to suppose we will meet again with friends who have left us and if such be the case one would have supposed that somehow a sentient ghost would have communicated this good news. If this was the sort of good news entrusted to Jesus, he didn't quite word it well enough.

Communication is a two-way affair. When, man refuses to acknowledge certain pertinent information, man cannot blame the messengersThey must blame themselves! The Jewish and Christian era writings clearly introduces the concept of the resurrection. So, the problem can't be with the message, it must be with the reader

However, no one is forced to accept the message. So, why are many determined to blame the messengers and convince others to do the same?

[Goose]

We have evidence for what might be a hoax, and given the choice of miracle or earthly hoax, one would opt for the earthly explanation.

I think that presumes two things:

• 1. There is evidence it was a hoax
  2. One ought to always opt for the natural explanation over the super natural one.

I don't see evidence for (1). And the theist isn't bound by (2). The theist can go with the best explanation whether it be natural or supernatural.

So the question is: why do people desert this possibility in favour of divine interference with the natural order of things?

I can't answer for others, but as for me it's the same answer as before. Because I think there is good historical evidence in the case of Jesus' resurrection. I also think the resurrection is the best overall explanation.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 19 by marco]

Another possibility is that when Jesus picked his disciples, he picked simpletons. They were not in on whatever he was intended to do. He seems to have been working to some pre-arranged plan, even to the extent that he had arranged for a donkey to be picked up and rooms made available. Do we take this as miraculous or prearranged? If prearranged then we move towards an explanation that involved Jesus being placed in a special tomb. Yes - this is all surmise, but it has the virtue of needing no miraculous or divine intervention.


And then why would they die for a lie that they knew about. Muslim's die for something that they believe in. They do not die because they believe it is a lie. No body would die for a lie.


I don't believe the apostles were "in on the act". We do not require them to be co-authors of a lie, merely people who have been deceived. Why? I don't know - but then I don't know why a human being would crash down from paradise and get himself crucified.

So it seems that you have no real alternative explanation of events simply that because we do not see resurrections happen today then there is no possible way that Jesus was raised from the dead.

You seem to have views and many others on the site seem to also, similar to Rudolf Bultmann. Whose ideas about the resurrection can be summed up this way. That the gospels do not present a historical record of Jesus, but serve as a witness to the early Christian belief. Since the writers were more concerned with faith and the application of the Christian message to daily concerns than the actual events in the life of Jesus. We know much less about the historical Jesus than the Gospels actually record.

Bultmann would regard the resurrection like this. Bultmann concluded this at the outset. "Is it not a mythical event pure and simple? Obviously it is not an event of past history." While the earliest disciples faith in the resurrection was a historical fact, it is not even important to know the cause of this belief."

Bultmann's ideas were rejected for four reasons

1. By deemphasizing the historical basis for the life of Jesus, Bultmann failed to provided both early and and modern Christians with the grounding that is indispensable for the founding and present existence of the Christian faith. The point is that without a historical core of knowledge concerning Jesus, Christianity would have little initial impetus to encourage faith in an otherwise unknown person.

2. Assumption of Myth
Bultmann dismissed the historicity of Jesus' resurrection without any investigation at all. Bultmann made his decision against the historicity of the resurrection apart from factual observation.

Macquarrie, Existentialist theology pp. 185-186;
"But bultmann does not take the trouble to examine what evidence could be adduced to show that the resurrection was an objective-historical event. He assumes a myth."

3. Faulty Historiography

Bultmann's objects is that the New Testament authors cannot be compared to ancient secular writers since the latter attempted to write history, while Bultmann and form critics hold that biblical authors allowed their beliefs to significantly color their recording.

Oxford ancient historian A.N. Sherwin-White and Micheal Grant author of Jesus: An Historian''s Review. Level these seven criticisms against Bultmann's Historiography.

a. Historians work like Herodotus, Livy, and Tacitus all show similarities in several respects to the Gospels, including a moralizing intent. These ancient historians writings are all accepted as historical.

b. The type of literature that Bultmann believes that New Testament gospels to be. This type of literature is not found any where in ancient history.

c. The Gospels are quite close to the period of time that they record, while other ancient histories such as those by Plutarch and Livy often describe events that took place even centuries earlier. Modern Historians are able to successfully to delineate data even from these early periods of time.

d. Ancient histories sometimes, "disagree amongst themselves in the wildest possible fashion," Such as the four ancient sources that describe Tiberius Caesar, and yet accurate history can still be glean from these sources. Paul Maier makes the same point about the cause of the fire in Rome.

e. Bultmann's form critics speak a lot about the experiences of the disciples, but history looks for adequate causes behind these causes.

f. Portions of the NT like the book of Acts are confirmed by external indications of historicity.

g. The primary goal of the Gospel writers was spiritual, history was also very important. There is no reason why Gospel writers would pervert the historical in order to preserve the spiritual when both were so important and even complemented each other.

4. This last critique is aimed at those who would challenge the test of the NT, which measures extremely well compared to other ancient classical works. This is especially true in three areas.
a. Manuscript number
If ancient manuscripts have twenty entire or partial they are considered as having an excellent number of manuscripts. By comparison the NT has over 5000 copies.

b. The time of the writing in relation to the events they describe.
Some of the strongest evidence comes from the evidence that concerns the date between the original and the earliest copy. For most of the ancient classical works a gap of 700 years would be considered excellent. While a gap of 1000 to 1400 years is considered good and not uncommon. By comparison the NT has copies within 100 years to 150 years. A copy of the entire NT is dated at 250 years.

c. Complete texts.
We have the entire NT test this is not the case with every ancient work. Of the 142 books of the Roman Historian Livy we have 107. Of the original 14 books of Tactitus we have only 4 and a half of his Roman Histories. And only 10 full and two partial books remain from Tactitus 16 volume work of Annals.

I was very detailed in this rebuttal because it seems that many on this site has similar views as Bultmann. And I will just refer them to this post.

[marco]

Because I think there is good historical evidence in the case of Jesus' resurrection. I also think the resurrection is the best overall explanation.

Were I as willing to accept supernatural interference I too could not rule out resurrection.

What alerts me to deception is: there are hints given to us that someoen might steal the body, hence the guard;
we assume the Roman guards, mercenaries, were above corruption; why would they be?

somebody from somehwere offers an expensive tomb - in plays this is called deus ex machina;

angels are introduced to provide actors to explain the play;

For me all this smacks of artificiality and deceit but I accept that for people who are willing to believe in supernatural activities, the obvious can be discarded in favour of the divine.

[polonius]

Marcos observed that:

I agree that with faith there are no limitations on what one believes.

RESPONSE: Yes. But this includes both fact and fiction.

[marco]

However, no one is forced to accept the message. So, why are many determined to blame the messengers and convince others to do the same?

I struggle to understand this. If somebody tells us they were abducted and carry a message from aliens, then are we at fault for not accepting the highly improbable? For me, the resurrection of a corpse is even more improbable than alien abduction so why would we be willing to accept that it happened, just because some ancient souls said so?

[marco]

You seem to have views and many others on the site seem to also, similar to Rudolf Bultmann.

And you have addressed Boltmann's hypothesis and left mine alone. If he agrees with what I have written, that is fine, but I think for Marco not for Boltmann. What I have written, as Pilate said, I have written. You have not refuted it.

[marco]

Marcos observed that:

I agree that with faith there are no limitations on what one believes.

RESPONSE: Yes. But this includes both fact and fiction.

I think faith has a way of telling folk they are right. It can apparently move mountains, but I suspect only figurative ones and anything at all can move a figurative mountain - a figurative bulldozer for example.

Using rational argument against faith is spitting against a hurricane.