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?

[Danmark]

Of interest is that the ‘500’ claim if further flushed out in the Gospel of Nicodemus in the Acts of Pilate section in the 14th chapter:

‘And a few days after there came from Galilee to Jerusalem three men. One of them was a priest, by name Phinees; the second a Levite, by name Aggai; and the third a soldier, by name Adas. These came to the chief priests, and said to them and to the people: Jesus, whom you crucified, we have seen in Galilee with his eleven disciples upon the Mount of Olives, teaching them, and saying, Go into all the world, and proclaim the good news; and whosoever will believe and be baptized shall be saved; but whosoever will not believe shall be condemned. And having thus spoken, he went up into heaven. And both we and many others of the five hundred besides were looking on.’

Full text here: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... berts.html

Of course, one could argue that text is late and it is most likely spurious. Moreover, it’s non-canonical. However, the part that intrigues me is the motivation as to writing it and, in a related sense, the details like this it contains. The author(s) wrote it with the motivation of adding to an existing foundation and one must wonder how often this was done in documents more credibly than this one.

Yes, more detail, but very late, at least 100 years after Paul wrote. And it includes the orthodox doctrine in a preachy nutshell: " Go into all the world, and proclaim the good news; and whosoever will believe and be baptized shall be saved; but whosoever will not believe shall be condemned. And having thus spoken, he went up into heaven."

I think of this "500" reference as something like a Facebook meme. Those who want to believe just accept it without challenge or fact checking because it pets their prejudices. Is there any reference to this meme of the 500 earlier than Paul? The plain and irrefutable fact is that Paul was not there. He is repeating unnamed sources without detail. Unless one starts with the conviction that everything in the Bible is true, by divine fiat, then this reference of Paul's cannot be taken seriously.

[marco]

None of the supposed 500 wrote anything nor any of the hundreds (perhaps) thousands of other who they would have been expected to tell about this great miracle. Not Christians, Jews, or Romans wrote anything nor do we hear anything more about any “resurrection� until Mark’s Gospel written about 70 A.D.

And Paul mentions nothing about any Ascension because that story hadn’t been created yet!

Do you really think Paul's claim is credible?

Well Polonius, they can't all be Chaucers and Shakespeares. I am in compete accord with you - everything points to fabrication. Matthew even takes the trouble to mention that Jews were accusing the apostles of bribing soldiers with a large sum of money. Presumably by boldly stating a possible suspicion, he effectively dismisses it. Matthew 28: 12 ... 15

While mentioning that Mary Magdalene was first to see the risen Christ, Mark has to tell us that she was the one from whom Christ cast "seven devils." Another hurdle to belief!

Paul puts his entire reputation on the line: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain." The resurrection therefore depends on how good Paul is as an orator
He's pretty good - ergo Christ truly rose from the dead. Simple as that.

In Matthew 17 when Jesus was transfigured, the three apostles saw Moses and Elias with him. At no stage are we told how they identified the mystical figures by name. Can we ever get to truth?

I've just finished reading the account of the highly intelligent Pope Benedict xvi on Jesus of Nazareth and it surprises me that he moves with sublime faith through the toughest of miraculous challenges as though there weren't the remotest doubt that Resurrection and Ascension were written into history by a god-made-man.

Whereas Tertullian believed because it was impossible; the impossibility of it all makes it beyond belief for simple me.

[marco]

The plain and irrefutable fact is that Paul was not there. He is repeating unnamed sources without detail. Unless one starts with the conviction that everything in the Bible is true, by divine fiat, then this reference of Paul's cannot be taken seriously.

I think the passage:

"After that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some have fallen asleep."

speaks volumes about Paul's attention to truth.

Who numbered the five hundred plus people? What were they all doing there when Christ passed? How did they KNOW it was Christ who was passing by? Did Christ not say SOMETHING memorable? Did he who raised Lazarus just quietly walk past a crowd, having risen from the dead; and apparently doing JUST that and nothing else?
In what way can Paul determine who of this anonymous number are alive and who are dead? He's making an intelligent guess, of course.

Was Mary Magdalene the first witnesses or was she not? The event is of such astounding magnitude that tossing off a vague - above 500 - statistic is a piece of nonsense, which itself makes nonsense of Paul's claims. Were he reporting a road traffic accident we would want far more evidence. Why should we accept vagueness over an event that puts every other human incident into shade?

[Student]

[Replying to post 662 by Student]

Is it not doubly odd then that in Acts, our earliest ‘historical account’ of the nascent church, that the subject of the Empty Tomb is not brought up?

I agree. It is remarkable that the "empty tomb" ceases to be of interest to the earliest Christians at a time when there was increasing Jewish veneration of the tombs of martyrs, prophets and holy men. Why don't we hear of the disciples returning to the tomb, the scene of Jesus' greatest miracle, to pray and pay homage? Wouldn't Paul, on his first post conversion visit to Jerusalem, have wanted to visit the tomb?

In my opinion, the simplest explanation for this silence/disinterest in the "empty tomb", is that it didn't exist; the disciples didn't know where [or even if] Jesus had been buried.

The "empty tomb", [along with its owner, Joseph of Arimathea] was nothing more than a dramatic device, which having served its purpose in the narrative, simply disappears from view. In other words, Joseph of Arimathea and his empty tomb were invented by Mark, created to facilitate the narrative imperative of somehow getting Jesus' body to be recovered from the cross, interred in a location known and accessible to other characters in the story, and from which it could be found to have vanished.

[Danmark]

The plain and irrefutable fact is that Paul was not there. He is repeating unnamed sources without detail. Unless one starts with the conviction that everything in the Bible is true, by divine fiat, then this reference of Paul's cannot be taken seriously.

I think the passage:

"After that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some have fallen asleep."

speaks volumes about Paul's attention to truth.

Who numbered the five hundred plus people? What were they all doing there when Christ passed? How did they KNOW it was Christ who was passing by? Did Christ not say SOMETHING memorable? Did he who raised Lazarus just quietly walk past a crowd, having risen from the dead; and apparently doing JUST that and nothing else?
In what way can Paul determine who of this anonymous number are alive and who are dead? He's making an intelligent guess, of course.

Was Mary Magdalene the first witnesses or was she not? The event is of such astounding magnitude that tossing off a vague - above 500 - statistic is a piece of nonsense, which itself makes nonsense of Paul's claims. Were he reporting a road traffic accident we would want far more evidence. Why should we accept vagueness over an event that puts every other human incident into shade?

Just one example of the problem with this is Mary Magdalene as the first witness. First witness to what? The risen Christ? She did not recognize the person she saw as Jesus. This story has more holes than the missing body.

[tfvespasianus]

[Replying to post 680 by Student]

Further, many ‘important’ figures of the gospels either disappear early in the narrative of Acts or are wholly omitted (e.g. Joseph of Arimathea, Mary, Joseph, etc.). Thus, they disappear for the scanty ‘historical’ (more plausibly literary) framework in which they became known to us.

I once heard that ‘Arimathea’ was a garbled form of μαθητής. Many characters in the narrative have names that are most likely stand-ins for their literary function (e.g. Zaccaeus, Stephen). The speculation with respect to Arimathea was offered as an idle speculation, but do you think there could be something to it? Personally, I think it’s more profitable than the search for the historical Arimathea, but I don’t really know how implausible such a literary technique (i.e. garbling for symbolism?) would be.

Take care,
TFV

[Tired of the Nonsense]

The plain and irrefutable fact is that Paul was not there. He is repeating unnamed sources without detail. Unless one starts with the conviction that everything in the Bible is true, by divine fiat, then this reference of Paul's cannot be taken seriously.

I think the passage:

"After that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some have fallen asleep."

speaks volumes about Paul's attention to truth.

Who numbered the five hundred plus people? What were they all doing there when Christ passed? How did they KNOW it was Christ who was passing by? Did Christ not say SOMETHING memorable? Did he who raised Lazarus just quietly walk past a crowd, having risen from the dead; and apparently doing JUST that and nothing else?
In what way can Paul determine who of this anonymous number are alive and who are dead? He's making an intelligent guess, of course.

Was Mary Magdalene the first witnesses or was she not? The event is of such astounding magnitude that tossing off a vague - above 500 - statistic is a piece of nonsense, which itself makes nonsense of Paul's claims. Were he reporting a road traffic accident we would want far more evidence. Why should we accept vagueness over an event that puts every other human incident into shade?

Just one example of the problem with this is Mary Magdalene as the first witness. First witness to what? The risen Christ? She did not recognize the person she saw as Jesus. This story has more holes than the missing body.

Just one example of the problem with this is Mary Magdalene as the first witness. First witness to what? The risen Christ? She did not recognize the person she saw as Jesus. This story has more holes than the missing body.

The Mary Magdalene at the tomb story isn't simply full of holes, it's downright unbelievable. According to Gospel Mark.16:1-4 Mary Magdalene and the other two Marys went out to the tomb at first light to put more ointment on a body already slathered in 100 pounds of the stuff, knowing full well that they had absolutely NO chance at gaining access to the body, while asking themselves who would move the great stone, based on the apparent forlorn hope that some nice men might just happen to be hanging out in a graveyard at night who would nicely agree to roll away the great stone for them. Or perhaps they felt that the armed guards who had been placed at the tomb for the very purpose of keeping people away, would kindly agree to disobey their orders, break the official seals, and roll away the stone, so that the women could get on with their crucial work of slapping MORE ointments on the corpse. What their trip to the tomb ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED was to allow the woman to spread the news that the tomb was empty, and on the third day as promised, at the earlest possible time. Very convenient.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 683 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Bravo. You hear that? That's me clapping. What you just said destroys the story completely.
I've just gone through the resurrection stories in each of the gospels.
Problems I've noticed are
1) John has Mary Magdalene going to the tomb and for some reason, the guards, whether Roman or not , are nowhere mentioned . Mary, Simon Peter and another disciple are apparently able to just waltz into the tomb completely unchallenged.
2) Mark mentions a young man dressed in white who says Jesus has risen. Who is he? Why apparently is what he said automatically true, and believed by the people going to the tomb? Again, where are the guards?
3) Luke as well has no guards when the women go to the tomb. Again, the women are able to look in the tomb completely unchallenged.

Matthew is the only one who mentions guards who are still present at the tomb. But apparently, they are knocked unconscious or something.
That aside, this is a real problem for the Christian claim. The Christian claim of a resurrected Jesus needs guards at the tomb. If there are no guards, then it is far too likely that the body was stolen from the tomb by his family or followers (if they didn't already have it).
So there we have it. Three of the four gospels don't mention guards. It's almost like they weren't there at the tomb, when the women went to it. If the guards weren't there, then there's nothing stopping anybody from making off with a corpse.

[Student]

[Replying to post 682 by tfvespasianus]
[font=Times New Roman]A number of commentators have speculated that the word Ἀ�ιμαϑαία [arimathaia] may be the result of a deliberate play on words to hint at something with theological significance.

The superlative ἅ�ιστος [aristos] "best", was sometimes used in the form of an inseparable prefix ἀ�ι [ari]; so the first part of arimathaia might be interpreted to mean "best".

To this, the word you mention, μαθητής [mathētēs] disciple, might be added to produce ἀ�ιμαθητής [arimathētēs] i.e. "best disciple".

Another word suggested is μαϑητεία [matēteia] "lesson, instruction"; coupled with [ari] this produces ἀ�ιμαϑητεία [arimathēteia] i.e. "best lesson".

Yet others have suggested that it might be an oblique reference to Flavius Josephus, who rescued three comrades from execution by crucifixion, one of whom survived. Josephus patronymic name in Aramaic would have been Bar Matthias, which when transliterated into Greek would have produced βα�μαϑϑαῖος [barmatthaios].

Ultimately, no particular hypothesis commands majority support.

It may well be that Mark simply invented a place name that sounded sufficiently exotic to satisfy the curiosity of his audience.[/font]

[polonius]

rikuoamero posted (above)
2) Mark mentions a young man dressed in white who says Jesus has risen. Who is he? Why apparently is what he said automatically true, and believed by the people going to the tomb? Again, where are the guards?

RESPONSE:

This is one possibility. Mark 14 – The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
51 “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.�

The Secret Gospel of Mark is a putative non-canonical Christian gospel mentioned exclusively in the Mar Saba letter, a document of disputed authenticity, which describes Secret Mark as an expanded version of the canonical Gospel of Mark with some episodes elucidated, written for an initiated elite. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark]

From Wikipedia “The letter includes two excerpts from the Secret Gospel. The first is to be inserted, Clement states, between what are verses 34 and 35 of Mark 10:

“And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, "Son of David, have mercy on me." But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.�