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.

[McCulloch]

Don't depend on your critics to come up with a standard, other than the standard used by academic historians.

Are you willing to debate the Rez one-on-one using this standard and another event from a similar time frame and region, commonly accepted as true, to help keep our biases in check while assessing the evidence? I'll let you pick the other event we'll use as a baseline. That sounds fair don't you think? What do you say? If not, maybe cnorman will be game...

No.
I am willing to debate the alleged resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, one on one, if you like, using this standard. But I just cannot bring myself to refer to it as the Rez.

As to comparing it to another event, that would only end up with a conclusion like, "the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is less (or more) probable than Arthur having pulled the sword Excalibur from the stone."

How is this for a question for debate:

• 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.
  I will argue that (1) is more probable and you can argue that (2) is.

?

[Goat]

Don't depend on your critics to come up with a standard, other than the standard used by academic historians.

Are you willing to debate the Rez one-on-one using this standard and another event from a similar time frame and region, commonly accepted as true, to help keep our biases in check while assessing the evidence? I'll let you pick the other event we'll use as a baseline. That sounds fair don't you think? What do you say? If not, maybe cnorman will be game...

Will you actually provide evidence for the Rez, rather than go into the distraction of such things as 'King Tut', and Julius Caesar?

That I would love to observe.

[Goose]

Don't depend on your critics to come up with a standard, other than the standard used by academic historians.

Are you willing to debate the Rez one-on-one using this standard and another event from a similar time frame and region, commonly accepted as true, to help keep our biases in check while assessing the evidence? I'll let you pick the other event we'll use as a baseline. That sounds fair don't you think? What do you say? If not, maybe cnorman will be game...

No.
I am willing to debate the alleged resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, one on one, if you like, using this standard. But I just cannot bring myself to refer to it as the Rez.

As to comparing it to another event, that would only end up with a conclusion like, "the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is less (or more) probable than Arthur having pulled the sword Excalibur from the stone."

How is this for a question for debate:

• 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.
  I will argue that (1) is more probable and you can argue that (2) is.

?

Sounds pretty good so far. I'm game. I just want to clarify so I know how I should be arguing. Are we arguing that one event is more probable than the other based upon ther nature of the event or are we arguing that one event is more probable than the other based upon the quality and quantity of the evidence and arguments using the historical method as a guideline.

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

[Vanguard]

Don't depend on your critics to come up with a standard, other than the standard used by academic historians.

Are you willing to debate the Rez one-on-one using this standard and another event from a similar time frame and region, commonly accepted as true, to help keep our biases in check while assessing the evidence? I'll let you pick the other event we'll use as a baseline. That sounds fair don't you think? What do you say? If not, maybe cnorman will be game...

I'd say McCulloch pretty well summed up the evidence. Before we drag this old dead horse out and start beating it again, IS there anything else?

If there isn't, I'd say the debate is over. The evidence is in, has been examined, and it is not sufficient to prove that the Resurrection actually happened.

Please note that I am not saying that the Resurrection did NOT happen; that isn't the subject, and the evidence certainly doesn't disprove it, either. But, absent new evidence, there is absolutely no way that the Resurrection can be said to be proven.

Point of clarification. Are we talking about the alleged literal ressurection or are we speaking of whether there actually were a historcial Jesus? This matter seems to have become muddied as the initial OP questioned evidence having to do with the ressurection of Christ and some posters responded as though the question had to do with the historical Jesus (i.e., two different questions).

Does Goose refer to evidences of the historical Jesus or to the actual ressurection? If the former then indeed it would be helpful to compare evidences of similar historical figures. Otherwise, what have we to compare the ressurection of Christ with?

[McCulloch]

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?

[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.

[Pastor4Jesus]

With all due respect, from my experience, most atheists would not believe that God was real even if he came down from heaven and took over the world.

Stay tuned! That may happen, but some other things prophesied MUST happen first! The bible tells us that when a few profound things happen, the time of the second coming is nay (near!). The (Jewish) temple still must be rebuilt which just might start WW3. Then there is the prophesy that the Russia will invade Israel along with an mid eastern nation...Iran maybe? I.e. Iran and Russia...

P4JC

[Pastor4Jesus]

Great post Dgruber (#31)! Nice to see you here! Anyway, I hope to get caught up on my posting in the morning (Friday). I have the flu or something similar.

P4JC

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Pastor4Jesus wrote:

heh heh (rubbing hands together)...

P4JC


Tired of the BS wrote:

Say P4JC, instead of rubbing your hands together, how about you put them to your keyboard and address the question! You DO believe in Jesus and the story of the resurrection, don't you? I'm beginning to wonder. All I asked for was "some proof. A little proof? ANY proof?? " It really seems to me to be the simplest of expectations, but apparently that is just to much for me to expect from YOU. You ARE the "Pastor4Jesus" aren't you? One would think that you would be more than happy, delighted even, to put the story of Jesus and the undeniable power of your beliefs out there for all to see as much and as many times as you possibly could. Your odd reluctance to do so is making it seem suspiciously like your not particularly certain about the whole BoguS resurrection story yourself.

[Pastor4Jesus]

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....