Can the Resurrection of Jesus be Defended

[Tired of the Nonsense]

There are no (Christians present) in actual point of fact. None that will support the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus as a point of "logic, reason and critical thinking." Unless there happens to be a Christian newbe present that I am unaware of who wishes to tackle the job. None of the Christian regulars here will defend the story of the resurrection beyond a "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it," defense.

Not so. None is all. I would defend it gladly. Logic and reason reveals what is most evident and what the Bible reveals is absolutely most evident. Start the thread up if you dare. Bring your best arguments.

[Danmark]

....
Paul differentiates his own encounter with Jesus "as to one born out of time" from memory (can't access the bible at work). Again, this meshes well with Luke's suggestion that Jesus appeared to many before ascending to heaven, and Paul's experience was later....

Here are several translations of the passage from 1Corinthians 15:8:
New International Version (2011)
and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
New Living Translation (2007)
Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.

English Standard Version (2001)
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

Doesn't make a lot of sense does it since Paul was born about the same time* as Jesus?
Perhaps, tho' they were contemporaries, Paul is way off since even that early in the tradition, the mythology had outstripped the facts, placing Jesus birth much earlier than it was.

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*Paul's birth date is usually given as 5 CE, while that of Jesus is less certain, and ranges from 2 to 7 BCE.
_ Wikipedia

[Mithrae]

As far as I'm aware we don't know precisely how soon or late James converted, but Paul's list suggests that it was around the same time as the resurrection appearances to Peter and the rest of them. Acts does not imply that he was a particularly prominent member of the church initially, but by the council in ch. 15 James appears to have become a leader, arguably eclipsing even Peter. This meshes well with Paul's version in Galatians, where James is placed ahead of Peter and appears to have more conservative views vis a vis the Mosaic law even than Peter did.

Paul lists the sequence in which certain individuals and groups experienced encounters with the resurrected Jesus. There is absolutely no indication that this sequence bears any relationship to when these individuals / groups came to be followers of Jesus. Unless of course you can provide any evidence to the contrary.

I read that too hastily at work. Yes you're right that 1 Cor. 15 doesn't say those folk had not been followers of Jesus before their sightings of Jesus. My point is that whereas Paul had not known Jesus (perhaps not even seen him in his life) and by his own account had persecuted the church before having a vision of Jesus years after his resurrection, by contrast even if James had not initially been a follower he'd still obviously known Jesus, had merely been a doubter and had converted much earlier than Paul. There's little reason to suppose that pointing out a tiny point of similarity between them would have been much use to Paul; in fact he plays instead on how radical his conversion was, how powerfully God's grace was manifest in him.

As for whether or not James actually was a doubter before Jesus' death and alleged resurrection, Paul says nothing directly, but like I say his implication that James' doctrine was not quite the same as Peter's, and the suggestion from Acts that James only gradually came to leadership in the church could both be viewed as circumstantial support for this point on which both the synoptics and John agree.

[Student]

But that wouldn't explain why the empty tomb was such a late tradition. Had Paul known of it he would certainly have mentioned it in 1 Corinthians.

And what pretext could Mark possibly construct to account for the men visiting the tomb? He already had them run away at Jesus arrest, so by what means could he devise to have them know where the supposed tomb was located. Another dream sequence, or would Mark have them just casually pass the graveyard and happen to notice and investigate an empty tomb?

Washing and anointing the body of the recently deceased was the work of women and women alone. There was no possible reason for men to visit the tomb at any time immediately after the interment.

Consequently, any account of men visiting the tomb to anoint the body would have been totally incongruous to a first century CE Jewish audience.

Paul does specify that Jesus was buried, which doesn't particularly imply "thrown into a mass grave and his body lost track of." After saying Jesus died, was buried and rose on the third day, I'm not sure why we should particularly expect him to add "and the tomb was empty."

John had no problem either with having some disciples at the cross, nor with having men anoint Jesus' corpse. While the latter might be more problematic if Mark had a Jewish audience (which I believe he did not), there's still no reason he couldn't have found ways to ensure male witnesses.

I assume you are using the royal we.
Paul does not mention a tomb, empty or otherwise. If he were to reflect the significance assigned to the empty tomb in the gospels, he would surely have mentioned it as proof of the resurrection.

John assigns significance to the burial wraps left in the tomb; Mark has the women invited to "come and see the place they laid him"; Matthew has soldiers and earthquakes... don't remember Luke off the top of my head. When there's angels and (except perhaps in Mark, unless there was a lost original ending) direct encounters with a risen Jesus, I think it's a bit of a subjective call to say that the gospels assign such significance to an empty tomb that Paul's brief overview should be expected to mention it - especially to folk who already believed.

It is not a subjective assessment to state that prior to Mark there isnt even the slightest hint, let alone mention, of the empty tomb. But after Mark, the empty tomb is the central feature of every single account of the passion as found the canonical gospels, as well as the apocryphal gospels and acts. In fact the empty tomb is the only constant in all of these accounts. The time of its discovery, the persons who discover it, what they find in its vicinity, who they see, what they did afterwards, all vary, all grow ever more elaborate; but the empty tomb remains constant.

There is no depiction of the actual resurrection of Jesus; in its absence the empty tomb becomes the very motif for the resurrected Christ.

So, given this later significance placed upon the empty tomb, Pauls complete failure to mention the tomb, even in passing, is puzzling.

To my mind the most obvious answer is that the empty tomb did not form part of the original Christian confession as heard and understood by Paul. The earliest tradition knew nothing of where or how Jesus was buried. Hence the complete absence of any first century tradition of venerating the place of Jesus burial. The early Christians had no place to venerate.

No doubt there was hope that He had received a decent burial but the Christian focus was on the spiritual resurrection of Christ rather than concern for His physical remains. Pauls denigration of the material e.g. flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and elevation of the spiritual, e.g. the resurrection of a spiritual body, fits well with this hypothesis.

The experience of the risen, spiritual body of Christ was in dreams and visions, not a re-animated corpse. This was Pauls experience and also his perception of those who also encountered the risen Christ.

The story of the empty tomb was a later (Marcan?) apologetic developed in response to critical demands for proof of the resurrection.

Similarly, Marks silence of the women was apologia developed to explain the absence of the empty tomb narrative in earlier Christian text.

The empty tomb was an immediate success ~ it was retained by all subsequent evangelists. The silent women less so; other than the discovery of the empty tomb by women their continued silence was rapidly discarded.

[Student]

As far as I'm aware we don't know precisely how soon or late James converted, but Paul's list suggests that it was around the same time as the resurrection appearances to Peter and the rest of them. Acts does not imply that he was a particularly prominent member of the church initially, but by the council in ch. 15 James appears to have become a leader, arguably eclipsing even Peter. This meshes well with Paul's version in Galatians, where James is placed ahead of Peter and appears to have more conservative views vis a vis the Mosaic law even than Peter did.

Paul lists the sequence in which certain individuals and groups experienced encounters with the resurrected Jesus. There is absolutely no indication that this sequence bears any relationship to when these individuals / groups came to be followers of Jesus. Unless of course you can provide any evidence to the contrary.

I read that too hastily at work. Yes you're right that 1 Cor. 15 doesn't say those folk had not been followers of Jesus before their sightings of Jesus. My point is that whereas Paul had not known Jesus (perhaps not even seen him in his life) and by his own account had persecuted the church before having a vision of Jesus years after his resurrection, by contrast even if James had not initially been a follower he'd still obviously known Jesus, had merely been a doubter and had converted much earlier than Paul. There's little reason to suppose that pointing out a tiny point of similarity between them would have been much use to Paul; in fact he plays instead on how radical his conversion was, how powerfully God's grace was manifest in him.

As for whether or not James actually was a doubter before Jesus' death and alleged resurrection, Paul says nothing directly, but like I say his implication that James' doctrine was not quite the same as Peter's, and the suggestion from Acts that James only gradually came to leadership in the church could both be viewed as circumstantial support for this point on which both the synoptics and John agree.

We should not underestimate the lingering animosity between Paul and the Jerusalem church. Luke in his revisionist history [Acts] attempts to paper over the cracks but even he cannot fully disguise the deep-seated and irreconcilable differences between Paul and the Jerusalem church.

Paul [Galatians 2:9] refers derisively to James, K"fas & John, as the supposed pillars. In 2 Corinthians he ridicules missionaries from Jerusalem as super-apostles, false apostles and servants of Satan.

Later Jewish Christians referred to Paul as Simon Magus, an unflattering epithet of a demonic magician of some notoriety in Christian apocrypha. However we have no certain record of how the early Jerusalem church referred to Paul. We can speculate that when Paul refers to himself as the ektrma [1 Cor 15:8], he is perhaps using the terminology of the Jerusalem church about him in an attempt to steal their thunder and deflect their criticism back upon them.

The literal meaning of ektrma is of a stillbirth or an abortion. According to the 5th Century lexicographer Hesychius it referred to a child born dead, untimely, something cast out of a woman. Various commentators from Tzetzes in the 12th century CE, up to Straub & Barrett in the 20th century, have suggested ektrma was applied to Paul as a term of contempt by his opponents in Jerusalem. These opponents rejected Pauls apostleship calling him an abortion of an apostle.

To the Jewish Christians continuity with Jesus was maintained through James. In the pseudo-Clementine literature James appears as the head of the Jerusalem church from the first, ordained bishop in it by the Lord. As for Peter, he and the other apostles are shown as subordinate to James and must give account of their work to him. Peter addresses James as the lord and bishop of the holy Church. Likewise Clement addressees his letter to James, the lord and the bishop of bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the holy church of the Hebrews, and the churches everywhere excellently founded by the providence of God

Jerome preserves a fragment of the Gospel of the Hebrews which states that:
But the Lord after he had given his linen cloth to the servant of the priest went to James and appeared to him (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread for the hour in which he drank the cup of the Lord until he had seen him rising again from those who sleep)... James is therefore given special prominence; not only was he present at the last supper but the risen Jesus appeared to him first, not to Peter or the twelve.

Given the poor state of relations between Paul and the Jerusalem church, it is likely that had Paul any evidence demonstrating James was unsupportive, even opposed to Jesus during his [Jesus] lifetime, he would have surely drawn attention to the fact, if only in defence of his own self proclaimed status as apostle.