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?

[polonius]

Regarding Fatima. Did the Sun actually dance and fall from the sky? Are there other reports from observatories to this effect?

You've missed the point completely, Polonius. Fatima is being used to show that something mistaken or fake can be credited by witnesses. We are told that people saw the resurrected Christ, and so we are saying that if people can be deceived, as at Fatima 100 years ago, they can be deceived in Jerusalem, 2000 years ago.

It was presented as a refutation of one of the arguments supporting the risen Christ.

RESPONSE: I gather you are referring to 1 Col 15 in which Paul claimed (in about 55 AD or 20 years after the supposed event)that 500 people saw the risen Christ.

Lets briefly examine the credability of this passage.

1. This epistle was written to the people of Corinth which is 813 miles from Jerusalem where the event was said to have happened. Would the people there have knowledge of the facts?

2. Paul claims that there were 500 witnesses which would have probably included, Jews, Romans, Greeks, and other Gentiles. The witnesses seeing such an amazing story would have quickly spread the report to perhaps thousands of others. But, curiously, no one wrote anything down and the Romans never reacted to the story.

3. Paul was not a witness to the Resurrection not having converted for at least three more years.

4. Regarding the Apostles (and himself) he uses the koine Greek phrase "He appeared..." This does not necessarily mean a physical appearance. It can be a vision of which Paul seems to have had many.

5. There is no other writing about a Resurrection until about 70 AD (Mark's gospel).

[marco]

RESPONSE: I gather you are referring to 1 Col 15 in which Paul claimed (in about 55 AD or 20 years after the supposed event)that 500 people saw the risen Christ.

No, I was referring to Claire Evans, Post 1135.

Lets briefly examine the credability of this passage.

I have already examined the credibility of the passage. I don't believe in the resurrection. Are you trying to change my mind?

[polonius]

RESPONSE: I gather you are referring to 1 Col 15 in which Paul claimed (in about 55 AD or 20 years after the supposed event)that 500 people saw the risen Christ.

No, I was referring to Claire Evans, Post 1135.

Lets briefly examine the credability of this passage.

I have already examined the credibility of the passage. I don't believe in the resurrection. Are you trying to change my mind?

RESPONSE: No. Please see previous message.

(Question: Where do you find post numbers? As in Clair Evens Post 1135)

[Claire Evans]

How is Jesus having brothers relevant to this discussion? Please elaborate.

I have two cousins that I cannot tell apart. Jesus had a brother who looked like him OR Jesus rose from the dead.

It would have been easy to refute by just showing Jesus' body. The disciples wouldn't have been fooled.

The reason was because the soldiers believed that Jesus was dead already. Only when they are conscious are the crucified's legs broken. To make sure, they pierced his side. Water indicates that the heart is no longer beating.

Ah, yes, and Roman soldiers famously possessed medical qualifications. A lady believed dead by actual doctors woke up in the mortuary. You think that "soldiers believed he was dead" provides good grounds for accepting the resurrection?

They may not have had qualifications but they knew if blood didn't come out of the body when speared, that person was dead. It just doesn't happen to people who are alive. This argument refutes the "swoon theory" where people think Jesus just passed out and got revived in the tomb.

What arrangements before the trial? There is a difference between dying for a lie that one believes is true. It's quite a different story to know one has made something up and die for it and not benefit from the lie at all.

I agree, but I'm not saying the apostles disbelieved. They weren't part of the presumed plot. Jesus gave the disciples instructions on where to find the donkey (to fit in with prophecy) and where to go for the last supper. These are arrangements. There may well have been others.

Some of the original disciples were put to death in the Bible, including Peter who denied Jesus. In fact, they had the most to lose. They actually fled when Jesus was crucified and somehow decided that they would proclaim this news. It would be an audacity to do that if they were lying.

3. We have a modern example of mass hallucination; namely the Fatima appearances. So it CAN happen, especially in a religious context.

It was not a mass hallucination. All of those people who witnessed it must have existing circumstances to make them hallucinate if it was true:

The general population is susceptible to hallucinations during sensory, sleep, food, and water deprivation. They may be normal, especially during the bereavement process. For example, hearing the voice of, or seeing a loved one who has passed away can be part of the process."

Thank you. So the grieving apostles hallucinated. That is possible.

But what the chances that so many people saw Jesus in an hallucination? Anyway, grief hallucination occurs without any prompting. You aren't told about someone's hallucination and then rush off to see the supposed resurrected person and hallucinate yourself. Then others would have the same hallucination. The women told the disciples that Jesus rose from the dead. Also, when someone is hallucinating, they recognize the deceased straight away. No one would have expected Jesus to have a glorified body. They saw Him last shredded to pieces.

John 20:

"At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,� he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?� Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.� Jesus said to her, “Mary.� She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!� (which means Teacher)."

If the disciples had a mass hallucination, their story would have been refuted in no time.

It's been challenged umpteen times but the witnesses are rather dead. As I said, the Fatima story is similar and hasn't been refuted.

Why do we have no Jewish accounts refuting the resurrection story? I think it would not have been proven it was an hallucination regarding the Fatima story because they didn't exhibit any signs of what is required to have hallucinations. Were the girls diagnosed with having hallucinations? Has it been concluded that it was mass hysteria?

I think they saw an apparition but it was not Mary.

It's quite interesting that you think that the NT has absolutely no reliability and cannot at all be considered proof. And conflicting information does not necessary mean it negates the whole event. You will find it in history books.

For an event of the magnitude of the resurrection stories HAVE to be absolutely consistent and free of any suspicion of being fabricated. Talk of angels DOES diminish the veracity. Discrepancies in who went to the sepulchre and what they saw there quite certainly are important. We cannot accept an ENORMOUS claim when tiny details are seen to be wrong.

First of all, do you know how ridiculous some details are about the 9-11 story? A passport of one of the supposed hijackers was found in the rubble in a good condition. Planes flew into the towers and one of them was seen to have its nose come out from the other end. Pilots who couldn't even fly a paper kite managed to just fly into buildings at a speed impossible at that altitude.



Now according to your logic as you applied to the resurrection story, we should deduce that 9-11 never happened.

What discrepancies are you talking about regarding the resurrection story like about the angels?

How would one go about proving Jesus rose from the dead that would be satisfactory to a non believer?

I have no idea. The best one can do with an extravagant claim, I suppose, is to regard it as unproven. Over thirty years ago here a forestry worker saw what he took to be a large craft in the middle of woods, inaccessible to vehicles. There were no reports of aircraft in that area at the time. The man was sane. He described what he saw. But his testimony is not proof. It is even more the case with a claim that 2000 years ago somebody got up from the dead. The natural conclusion is to say it did NOT occur, unless we have very strong evidence. We don't.

But you are talking about one person. Regarding Jesus' resurrection, there were said to be hundreds. Jesus went to Jerusalem.

[Claire Evans]

Just chiming in to say that it's interesting that Claire says fatima was not a hallucination and apparently believes herself that it was a genuine miracle...a miracle recognised as such by the Romans Catholic Church...declared as such by popes.

It needs to be proven that it was a hallucination by doctors. I rule that out. However, mass hysteria is a possibility. Plain lying is also. Or they really had visions of the sun stopping in the middle of the sky and believed it really happened. In one believes in the supernatural, it is very possible for spirits to make people see what really isn't there.

[Claire Evans]

Regarding Fatima. Did the Sun actually dance and fall from the sky? Are there other reports from observatories to this effect?

You've missed the point completely, Polonius. Fatima is being used to show that something mistaken or fake can be credited by witnesses. We are told that people saw the resurrected Christ, and so we are saying that if people can be deceived, as at Fatima 100 years ago, they can be deceived in Jerusalem, 2000 years ago.

It was presented as a refutation of one of the arguments supporting the risen Christ.

However, it was proven that there were no such thing as meteorological occurrences all sun anomalies as claimed:

"Mass hysteria and optical distortion alone would account for such reports but one might also offer local meteorological conditions as a possible (though hardly necessary) additional explanation. Needless to say, astronomical observatories saw nothing unusual in the sun's behavior that day."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/lo ... cle-fatima

So if we have the need to today to investigate the veracity of one's supernatural claims, then why not back then? I would think the Jews would love to record in their sources what really happened.

[marco]

The disciples wouldn't have been fooled.

Is this an argument or a private expression of faith?

They may not have had qualifications but they knew if blood didn't come out of the body when speared, that person was dead. It just doesn't happen to people who are alive. This argument refutes the "swoon theory" where people think Jesus just passed out and got revived in the tomb.

No diagnosis can be made on a detail and again we have no way of checking this observation. The soldiers were clearly not humanitarians, so breaking legs would have been something of a joy, which they for some reason declined. This is another detail.

Some of the original disciples were put to death in the Bible, including Peter who denied Jesus. In fact, they had the most to lose. They actually fled when Jesus was crucified and somehow decided that they would proclaim this news. It would be an audacity to do that if they were lying.

I have never argued they were lying.

The women told the disciples that Jesus rose from the dead. Also, when someone is hallucinating, they recognize the deceased straight away. No one would have expected Jesus to have a glorified body. They saw Him last shredded to pieces.

You are doing EXACTLY what I suspect the gospel writers did - enlarging and embellishing a tale to make it more mysterious or credible. Where do we hear he was "shredded to pieces"? The glorified body is an irrelevance in this discussion.


The point of all this is you asserted that there were claims that were all refuted. I was illustrating that each one can be substantiated. I'm not interested in which claim is best - merely that there are MANY reasons for not accepting the physical resurrection and no convincing reason for taking it as true.

[Claire Evans]

The disciples wouldn't have been fooled.

Is this an argument or a private expression of faith?

I am arguing based on the premises of the Bible. What are the chances they'd mistake Jesus' brother for Jesus? According to the Bible, they did not expect Jesus to have a glorified body. We have one person recorded in the Bible that was doubtful and that was Thomas. He was soon put right.

They may not have had qualifications but they knew if blood didn't come out of the body when speared, that person was dead. It just doesn't happen to people who are alive. This argument refutes the "swoon theory" where people think Jesus just passed out and got revived in the tomb.

No diagnosis can be made on a detail and again we have no way of checking this observation. The soldiers were clearly not humanitarians, so breaking legs would have been something of a joy, which they for some reason declined. This is another detail.

It's a scientific fact. When there is trauma to the chest and the heart is weakened before death like Jesus', then pleural effusion will occur. This is the accumulation of fluid in the sac surrounding the lungs.

Dr. William Edwards, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in his analysis of Jesus’ crucifixion:

“Clearly the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted. . . . The assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appears to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.� (1)


Therefore, the water probably represented serous pleural and pericardial fluid, (5-7, and 11) and would have preceded the flow of blood and
been smaller in volume than the blood. Perhaps in the setting of hypovolemia and impending acute heart failure, pleural and pericardial
9
effusions may have developed and would have added to the volume of apparent water. (5, 11) The blood, in contrast, may have originated
from the right atrium or the right ventricle or perhaps from a hemopericardium. (5, 7, 11)

http://hilbornbiblehistory.cmswiki.wiki ... Christ.pdf

There is absolutely no point of breaking the legs of a dead person or even one who is unconscious.

Some of the original disciples were put to death in the Bible, including Peter who denied Jesus. In fact, they had the most to lose. They actually fled when Jesus was crucified and somehow decided that they would proclaim this news. It would be an audacity to do that if they were lying.

I have never argued they were lying.

So when they claimed Jesus rose from the dead, you don't think they were lying?

The women told the disciples that Jesus rose from the dead. Also, when someone is hallucinating, they recognize the deceased straight away. No one would have expected Jesus to have a glorified body. They saw Him last shredded to pieces.

You are doing EXACTLY what I suspect the gospel writers did - enlarging and embellishing a tale to make it more mysterious or credible. Where do we hear he was "shredded to pieces"? The glorified body is an irrelevance in this discussion.

You are dodging the point. I'm taking about how it is not possible for the disciples to have been hallucinating. Jesus is said to be have scourged severely. I didn't mean He was dismembered.

The point of all this is you asserted that there were claims that were all refuted. I was illustrating that each one can be substantiated. I'm not interested in which claim is best - merely that there are MANY reasons for not accepting the physical resurrection and no convincing reason for taking it as true.

This is confirmation bias. The reason I said that is because you have ignored certain points of mine like what scientific proof is there that proves mass hallucination? Yous also ignored by request to point out the inconsistencies that you say discredit the veracity of the resurrection narrative. If we don't examine all points, then we are not going to get a full picture.

[marco]

I am arguing based on the premises of the Bible. What are the chances they'd mistake Jesus' brother for Jesus?

I've just told you I mistake my two cousins. There is every chance, if things were so organised, that the unknown brother appeared after the body was removed. I cannot possibly say this is so, but it provides a better explanation than a risen corpse.

Dr. William Edwards, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in his analysis of Jesus’ crucifixion .....

This is risible. William Edwards didn't examine the body to see if what was reported accorded with what was in fact so.

I asked why Christ's legs weren't broken and you supply medical evidence 2000 years later. Do you think the Roman soldiers were somehow in touch with Dr. Edwards - or did they just know this sure way of telling a body is dead, and so, out of respect, didn't break the legs? They had a reason for not doing so, and it was possibly bribery.
As for there being "absolutely no point in breaking his legs" - try entertainment, fun, brutality. If they were breaking the legs of the other two, they'd break the third person's. If bribery was involved, then the bribers would have been able to remove Christ from the cross EARLY. And if there were some external people involved, not the apostles, then they would have moved into the story in an inexplicable way and inexplicably offered an inexplicable new sepulchre. The doctor of course ignores this.

This is confirmation bias.

Whoever told you about this awfully dangerous psychological trait did you no favours. You have enough on your plate defending the resurrected Christ without seeking to find psychological flaws in your adversary. Like you, I know what the term thinks it means. I am not guilty.

As for "ignoring" arguments - I deal with salient points. One needs one knock-out, not ten.

[Claire Evans]

I am arguing based on the premises of the Bible. What are the chances they'd mistake Jesus' brother for Jesus?

I've just told you I mistake my two cousins. There is every chance, if things were so organised, that the unknown brother appeared after the body was removed. I cannot possibly say this is so, but it provides a better explanation than a risen corpse.

And your cousins have the exact same voices?

Dr. William Edwards, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in his analysis of Jesus’ crucifixion .....

This is risible. William Edwards didn't examine the body to see if what was reported accorded with what was in fact so.

I asked why Christ's legs weren't broken and you supply medical evidence 2000 years later. Do you think the Roman soldiers were somehow in touch with Dr. Edwards - or did they just know this sure way of telling a body is dead, and so, out of respect, didn't break the legs? They had a reason for not doing so, and it was possibly bribery.

Oh my goodness...

Based on what gospel accounts say, water coming out from a pleural effusion is fitting. It is caused from trauma. Do you think the gospel writers knew why water would come out? So why would they make that up? If someone today had water coming out of them being pierced, we would come to the same conclusion. Is it impossible to say how someone died 1000's of years ago because we weren't there?

As for there being "absolutely no point in breaking his legs" - try entertainment, fun, brutality. If they were breaking the legs of the other two, they'd break the third person's. If bribery was involved, then the bribers would have been able to remove Christ from the cross EARLY. And if there were some external people involved, not the apostles, then they would have moved into the story in an inexplicable way and inexplicably offered an inexplicable new sepulchre. The doctor of course ignores this.

Are you going to break the legs of someone who is dead or at least unconscious? They didn't break legs for fun. It was to kill a person within minutes. The whole point of a crucifixion was to let them hand there for days.

It wasn't long after Jesus' death that He was taken down from the cross. According to the Bible, the body was in the custody of Pontius Pilate. Why would anyone but the disciples want Jesus' body to make up a resurrection story? They weren't the first to herald the news. When one wants a likely explanation, one must always ask, "Who benefits?"[/quote]


As for the doctor. He only gives a medical explanation for the water coming out of Jesus' side and that is it. He would have come to the conclusion on any other person who had water coming out of their side.

This is confirmation bias.

Whoever told you about this awfully dangerous psychological trait did you no favours. You have enough on your plate defending the resurrected Christ without seeking to find psychological flaws in your adversary. Like you, I know what the term thinks it means. I am not guilty.

As for "ignoring" arguments - I deal with salient points. One needs one knock-out, not ten.

You see, I think the problem with you is that you believe you cannot be wrong.

You are the one who mentioned that the inconsistencies in the resurrection story threatened the veracity of the story so now why don't you want to deal with it?

In a debate, you need to address all points. You just dropped the hallucination argument.