Is the Resurrurredction really a historical fact, or not?

[polonius]

In Paul’s oldest and first epistle, written in 51-52 AD, he states without qualification that:

“Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,* will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.g17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together* with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.� 1 Thes 4:15-17

But it didn’t happen. Thus we must conclude that either Paul or the Lord were incorrect.

How much else of what Paul told us is also incorrect?

Recall, it was Paul who reported the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 written about 53-57 AD.

Was his story historically correct (did it actually happen) or is it just a story that was used by and embellished by the writers of the New Testament?

Since the basis of Christian belief is the historical fact of the Resurrection, let’s examine the evidence and see if the Resurrection really happened or can an analysis of the story show that it is improbable if not impossible.

Opinions?

[polonius]

Peter is the only source you listed who was in a position to actually witness any evidence of the resurrection. Yet he fails to do so. In passing he refers to the doctrine of the resurrection, but Peter does not claim to have witnessed it, nor does he claim to have personally witnessed any evidence of the resurrection.

Except for where he does as recorded in Acts. You are merely hand waiving aside evidence. Come back to me with something a little more intellectually rigorous than this next time if you want me to seriously engage your posts.

RESPONSE: Acts of the Apostles (c. 80 AD) was not written during Peter's lifetime (d c. 67 AD), nor did he personally leave any writing about a Resurrection.

The rest of your sources are anonymous and none claim to have been a direct eyewitness.

At this point you are merely Arguing by assertion. Here's a thought. Rather than simply repeat your assertion there are no eyewitness accounts you should try to refute the evidence I’ve provided supporting their authorship.

RESPONSE: Precisely what "evidence" did you provide and how did you validate it? It is your assertion to prove. You made it. Rebuttal only has to follow proof of an assertion.

You've also glossed over the difference between a historian who reports a natural event there is external physical evidence to support, and an anonymous person reporting a supernatural event there is ZERO external evidence that corroborates the event.

There’s no glossing over on my part. Again, what physical evidence would you expect for a resurrection?

RESPONSE:

1. Is there any "external physical evidence to support" Jesus' Resurrection? What exactly?

2. And is the credability of an "anonymous person reporting a "supernatural event" really to be taken seriously? Do you?

[Goose]

It is difficult to argue when the adversary seems not to understand what is being said. At no point have I stopped accepting that the resurrection gets no mention in history. Pliny is a real person, but his existence and his account are irrelevant. However, you've not been able to understand why. You wanted to follow MY way of reasoning to show you can apply the same. Fine. I can happily say Pliny may NOT have authored his account. I can discard his witnesses. No change -the eruption still took place.

Looks like we are back to square one. Okay fine, I’ll smack down your argument again for giggles.

You say “the eruption� took place and you know this without Pliny’s witness. But when you say “the eruption� you mean the eruption that took place in 79AD right? How do you know that eruption took place without giving credence to an anonymous witness or arguing in a circle?

By the way, when are you going to tell me what kind of physical evidence we should expect for a resurrection?

Now YOU try discarding your authors from history. Disregard the witnesses on your side AS YOU OFFERED TO DO. Result: your story fails. It is ENTIRELY dependent on believing nebulous witnesses. But I fear this will float over your head.

Not at all. I don’t even need to argue for eyewitness accounts. We have four ancient biographies attesting to the events all written within the lifetime of witnesses. By comparison to other notable historical events from antiquity that is very strong historical evidence in itself. Shall I give you some examples other than Vesuvius?

I see you've made your usual mistake about circular argument. There are explanations why people seem to return to life. Fallibility of doctors, for a start. When I say this you think I am arguing in a circular way - nothing I can do about that. You love supernatural explanations. Nothing I can do about that either.

It’s not a mistake to accuse you of circular reasoning to stand by your claim a resurrection is impossible. I gave a documented example of a person who had been declared dead and subsequently returned to life. No misdiagnosis there. That is by definition a resurrection. The only way to wiggle out of it is to argue in a circle that the person wasn’t really dead to begin with. Or I suppose just move the goal posts of the definition of dead. Which you attempted to do by saying one isn’t really dead until rigor mortis sets in.

The phenomenon was introduced to give the semblance of erudition. It is seen from such cases that doctors HAVE been wrong in their diagnoses of bodies they have in front of them. They admit it! But in the 2000 year-old case of a body, you think they MUST be correct in their diagnosis that Jesus was dead. Does this pass for wisdom?

Let’s speak of wisdom. So on the one hand we have the American Medical Association saying Jesus was dead as door nail. On the other we have you trying to argue the Association is wrong. Unless you are a qualified medical expert, or can cite some experts who agree with you, I’m going to have to go with the Association. That’s wisdom. Actually, it’s logical.

You have a problem, it seems, assessing the conditional.

The tell tale sign one’s opponent is frustrated and running out of arguments is when he begins to attack you personally rather than the arguments and logic.

To sum up your position: You are prepared to believe that Christ lay in the tomb for days and then got up and walked around; you also subscribe to the view that others, at the same time, wriggled out of their graves and wandered the earth.

Congrats on yet another strawman.

BUT
you want to question whether the younger Pliny actually saw the eruption of Vesuvius, an event we KNOW took place.

Just because I’ve used Pliny as a baseline to annihilate your arguments doesn’t mean I question whether Pliny saw the eruption. I could use all sorts of events from ancient history to crush your arguments because your methodology is so atrociously horrible it’s like taking candy from a baby.

Perhaps instead of directing derision at my logical views, you should examine the absurdity of your own.

Attacking the logic of an opponent is an acceptable form of debating a position. The only way to get me stop pointing out your endless logical errors is for you stop making them. Good luck with that.

[Danmark]

The evidence is this, over five hundred people reported meeting the resurrected body of Jesus. Admittedly these people knew and loved Jesus , but this does not diminish the fact that these people and more through the ages have had a real conscious emotional spiritual experience with Christ. As , I believe it was Origin , in res[ponse to Celcus wrote "so real they were willing to die for it"'

Can you name them? Any of them? "500," such a nice round number. Not 534 or 427, but exactly 500 nameless witnesses without reports and without any specific details.

"Your honor, for my next witness, I'd like to call, uh... uh.... May I have a moment your honor? Let me consult my witness list. Ah... here it is your honor. I'd like to call witness number 1. I'd like to, but he doesn't seem to have a name or be around. Your honor, here's what he and 499 others would say if I could find them...."

Where does 'Paul' pull this stuff from?

[Danmark]

Peter is the only source you listed who was in a position to actually witness any evidence of the resurrection. Yet he fails to do so. In passing he refers to the doctrine of the resurrection, but Peter does not claim to have witnessed it, nor does he claim to have personally witnessed any evidence of the resurrection.

Except for where he does as recorded in Acts. You are merely hand waiving aside evidence. Come back to me with something a little more intellectually rigorous than this next time if you want me to seriously engage your posts.

Please be specific about the hearsay you claim another wrote about what Peter said. Your position appears to be that anything written in the Bible is evidence, without weighing it. Evidence is subject to rules and examination, including evaluation of bias and foundation. One of the things one does in this process is to examine an account for detail. Compare the meticulous detail regarding the crucifiction itself with the the lack of detail and conflict in stories regarding the resurrection.

[Danmark]

So on the one hand we have the American Medical Association saying Jesus was dead as door nail.

I was not aware the AMA had examined the body, or that examining copies of copies of copies of ancient documents was their forte. In any event, Edwards, Gabel and Hosmer do not represent the AMA.

I've never taken the "swoon theory" too seriously. It is chiefly used today as a straw man to knock down. On the other hand:

It was uncommon for a crucified healthy adult to die in the time described by the Gospels; the Gospel of Mark reports that Jesus was crucified at nine in the morning and died at three in the afternoon, or six hours after the crucifixion. Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus had died so soon (Mk 15:44). The average time of suffering before death by crucifixion is stated to be about 2–4 days, and there were reported cases where the victims lived for as long as 9 days. Of course the time of death by crucifixion depended on the type of crucifixion and no accounts have been found of the exact method of Jesus' crucifixion.

Further support is lent to the theory when Jesus' body in the Gospel narratives is quickly whisked away and hidden from public view.[original research?] No elaborate funeral arrangements and no public viewing of the corpse are known to take place. The body is taken down from the cross and immediately handed over to a close disciple (Joseph of Arimathea), who transports Jesus' body to a nearby-by, secure burial chamber.

A major problem with this interpretation is that Jewish religious law (halacha) generally forbids embalming and therefore Jews generally bury their dead as soon as possible: "Jewish burials take place as quickly as possible, following a principle of honoring the dead (k'vod hamet)."

[BTW, No one claims Jesus was actually buried; he was entombed.]

One reason to doubt this hypothesis is that the Gospel of John states that a soldier thrust a spear in Jesus' side before he was taken off the cross. However, the Gospel of John is the latest of the four canonical gospels; none of the remaining three contain this story.

[otseng]

Pot meet kettle. You’d have more credibility making these types of comments if you hadn’t spent most the debate flip flopping and tripping over your own arguments.

Come back to me with something a little more intellectually rigorous than this next time if you want me to seriously engage your posts.

Moderator Comment

Please leave personal comments like these out.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[tfvespasianus]

There is so much that is problematic about making an AMA article a prominent feature of an argument such as this, but I am curious that if the full article elaborates on something. The abstract states that Jesus was unable to carry his cross(‘as evidenced by the fact that Jesus was too weakened to carry the crossbar (patibulum) to Golgotha’), but John clearly states that he carried it himself.

Who is correct, the AMA or John?

[dio9]

[Replying to polonius.advice]

In my reading Paul clearly writes ; he was the last of the 500 Christ appeared to , Same Christ. Paul's experience with the resurrected Christ is clearly spiritual, an experience really effecting Paul spiritually intellectually emotionally and physically. IT wa a life changing meeting. Similar to the call of the first disciples. How much more real can it get? Are not thoughts and emotions real?

[dio9]

[Replying to post 324 by rikuoamero]

What else is evidence but believing what we have been told? What you seem to be saying is Paul is lying.

[dio9]

[Replying to post 330 by Danmark]

Many are named by Paul and the Gospel writers. Off hand I can say at least 15 are named there. There are also many apocryphal and Gnostic Gospels we can check out.
Isn't question of this thread is what is real ? Was the resurrection real? I contend spiritual experiences are real , life effecting and life changing. Spiritual experiences have an effect as in a cause and effect relationship, with spiritual being the cause. I can't deny spiritual experiences are real.