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?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 316 by Claire Evans]

As has been pointed out to you by others quite recently, the Gospel of Matthew makes literally no mention at all of there having been Roman guards guarding the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea owned. At best, any guards there would have been non-Roman. If a Roman guard had been used and then later on 'confessed' to having fallen asleep, as per the plot written about in the gospel, Roman law called for his execution.
I will admit that in the past, I have made comments suggesting that Roman guards were used and then bribed, but I will say that I was wrong to suggest so.

As for the Romans keeping everything quiet even though they 'knew' Jesus was resurrected...really? Is that what you think they did? The Roman leaders are running around panicked, 'knowing' that a Jew man had come back to life and had displayed great magical powers, so the thought is that by not talking about it, this Jew man will not attack them or anything?

[marco]

But at least they are imaginative.

Why? Are you still championing the argument the resurrection gets not a whisper in the historical record? Do I need to smack that argument down again?

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. 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.

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.

The Lazarus phenomena wasn’t introduced as a proof for Jesus’ resurrection. It was introduced to demonstrate you cannot logically argue a resurrection is impossible without eventually arguing in a circle.

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?

I made the following point: "YOU said the entire Medical Association of America took part in this belated post mortem and issued its pronouncement. If what you say is the case, then the Association is being silly."

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

If you would like to argue the American Medical Association is wrong in the opinion regarding the death of Jesus on the cross please cite your experts. Or are you a qualified physician? If you aren’t then I would suggest calling the Association silly, is itself silly.

Amusing! Are we to take seriously someone who struggles to understand the word "if" yet feels equipped to inform us, sanely, that a corpse went around visiting people 2000 years ago?


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.
BUT
you want to question whether the younger Pliny actually saw the eruption of Vesuvius, an event we KNOW took place. Told that it doesn't matter whether he did or not, you cannot see why. You still believe in walking corpses and this, amazingly, is no metaphor. That is the position against which I am arguing. Not only that -you think the resurrection is confirmed by historians.

I await your next consignment of red herrings. Perhaps instead of directing derision at my logical views, you should examine the absurdity of your own.

[Claire Evans]

[Prior posts edited down to size]

IMO an even less far-fetched explanation is that most of the details in the Gospels concerning the crucifixion and resurrection were invented by the several authors. The actual story (we may hypothesize): Jesus got crucified, died, was buried, the body was ‘disappeared’ and someone planted at the tomb said he rose from the dead and went someplace. This fits all the common elements of the Gospel accounts, leaving the disparate story elements as purposeful invention. The origin of the resurrection story is explained without the need for the supernatural or convoluted explanations.

The Romans anticipated that is what the disciples planned to do. To steal the body and then claim resurrection. That is why the tomb was guarded by Roman guards. Why would anyone believe Jesus resurrected if there was no body?

I'll quote something quite interesting:

Chuck Colson, implicated in the Watergate scandal during President Nixon’s administration, pointed out the difficulty of several people maintaining a lie for an extended period of time.

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world – and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.�[31]

Concerning the supposed absence of Jewish sources denying the resurrection, we may note two things. First, Matthew sees the need to offer a counter-story to the apparently widespread accusation among Jews that the body was stolen.

In Matthew 28, it says that that the guards reported Jesus' resurrection. The chief priests tried to cover this up by paying off the guards to lie and say the body was stolen by the disciples. It was the only way to explain why Jesus was not in the tomb anymore. It was a cover up:

11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.� 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

If Jesus' body was stolen, why get the Roman soldiers to lie? I think the soldiers would have gotten into trouble anyway. They failed to do their duty and that was to prevent the theft of Jesus' body by the disciples. This is the reason why there was a widespread accusation by the Jews that the body was stolen. Let us remember, not everyone saw Jesus in person.

Second, there is no mention in any of the Gospels of anyone not in the ‘in-crowd’ knowing anything about it in the immediate post-resurrection time-frame. Mark and Matthew even have everyone leave town right away.

The above verses I gave you in Matthew definitely implies that the risen Christ was seen not in the "in crowd". Not sure about the "leaving town right away" bit. I have never read that.

The criminal conspiracy later known as Watergate began in January 1972 and lasted until the resignation of President Nixon in August 1974. Despite intensive investigation by Congress, the Justice Department and the media from mid-1972 on, only three of the (69!) conspirators (Charles Colson, John Dean and Jeb Magruder) admitted guilt. Dean and Magruder were indicted but cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for lenient sentences. Colson was also indicted but ‘copped a plea’ to a lesser charge. The comment by Charles Colson about 12 people not able to keep a secret for three weeks is simply not the case. (Reference)

I take what you say. I'm not really interested in that case. However, the point is that there there were confessions and cooperation because of the desire to have lesser sentences. There were no confessions from the apostles that they were lying even when they were going to be executed.

The Gospel resurrection stories are widely divergent. All they agree on is that the tomb was found empty and someone at the tomb says that Jesus rose from the dead. If this is all that the Apostles were aware of, they would have been happy to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, thereby defeating the Romans after all.

There is no reliable account of any of the alleged witnesses of a risen Jesus being “beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison� for refusing to deny the resurrection of Jesus. Tradition has it that Peter and Paul each went to Rome just in time to get caught up in the Neronian persecutions. According to Tacitus, everyone in Rome who was even accused of being a Christian was killed rather nastily. No one was given a chance to ‘renounce their faith’. We are not even sure what the original followers of Jesus believed about the resurrection. Paul preached it. But Paul also said that there were others preaching different gospels than the one that Jesus personally gave him in a vision. At one point he mentions Peter’s name in this context. At another point he mentions people coming from Jerusalem with different teachings. Paul does not explain what the differences were, just says that they existed.

This is what Tacitus wrote in his Annals Book 15: 44

"Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."

http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html


I think the variations of the gospels was not that there were some who didn't believe in the resurrection. The Jews who converted tended to believe Jesus exclusively came for the Jews. Paul preached that Jesus came for both the gentiles and the Jews.

Another is that the early Christians still hung onto Jewish beliefs:

"Almost all early Christians known to us believed that their ultimate hope was the resurrection of the body. There is no spectrum such as in Judaism. Some in Corinth denied the future resurrection (1 Corinthians 15.12), but Paul put them straight; they were most likely reverting to pagan views, not opting for an over-realized Jewish eschatology. Two named individuals in 2 Timothy 2.18 say the resurrection has already happened, but they stand out by their oddity, and they too bear witness to the fact that mainstream early Christianity did indeed hope for resurrection, even if by the end of the first generation some were using that language in a new way, to refer simply to a new present identity or spiritual experience — marking the road to the gnostic views of, for instance, the Epistle to Rheginos."

So it was not a case of some not believing the resurrection. The contention was what it meant for Christians regarding their resurrection.

http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm

Matthew tells a very different story from the other Gospels. He has guards on the tomb, an earthquake, an angel dramatically descending from heaven and rolling back the stone, dead people coming out of their graves and walking around Jerusalem, all of which no one else mentions. It sounds very much like Matthew was disappointed in Mark’s bare bones (and very suspicious sounding) account of the resurrection and decided a much more ‘inspiring’ story was needed.

Some other points about Matthew’s story…

As in all of the Gospels, no one sees the actual resurrection event itself. Matthew’s angel rolls back the stone revealing … an already empty tomb. Despite the many differences in the several Gospel accounts this point was apparently already such a solid tradition none of the authors were willing to change it.

No, because the resurrection happened when Jesus was in the tomb. Nobody could have been in the tomb with Him. It doesn't matter that they found an empty tomb. They saw Him.

The tombs of many holy people break open and they are raised to life when Jesus dies. But they do not come out of their graves until Jesus is resurrected. Perhaps Matthew was trying to make the death of Jesus more dramatic than Mark’s version, then remembered that Jesus had to be the first one resurrected to be the first fruits Paul talks about. No word processor redos in those days.

I truly believe that the story of the tombs of holy people breaking open and them rising from the dead is fictitious. It is actually more likely that this evolved from something else that happens during rather large earthquakes. Sometimes it is so powerful, that they can actually unearth people buried.

The guards Matthew has at the tomb are not Roman soldiers but Temple guards.

Matthew 27

62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,� they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.�

65 “Take a guard,� Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.� 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Pilate tells the chief priests and the Pharisees to take a guard. If the guards were Roman soldiers Pilate would have issued the order down the chain of command. Roman soldiers would not leave their current posts and go somewhere because Jews told do something. They would need orders from their superior officer. But it is the priests and Pharisees who post the guard.

Matthew 28

11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.� 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Roman soldiers would report to their superiors, not the chief priests. And there is no way Roman soldiers would ever agree to a story that they were sleeping on guard duty. Serious trouble, that! The governor would definitely NOT be satisfied with that story. And if it got noticed that they were buying their buddies more drinks than usual, it would be suspected that they took bribes to look the other way while the body was taken.

And recall that the ones who arrested Jesus were “sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people� (Mt 26:47). The Temple had guards that the priests could trust to follow their orders.

Of course this all assumes that the body was actually in the tomb on the morning following Preparation Day when the priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate.

There were Jewish guards, yes, but I believe there were Roman ones, too.


" ...behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day (Matthew 28:11-15).

What would it be to the governor if Jesus' body was stolen unless a Roman guard was used? Why would the guard be in serious trouble if it was a Jewish guard? Why would the elders have to justify the empty tomb to the governor? It would be the Roman soldiers that would have gotten into trouble. Maybe punishable by death.

Roman soldiers did report to their superiors but the Jews were offering these guards a way out if they went along with them. They were in it together. The only way the soldier could have gotten out of trouble was to say to the governor that Jesus really did rise from the dead and suggest they look for Him as proof. The elders would not have liked that so they bribed him.

And of course all of that assumes that Matthew’s unique story, about which no one else knows anything, was not just invented to deal with (a) Mark’s problematic minimalist version and (b) the story going around that the body was simply stolen.

The other gospels mention angels.

Mark 16:4-5—

But when they [the women] looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

Angels took the form of men.

Here is an explanation why Mark doesn't mention guards:

"D. Why would the other Gospels omit the Guards?

The question then arises, why did Mark, Luke and John no mention the guards? First, the assumption that because Mark was written first his information is older than Matthew's information, or is the same as Matt's is a false assumption. Matt. uses another source in creation small sayings that is neither form Mark nor used by Luke. This source is called M. So M could be older material than that found in Mark, so just because Matthew was written latter than Mark, it does not necessarily follow that his information is not older. M could contain a different tradition which Mark and Luke and John just chose not to use.

So why would they not mention the guards? Probably because the Jews had stopped making the argument because it didn't fly; the movement had grown and survived anyway. But the Matthew community, or Matthew School as some scholars have it, may have been confronted with a resurgence of that Jewish argument, or it may just be as simple as wanting to include all of the facts."

http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/Resurrec ... s_res.html

The same argument can be used for your other points.

Mark has the disciples to go meet Jesus in Galilee. Although he does not explicitly say it, presumably he means that they do so. Matthew has them be told to go to Galilee and reports that they do. Luke of course has them told to stay in Jerusalem and they do. John has it both ways. They see Jesus in Jerusalem then run into him again while fishing in Galilee. But the Galilee incident appears in John 21, which appears to be a lete add on by a different author. Chapter 20 sounds very much like an ending and Chapter 21 refers to the author of the gospel in the third person. It also seems to refer obliquely to his death.

John seems to be the most accurate.

In the case of John 21, just because there is an add on in verse 24 and verse 25, does not mean the author of the Galilee account is the the same person who wrote verse 24 and verse 25. It was probably someone's commentary on the gospel done later.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 320 by Claire Evans]

I truly believe that the story of the tombs of holy people breaking open and them rising from the dead is fictitious. It is actually more likely that this evolved from something else that happens during rather large earthquakes. Sometimes it is so powerful, that they can actually unearth people buried.

And yet...when it comes to Jesus, you don't use this logic. You say that the story of multiple people rising from their graves and taking a stroll around town is fictitious (I agree with you here), but you don't use the same logic that you use there when it comes to Jesus.

In the case of John 21, just because there is an add on in verse 24 and verse 25, does not mean the author of the Galilee account is the the same person who wrote verse 24 and verse 25. It was probably someone's commentary on the gospel done later.

Here you are suggesting that the gospels were edited by someone who was not their primary author, that verses were added.
If so, this means the entirety of the gospels are now suspect. How do you know that the parts of the gospels that talk about Jesus resurrecting aren't in and of themselves add-ons, inserts done by someone else?
The only way I can imagine that we can figure this out is if we have the originals. Which we don't.

So my conclusion is that I cannot trust what the gospels report. You, a believer, are describing them as untrustworthy. So I lack a belief in what they say, especially since what they say violates everything else I know to be true about reality.

[polonius]

[Replying to post 320 by Claire Evans]

I truly believe that the story of the tombs of holy people breaking open and them rising from the dead is fictitious. It is actually more likely that this evolved from something else that happens during rather large earthquakes. Sometimes it is so powerful, that they can actually unearth people buried.

And yet...when it comes to Jesus, you don't use this logic. You say that the story of multiple people rising from their graves and taking a stroll around town is fictitious (I agree with you here), but you don't use the same logic that you use there when it comes to Jesus.

RESPONSE: In reading the gospels, one has to distinguish between facts, fiction, and contradictions

In the case of John 21, just because there is an add on in verse 24 and verse 25, does not mean the author of the Galilee account is the the same person who wrote verse 24 and verse 25. It was probably someone's commentary on the gospel done later.

>>>Here you are suggesting that the gospels were edited by someone who was not their primary author, that verses were added.<<<

RESPONSE: Of course. That is a well established fact. These passages (or in some cases just words) are known as "interpolations" For example, the Gospel of Mark which we are using now has both the original "short" ending and the "long" ending added early in the second century. The story in John 7-8 about the woman taken in adultery, doesn't appear in John's gospel until the 4th century.


>>If so, this means the entirety of the gospels are now suspect. How do you know that the parts of the gospels that talk about Jesus resurrecting aren't in and of themselves add-ons, inserts done by someone else?

>>The only way I can imagine that we can figure this out is if we have the originals. Which we don't.<<

RESPONSE: Actually, in some cases we can identify the additions from the gospels we have. This is expecially true when contradictions are present. Sometime we can read the writings of an early Church Father who quotes from passages of scripture that are different from the present ones. For example, the 4th century Church historian Euesbius had an extensive library and wrote quoing from the gospels he had. In his early writings, He quotes the last chapter of Matthew which reads like Mark's with no mention of a Trinity or baptism in the name of the Trinity. (And of the 5 times that baptism is mentioned in the New Testament, it is only in the name of Jesus, never any Trinity).

>>So my conclusion is that I cannot trust what the gospels report. You, a believer, are describing them as untrustworthy. So I lack a belief in what they say, especially since what they say violates everything else I know to be true about reality.

<<

RESPONSE: Your conclusion is valid

[dio9]

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"'

[rikuoamero]

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"'

No the evidence is NOT five hundred people reported meeting the ressurected body of Jesus.
Paul reports that five hundred people met Jesus. We do not have reports from those 500 people. We know nothing else about them. Paul gives us nothing at all to even think that he didn't make up this 500 people claim.
Answer me please yes or no - if I claim that 10,000 people saw a real life dragon twenty years ago (as in a fire-breathing one, like Smaug), would you believe me? If yes, why? If no, why not?

[polonius]

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"'

RESPONSE:

Let's examine your (or Paul's) claim.

Jesus would have been raised from the dead inJerusalem about 33 AD. Yet no one that saw him (or were told he had been, whether Jewsish or Roman or other) wrote anything about this truly amazing sighting.

About 56 AD, Paul , himself not a witesss, wrote to 500 people living 817 miles from Jerusalem, that 500 people had seen the risen Jesus. But none of them (nor any of the people theywould have told) wrote anything about it. Paul, himself, of course wasn't a witness - he only saw a vision later). And he didn't report any Ascension of Jesus.

Continuing this series of events, in about 70 AD, Mark, a Syrian who was not associated with Jerusalem or knew any of the Apostles or even had a geographic knowledge of Judea, wrote another account still without an Ascension. His account formed the basis of the gospels later written by Matthew and Luke in about 80 AD).

Do you note anything historically absurd with this series of supposed events?

And finally do you really believe the willingness of the radical Islamists to die for their cause proves that what they say they believe is absolutley true?

[Goose]

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.

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.

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?

[Goose]

Severe persecution that simply is not apparent in scripture.

Except for the parts where it is.

�As [Peter and John] were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening.� – Acts 4:1-4

“But the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail.� – Acts 5:17-18

�But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.� But when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them.� – Acts 5:29-33

�They took his advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them.� – Acts 5:40

[The Greek word here for “flogged� is derō which is defined by Strong’s as “A primary verb; properly to flay, that is, (by implication) to scourge, or (by analogy) to thrash: - beat, smite.� It’s the same word used for Jesus’ flogging (Luke 22:63).]

�Now when they [the Jews and high priest-Acts 7:1] heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at [Stephen]... But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!� Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!� Having said this, he fell asleep.� – Acts 7:54, 57-60

�Saul was in hearty agreement with putting [Stephen] to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.� – Acts 8:1-3

But never mind all the evidence. Just keep avoiding it and arguing by assertion. And by all means tell us again there is no evidence. It’s starting to get funny now.

Are you questioning the accuracy of The Word of God? Because I am not the believer here. You are. And since I am not the believer here who accepts the NT as the Word of the Living God, I have no problem in pointing out that Paul's version of events may have been just a wee bit skewed by the fact that he was SICK, BLIND AND ESSENTIALLY INCAPACITATED at the time the events in question were supposed to have occurred.

I’m not operating under the assumption the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. I’m operating under the paradigm the Bible is a fallible collection of writings comprising poetry, ancient biography, letters, and so on no different than any other historical source. What paradigm are you operating under because you seem to be flip flopping back and forth as it suites your argument.

In any case, you don’t seem to have a coherent rebuttal to the fact that Luke gives a chronology of events that doesn’t allow your argument to work. Or the alternative where Luke got the chronology wrong but then we have no reason to think he got the three days without water right. All you seem to be able to muster is the Red Herring of an inerrancy debate. I think we’re done here.

Now you're just making stuff up. I made NO assumptions about them whatsoever.

You said you wouldn’t have to make assumptions if we had their testimonies. Since we don’t have their testimonies you have to make assumptions. What am I making up?

The original point was that mythology, such as the various stories of Hercules and the race of cyclops, was widely accepted as genuine valid history 2,000 years ago.

Aristotle didn’t think so. But in any case your argument was that Christians, and specifically church fathers and historians like Clement and Eusebius, believed Hercules’ mythology. You haven’t established this.