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?

[Claire Evans]

[Replying to Claire Evans]

This is what I'm saying. The priests could not be in the presence of a graveyard over the Sabbath and that is why they got the Romans to inspect the tomb. First of all you are saying that the chief priests were there and then say it is scandalous for me to say the priests were there when I actually didn't say they were present. I don't understand what you are saying here.

Cut for brevity.

And you really don't have to buy into what I believe.

I congratulate you on this attempt, and for the effort you have expended. However, we can really boil this discussion down to it's two main and most important points: Gospel Matthew makes no mention of Romans being at the tomb. Nor does it in any way suggest that the tomb was opened and inspected for the body of Jesus when the priests took possession of it on that high holy day. You have to invent the assertion concerning Romans at the tomb and insert it into the narrative, and then entirely contrive an assumption of opening and inspecting the tomb from thin air where no such information exists. And this system of contrivance and unfounded assertions are used as the basis for your claim that a corpse came back to life and flew away. Do you see how your claims and your assumptions simply do not hold up under scrutiny? Add to this the fact that no one else mentioned any guard at the tomb at all, and we are left with no viable basis for what is after all a totally unbelievable conclusion; that the corpse of Jesus came back to life and subsequently flew away. I realize that you were raised to accept and believe the story without qualification, but that does not change the fact that it is was an unrealistic story all along with no real likelihood for being true. The more you attempt to defend it the more you will discover that the factual basis you have always been led to believe serves to supports the story, simply is not there. And you will be left with little but your deep abiding faith that of course, it must all be true. Because for it to be false would be a monstrous betrayal of so much genuine trust. Which, I must conclude, is exactly the way the believers of those other various "false" beliefs would feel if they were somehow to be made to understand that their entire worldview was based on little more than myth and fabrications. They too would be emotionally devastated. Which is why the overwhelming majority of true believers would never accept the possibility that their belief wasn't true no matter what the evidence showed.

Finally, you can certainly continue to convince yourself that of course it's all true. But you can never provide others with any factual basis for your faith, because careful analysis of the actual facts indicates quite clearly that any genuine physical evidence that a corpse came back to life and flew away simply is not there. The more you attempt to establish for others that your beliefs are based on genuine hard evidence, the more disappointed and disillusioned you will yourself become.

I appreciate your time also but I have not found your case satisfactory at all. I do not know of anyone who thinks that the chief priests would assign guards to a tomb where they don't know if there was a body inside or not. The logical approach would be for the chief priests to get Roman guards involved to inspect the tomb. We know that Jewish guards would not have been able to guard the tomb on the Sabbath. It is forbidden to do any work.

It was forbidden to come into contact with a dead body on the Sabbath. Therefore the family and friends of Jesus would not have taken His body elsewhere for burial. That is why nobody visited the tomb on the Sabbath.

I did not invent the insertion that there were Roman guards. That is a widely held belief.

Your points aren't in the narrative. You are making these points on what makes the most sense to you but then you say I'm deviating from the narrative. That is no different to what you are doing.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to Claire Evans]

I appreciate your time also but I have not found your case satisfactory at all. I do not know of anyone who thinks that the chief priests would assign guards to a tomb where they don't know if there was a body inside or not. The logical approach would be for the chief priests to get Roman guards involved to inspect the tomb. We know that Jewish guards would not have been able to guard the tomb on the Sabbath. It is forbidden to do any work.

The priests did not have the power to "get Roman guards involved to inspect the tomb." Pilate did not offer Roman guards nor did the priests specifically ask for Roman guards. Not that it would have done any good. Verse 66 says nothing about Roman guards, but it specifically places the priests at the tomb. For anyone to have opened the tomb and, potentially at least, exposed the priests to a corpse would have rendered the priests too ritually unclean to have proceeded with the holy day ceremonies.Not to mention that It would have been an affront to God. Nor does the author of Gospel Matthew make such a incendiary claim. The Priests made the obvious choice by placing seals on the tomb, setting a guard, and waiting until the holy day had passed. You are forced to invent the priests doing these inconceivable things and then inserting them into the story .

It was forbidden to come into contact with a dead body on the Sabbath. Therefore the family and friends of Jesus would not have taken His body elsewhere for burial. That is why nobody visited the tomb on the Sabbath.

It was forbidden for high priests, someone who is a Kohen, to be in the direct presence of a corpse. It made them ritually unclean. As long as the entrance was covered with the stone, and the priests were uncertain if the corpse was even there, they were within the limits of their own laws. But you see, people cannot plan their deaths in accordance with Jewish Sabbath laws. People die on the Sabbath as well as any other day. And the body MUST be handled in accordance with Jewish law, by those who are NOT Kohen. The real question is, would the followers of Jesus have conformed to Jewish Sabbath laws, or would they have felt compelled to ignore them? First, as you mentioned earlier, they would have had a very perishable cargo. They were also faced with the problem that as soon as the Sabbath passed, all roads leading away from Jerusalem would have been choked with thousands of pilgrims returning home. The obvious solution would have been to get a head start while the roads were clear, to stay ahead of the crowds. Would the followers of Jesus have felt compelled to respect Sabbath laws, or would they have been disdainful of the Sabbath laws?

Mark 2:
[24] And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
[27] And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
[28] Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Disdain for Sabbath laws was in fact a distinct part of their repudiation of the existing system.

I did not invent the insertion that there were Roman guards. That is a widely held belief.

This is true, yet the guards are not scriptural. It is popularly believed to be true, which is significantly different. It's an indication of just how unfamiliar most Christians actually are with what the Bible says, relying instead on popularly held assumptions. For example, it's also popularly believed that Satan tempted Eve with an apple in the garden. Most people will state with absolute certainty that Satan was responsible. But of course Genesis specifically says that Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And Genesis specifically refers to her tempter as "the serpent." God subsequently condemned serpents to crawl on their bellies from then on. No mention is made of Satan whatsoever, and unless you conceive of Satan as forever armless and legless, when Genisis says serpent, it means serpent. Satan is nowhere to be found in this story at all. In fact, Satan is mentioned nowhere in the Torah at all.

Your points aren't in the narrative. You are making these points on what makes the most sense to you but then you say I'm deviating from the narrative. That is no different to what you are doing.

You are not deviating from the narrative so much as adding things to the narrative that are not there. Nor am in in the position of necessarily defending Gospel MAtthew as unassailable.

The words "Roman guards," or "opened and inspected the tomb," are nowhere to be found in the narrative. The empty tomb is easily explained by the realization that the followers of Jesus ALREADY HAD POSSESSION THE BODY, and had been in possession of it since the previous day. No one besides his followers were EVER clearly in possession of the body of Jesus in point of fact. The priests took possession of a CLOSED TOMB, which proved to be empty the following day. These things are completely consistent with the narrative. My departure is to deny that the empty tomb proves that a corpse came back to life and subsequently flew away. A perfectly reasonable conclusion.

[polonius]

Claire Evans wrote:

I did not invent the insertion that there were Roman guards. That is a widely held belief.

RESPONSE:

So is belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!

Are you seriously arguing that because a belief is widely held, it must therefore be true?

[dio9]

[Replying to Inigo Montoya]

Christianity existed before Paul wrote his letters to the churches. Paul joined an existing Ecclesia .

[JLB32168]

THEREFORE IT IS NOT A HISTORICAL FACT.

Merriam-Webster defined a fact as “something that truly exists or happens : something that has actual existence� and not “something that we know truly exists�; therefore, we don’t have to know about something in order for it to be fact. Using that valid definition,

It was already historical fact that Anna Anderson was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov. We just didn’t know that until the 90s when A)some bowel tissue of hers was found and tested and was determined to have no genetic markers common to the Russian Imperial family B)the actual remains of the Her Imperial Highness were found in the forest around Yekaterinburg. Using that definition, faith-based statements might indeed be facts. Given that possibility, it still remains that time travel, were it available, would demonstrate if it were fact or fiction.

The rest of your points are informed by a false premise (i.e. that “historical fact� must be known by us or it isn’t historical fact.)

To quote you, “Thank you for playing.�

[JLB32168]

“�Still evidence�???????We have anecdotal “evidence� too regarding the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Except that we know that the Easter Bunny was a creation and no one has ever said otherwise and St. Nicholas is alleged to have existed in Asia Minor so that’s not really comparable.

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 592 by JLB32168]

Oh no you don't.

You've already declared your faith based position.

Is the resurrection a HISTORICAL FACT or not?

None of this garbage about comparing natural historical data with supernatural claims. Just answer the question.

[JLB32168]

Is the resurrection a HISTORICAL FACT or not?

It may be historical fact. It might not be historical fact. We cannot know outside of time travel. We can know that historical facts are independent of our opinions or knowledge. They’re facts – perhaps undiscovered facts – but facts nonetheless.

I’ve answered the question according to the received definition of what constitutes a fact. That you don’t like the answer is your affair. You don’t get to assign your own arbitrary definitions to words when those definitions don’t conform to your preconceived biases and prejudices.

[Inigo Montoya]

Is the resurrection a HISTORICAL FACT or not?

It may be historical fact. It might not be historical fact. We cannot know outside of time travel. We can know that historical facts are independent of our opinions or knowledge. They’re facts – perhaps undiscovered facts – but facts nonetheless.

I’ve answered the question according to the received definition of what constitutes a fact. That you don’t like the answer is your affair. You don’t get to assign your own arbitrary definitions to words when those definitions don’t conform to your preconceived biases and prejudices.

Great. So the entirety of your contribution here to whether its a historical fact is ''Maybe. Could be. May not be. We need time travel to know.''

Why not stop there? Why the pleading about what supernatural agencies might be capable of and any other attempt at defending what can't be known without time travel according to you? You, that already admit to taking the whole affair on faith.

You'll have to excuse my unrealistic demands for demonstrating a resurrection, I guess. If that's bias, you know, asking to be shown how dead people come back to life and fly off into space, then I guess I'm as biased as they come.

Edit: Somewhere Goose is yelling (about the flying into space part), ''THATS A SEPARATE CLAIM!''

[Danmark]

It may be historical fact. It might not be historical fact. We cannot know outside of time travel. We can know that historical facts are independent of our opinions or knowledge. They’re facts – perhaps undiscovered facts – but facts nonetheless.

[emphasis applied]
THAT is a howler.
"It's an undiscovered fact, so it's a fact" is a contradiction in terms. If it is undiscovered it is not a 'fact,' by definition. Unless and until it is discovered, it is an unsupported presupposition, a fancy, a hope, a fantasy, but not a fact. To contend otherwise would be:

... to assign your own arbitrary definitions to words when those definitions don’t conform to your preconceived biases and prejudices.