Belief in The Resurrection - Faith, or Fact Based

[William]

Q: Is belief in The Resurrection based on fact or based on faith?

From a discussion in another thread;
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[Replying to Realworldjack in post #222]

Let us recall that it was you who stated,

that the stories of the empty tomb where anything other than given as hearsay and expected to be received in faith.

This is what I stated;

"What has been reported from the different sources do not altogether align - and one thing which does come across is that folk did not seem to recognize that the person claiming to have resurrected was the same person they had followed for all those months. I am happy to examine what you table as explanation for this phenomena."

I also stated;
I am not arguing that the stories themselves were or were not penned as true accounts of actual events by the very one(s) who experienced these things they claim to have experienced.
My argument is that we can only take their stories as hearsay, because we did not witness those events. What we each DO with the hearsay depends upon our faith in the stories being true, our faith that the stories being false, or in our lack of faith due to the nature of the evidence.

Are you saying, NONE of it aligns?

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

Because you see, we have those who complain that much of the information is so closely the "aligned", they want to insist that there must, and had to be copying going on between the authors.

Apparently there are biblical scholars who accept that in those cases, copying may have occurred.

So then, exactly what would we expect? If they all report the same exact events, in the same exact way, I think we would have complaints that something would not be right here.

Yes - that it was unnecessary to have four exact copies of the same data.

If they report completely different, and contradictory information, then we would complain that something is not quite right.

Yes.

However, it seems to me we have exactly what we would expect.

Which still wouldn't do away with the idea that the stories were concocted by the priesthood...such would be intelligent enough to realize that to sell the story there needs to be more than one version, especially since there are no coinciding stories circulating outside of the religion.
For example - some believe that [historical] Jesus had scribes, but there is no evidence that anyone was recording his words and nothing of the sort has been found so far.

In other words, we have some events describe in almost the same way, while we have others who record events the others may leave out, and we have some who report the same events with differences in the story. So??????? What exactly would are you looking for?

I am looking for evidence to the claim that Jesus died. [and was thus resurrected.]

Would you want them to record the same exact stories, in the same exact way? Would you want them to tell completely different stories which would contradict each other? I mean, exactly what would you accept?

Based upon the stories regarding Jesus, I would expect that Jesus didn't really die.

First, your wording is sort of strange here? You seem to be saying, they did not recognize him as the same person as they had followed, as if they recognized him as someone else? However, this is not the way it is recorded. In Luke 24 we read,

"While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him".

So here we see, it is not as though they recognize him as someone else, but rather, they simply were, "kept from recognizing him". However, as we move on a few verses later we read,

"And then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him".

Firstly they must have seen him as 'someone else' for them to recognize that 'someone else' had entered into their company.
But what we do not know [and thus cannot assume] is what the writer meant in the use of the words.
Does it mean that their minds were being played with in some unknown manner or does it mean that it was something else about the stranger suddenly in their company which lead them to conclude they were in the presence of someone who was so just like the Jesus they knew, that it must have been him, or was Jesus' body was capable of 'shape-shifting' [changing it's appearance.]

However, in relation to the story of the stranger in the company, we see that the story unfolds over the course of a whole day, with the stranger telling them all sorts of things so that the dots connected [starting out by calling them 'fools' for not being able to do this for themselves] and by the end of the day, we are informed that they had no choice but to accept the evidence that the stranger [who they did not recognize as Jesus because it was a different body] was the same person that they had followed all those previous months.

As soon as they came to that conclusion, the stranger then vanished. [became invisible to them/appeared to no longer be in their company.]

Okay, as we turn our attention to the incident with Mary Magdalene, what we see as recorded in John 20, is (Mary) "Thinking that He was the gardener". Notice, it does not say, "recognizing him as the gardener".

Why would Mary know what the gardener looked like? Clearly she assumes a stranger there with the two other strangers is the caretaker and clearly she is confused and distressed.
But most importantly, she does not recognize the stranger until he calls her by her name...so it must have been how the stranger had done this which convinced Mary that it was Jesus.

Well, the only other incident I know of would be at daybreak, with the disciples in a boat off shore, and see Jesus on shore, as they have been fishing through the night with no catch. Jesus instructs them where to cast the net, and of course they have a net so full, it is difficult to pull the net in, and it is at this point, one of the disciples, does not "recognize" (as if he can actually see him) this as Jesus, but simply says, "It is the Lord"! Once they were all on shore, as it is recorded, they all seem to recognize this person as Jesus.

These are the only events such as this I am aware of. The above would not be my "explanation for this phenomena" because I have no explanation. Rather, this is the way it is recorded.

So we have hearsay [the stories] and within that, we have incidences which align and form an image of someone who has a distinctly different body than the normal Human form as it appears to be able to do things which normal human forms are not seen to be capable of doing.

But overall, there is nothing about the story of the resurrection [The Subject] which can be pointed to as factual [rather than hearsay] and thus, to believe in said story - one has to do so on faith.

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #559]

I have already agreed with you, based on what I think you mean by ‘faith’ that the resurrection is faith-based. That is different than how some others here are using ‘faith’.

The argument for the "truth of the resurrection" has never been the subject of this thread. You should know that.

It actually has. It’s been the subject of this thread for a considerable amount of time. It was never your intent, but these threads always go into tangents, connected or otherwise.

So the points of the tracks have changed. Essentially resulting in a type of hijack.


Nice one Christian. I applaud your ability to make use of such device in order to achieve the results you want and your use of willing participants essential to this being made possible.

No hard feelings, as I am satisfied my question on the original subject has been answered.

The thread is yours. Enjoy.

Go well my Friend.

[POI]

Before I begin, I cannot stress this enough... We seem to agree that direct eyewitness attestation is about the only way to 'validate' a one time claimed miraculous even; especially a long time ago. It does not seem we have much, in the way of direct eyewitness attestation?... Now to address your response(s)....

A. Paul was not there himself. Hence, he himself does not count as a witness to attest another 500. Hence, his writing here is nothing more than hearsay; especially since it goes into no further details regarding such a claim of 500.

He isn’t a witness that the appearance actually happened. He is an eyewitness to the actual people claiming it happened to them, which is what I have been arguing.

Paul makes a claim that 500+ others saw something. And yet, none of these '500' are named. Here are the inherent problems I see with this logic....

--- Paul does not place pen to paper, about this particular claim to '500', until about two decades after the alleged claim.
--- None of these 500 are named.
--- Since the average life span was 35, it's likely most/all of these "eyewitnesses" would be dead by the time Paul placed pen to paper.
--- Most people were illiterate. Thus, most would not know what Paul wrote here 20 years later. However...
--- Even if someone read this passage to the interested illiterate, who wanted to (follow up/corroborate) this claim, they would not know who to cross reference; because there is no names listed. And....
--- Even if they wanted to, it's likely such said person is already dead.
--- But even if Paul was still alive to ask, and so was this named 'eyewitness', is the interested party going to track Paul down, ask him, and then venture off to go find this person????

Thus, your faith is that we have a singular claim of '500' bonafide direct 'eyewitnesses', which amounts to little/nothing above and beyond a wing and a prayer. The fact remains that none of these '500' were named or questioned independently; period! This is a fact

E. Thus, I continue to repeatedly ask a question for which you have not answered... Is it logical to discard the claim of 500 'eyewitnesses'?

I’ve answered it many times. I never argued that we have 500 eyewitnesses, I’ve claimed we have had multiple eyewitnesses to the fact that the earliest disciples were claiming post-mortem appearances, including one appearance to about 500.

Your response here is contradictory...

(you) "I never argued that we have 500 eyewitnesses" -- But then you say, in the same sentence....
(you) "including one appearance to about 500"

Let me rephrase my question....

Is the claim of '500' eyewitnesses based upon (fact or faith)?

2. Of course Christians wrote the Gospels. They were believers. But none of the Gospel writers were there themselves. All claimed direct witnesses were long dead. Hence, these believers obtained their information from oral tradition, or were told what to write by other Christians who believed the same thing. So yes, later Christians, passing along claims is all we have

I never said the gospel writers were direct eyewitnesses. They could have been, but that doesn’t mean they were or should be treated as though they were. They didn’t all claim direct witnesses were long dead. They did obtain information from oral tradition. An oral tradition within a culture that was really good at passing on oral tradition and strong believers in maintaining sacred traditions accurately from those who experienced such events.

Okay, please re-read what I stated at the top. Again, without eyewitness attestation to a claimed one time passed event, we really have little to go upon -- to validate the claim(s). Since we agree the Gospels could not have been written by direct eyewitnesses, then all we have is to speculate what the motive was of the person(s) writing the Gospels? Were they told what to write by others? Did they write of what they heard themselves? Other? No one knows? It's all assumption..... And in your case, FAITH to a wanted conclusion alone.

FAITH because you assume 'oral tradition' is completely reliable...
FAITH because you assume the source of the original Gospel writings were from this reliable passed along oral tradition...
FAITH because you assume that the earliest full copies of the Gospels, in which we do have, directly match what was first written centuries prior....

4. I already asked you this... And I still do not recall getting an answer...? Were you, or anyone reliable, there to verify if each and every passed along claim was perfectly preserved? And even if you, or someone else, was there to reliably monitor each and every passed forth transmission of such claim(s), does this now mean the original claim is true? It's almost as if, in the case here, you do not think humans are fallible or something.

I never claimed that every claim was faithfully passed down. I never claimed that those being faithfully passed down mean they are true claims. I never claimed humans are infallible. The claims I’m talking about being faithfully passed down are the three facts, not all the minor details. A change to the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, and Jesus’ resurrection as the central message, is a big enough change to be squashed if it wasn’t the original claims. That’s the point about the oral tradition.

Since none of these claims can be verified, then 'oral tradition' remains unfettered/unchallenged/unproven...

"oral tradition" - a community's cultural and historical traditions passed down by word of mouth or example from one generation to another without written instruction.

[TRANSPONDER]

Ok. We'll do it that way. But you can surely see that it's wording that misleads if not intentionally. It's historical truth that Pilate was a real person (not that we can be 100% sure but it's a reasonably reliable surmise) but that doesn't make the gospel records about him reliable.

Discussions are full of unintentional misleadings because we attach different concepts to the same terms because of our own education and other experiences because of the language used in the circles we’ve engaged in. I’ve tried to draw the distinction, on numerous occasions and in different phrasings, between saying the whole accounts are history versus finding the historical core within accounts.

The historical core, again, contains four elements. One, Jesus existed. This, alone, does not mean the accounts from the gospel writers and Paul about Jesus are reliable on anything else but that Jesus existed. Two, that there was an empty tomb. This does not make what the writers claimed about why the tomb was empty reliable. Three, the earliest disciples experienced post-mortem appearances of Jesus. This does not make what they interpreted from these appearances or other claims they made reliable. Four, the earliest Christians preached a resurrected Jesus as the center of their movement’s message. This does not make it true that Jesus resurrected or the other claims they said about Jesus reliable.

We need to explain these four facts. The reliability of the other claims in these accounts, aren’t being said to be reliable, it’s just about explaining those four facts. There are various theories out there that try to explain these four things. I’ve shared what I think about the various theories.

Semantic tricks, or here, juggling with reasoning, are just playing the old Theist apologetics game of 'can't be 100% sure' to make us think we can't be sure of anything.

That we can’t be sure of anything (outside of pure math, definitions of words, and maybe something else) is simply true. That does not mean that anything goes. I have never moved from “can’t be sure of anything” therefore the resurrection happened. There are degrees of certainty, as you go on to say. Science, history, literature, everything else is about degrees of certainty. I’ve argued that the degree of certainty is in favor of the resurrection, without semantic tricks.

Degrees of certainty based on evaluation of the data make the case clear (as I've argued) that the resurrection accounts are so discrepant that (a) they can't be relied upon (b) they are evidently invented (c) there can't have been an original agreed resurrection -story.

They (a) can be relied upon (along with the other reasonings I’ve given in support) for what they say about an empty tomb, the claims of post-mortem appearances, and the disciples preaching a resurrected Jesus, (b) those key elements aren’t invented even if other details are, and (c) why should there be one agreed resurrection story?

As I recall, my pointing out reasons doubt that Paul's list was anything to do with the events in the gospels got denial and then silence.

No, I agreed that Paul lists things the Gospels don’t cover. I disagreed with you in that I find no problem in that since neither are claiming to make an exhaustive modern-day historical account.

But the point here is that arguing about Bob eating an apple is trying to make us doubt being able to base any reliability on conclusions and leave it to belief -preference. I already showed that the analogy is not 'tight' because your claim that you ate an apple (though perfectly plausible in itself) would Not be plausible if someone else who was there at the time (Matthew, for instance) said you ate a pizza. That is the analogy of discrepant accounts and not trying to make us doubt reasoned conclusions.

I do not think the lack of certainty about Bob eating an apple makes us doubt being able to base any reliability on conclusions and leave it to belief-preference. I’m arguing the opposite. One poster claimed that the existence of apples is support for Bob actually eating an apple. It isn’t. We can’t assume Bob ate an apple simply because that is a natural explanation. Natural explanations still need evidence to support them actually occurring. I’m arguing we need to base our conclusions (whether natural or supernatural) on the evidence instead of leaving it to belief-preference.

Now, if we are talking about whether we should believe Bob or not about eating an apple. There probably isn’t much riding on that claim, so the default should be to believe unless we simply know Bob to be a habitual liar. Even then, I doubt there would be any harm in believing Bob on this example. We can’t just believe the earliest Christians because of their claims, though. I’m not saying otherwise. My argument doesn’t just trust their claims carte blanche.

Well, I agree that sorting out meanings, especially as applied to particular things like history, even in the form of the Bible, because some call it poetry or myth, but in the debate historical reliability is the point, even though some try to make it about doctrine.

I'm not sure whether we are agreeing but the validation of Pilate, Caiaphas and even the Baptist and Jesus as real persons, does not make any of the gospel account necessarily true, as you said. But it was accepted as true for a long time and still is. Even now it's generally accepted that the Gospel accounts are a record of events. In fact it was accepted as Bob eating an apple - no reason to doubt, until there was. It's been quite recent to have people questioning some of it, like 'That's not Pilate', 'There was no release custom', 'the nativity can't be historical'; and the questions mount up until the whole thing is open to question. Dickering about 100% true or 5% doubt or whether it's history or not is just a distraction.

Yes, Well, I see that while you wave a hand to 'does not prove it's true', you take four common or core or reliable (but not all three) elements: Jesus tomb, resurrection appearances, resurrection belief and line them to look like a logical sequence of persuasive evidence. But there has been increasing doubt and I reckon there's more to come. You've already had the answers, or somebody has.
A historical Jesus - but nothing like the Pauline Gospel Jesus
An empty tomb - but even if true, the explanation that the evidence supports is Jesus carried out by the disciples, dead or alive. Never mind the Believers don't like it.
Resurrection appearances. Given the evidence (which I've argued at length) that the gospel account is concocted, whatever Paul was referring to, it isn't that. I've argued that the only account Paul hints at is a heavenly visit (not anything on the way to Damascus) and I'd say visionary and is what he equates with the 12 and 500 altogether. Imaginary appearances long after the crucifixion.
Christianity based on the resurrection -belief and that spirit resurrection having to be fleshed out with a walking Jesus still with holes in - which is a red flag in addition to the bunch of red flags waving discrepantly. That this and early Christianity had appeal does not make it true.

I know you wave at 'possibly not true' but leave the heavy hint of 'probably true' with your core four. But I say that the serious doubts about the story and the way Christianity presents Paul raise too many doubts for us to take any such probability for granted. Whatever you want to call it, semantic, conceptual, the efforts to push the Jesus-Tomb-resurrection -Christianity sequence as somehow probably validating something is a trick to sideline doubt and question, and no doubt faith -based. I say the doubt and questions - to seriously calling out gospel credibility, can't be waved away so easily.

The existence of apples IS support for Bob actually eating one. The doubt about existence of dragons is support for doubt about Bob riding one (1). The crucifixion is the apple, the resurrection is the dragon. The consistency of the crucifixion pushes credibility (given the additions such as the penitent thief or Pilate's surprise or the spear -thrust) but the mutual self -destruction of the conflicting resurection -accounts demolishes credibility.

Of course I know that the believers will point to telling the same story (core doctrine) and dismiss the discrepancies as explainable or excusable. They are neither, and I can only ask others to look at the discussion.

(1) though multiple credible independent witnesses to it would oblige us to consider and investigate the claim - just as the gospel 'witnesses' oblige us to consider the resurrection, even if 'such things don't happen'. It is undermining the credibility of the resurrection witnesses that brings the claim down, not that it is miraculous.

[brunumb]

A. Paul was not there himself. Hence, he himself does not count as a witness to attest another 500. Hence, his writing here is nothing more than hearsay; especially since it goes into no further details regarding such a claim of 500.

He isn’t a witness that the appearance actually happened. He is an eyewitness to the actual people claiming it happened to them, which is what I have been arguing.

Who are these "actual people claiming it happened to them" and how were their claims verified?

[bluegreenearth]

Then, again, I’ll ask you what is different in my historical approach?

Your approach is different in that it is not sufficiently comprehensive because it lacks a scientific or equivalently reliable component necessary to distinguish real things from imaginary things. A more comprehensive historical approach could consist of all the same components as your approach but also include the criterion requiring any imaginary things described in the explanation to be demonstrable in reality. Using such a comprehensive approach, an explanation will be tentatively accepted as the inference to the best explanation when it satisfies the list of criteria from your approach as well as the "demonstrable in reality" criterion.

When I asked you that last time, your answer, it seemed to me, was that I’ve got to prove the supernatural exists before you’ll consider this argument that, if true, shows that the supernatural exists.

I'll charitably presume that a misinterpretation of my previous answer was what prompted you to construct an unintentional strawman. My answer was far more nuanced than the inaccurate characterization you've posted above. I did not ask you to prove the supernatural existed before I'd consider your argument that, if true, would demonstrate the existence of the supernatural. My objection is that your argument, if true, would not demonstrate a supernatural resurrection occurred in reality as anything other than an imagined event because your approach isn't comprehensive enough to reliably distinguish real things from imaginary things. According to your reasoning, any argument, if true, should be accepted as showing that the imagined thing it is describing also exists in reality. The example of the "luminiferous aether" argument conclusively exposes such reasoning as logically fallacious. Again, it seems to be a bit disingenuous for an apologist to perceive this objection as unreasonable when it would otherwise be accepted as reasonable in any other context.

[JoeyKnothead]

[POI]

A. Paul was not there himself. Hence, he himself does not count as a witness to attest another 500. Hence, his writing here is nothing more than hearsay; especially since it goes into no further details regarding such a claim of 500.

He isn’t a witness that the appearance actually happened. He is an eyewitness to the actual people claiming it happened to them, which is what I have been arguing.

Who are these "actual people claiming it happened to them" and how were their claims verified?

You nailed it on the head.

The beauty about this claim of '500' eyewitnesses, (which is a HUGE claim BTW), is this claim is absolutely unfalsifiable. We don't know who they are, and there is likely no way to verify? It's like I told Tanager many posts ago... His conclusions here rest upon faith, and not fact. And by faith, I also mean hope.

[JoeyKnothead]

A. Paul was not there himself. Hence, he himself does not count as a witness to attest another 500. Hence, his writing here is nothing more than hearsay; especially since it goes into no further details regarding such a claim of 500.

He isn’t a witness that the appearance actually happened. He is an eyewitness to the actual people claiming it happened to them, which is what I have been arguing.

Who are these "actual people claiming it happened to them" and how were their claims verified?

You nailed it on the head.

The beauty about this claim of '500' eyewitnesses, (which is a HUGE claim BTW), is this claim is absolutely unfalsifiable. We don't know who they are, and there is likely no way to verify? It's like I told Tanager many posts ago... His conclusions here rest upon faith, and not fact. And by faith, I also mean hope.

We have a means of confirmi g your notion here...

I, JoeyKnothead've met me five hundred folks who said I'm me the smartest man ever.

It first fails on my inability to present them 500 for cross examination.
It also fails in that their claim, though most probably true, can't be shown to be it.
And how the pretty thing thinks I'm an idiot cause I can't match my clothes.

It's little different'n keeping up a few old ladies, and ahoping and apraying they never meet up.

[TRANSPONDER]

The twelve seeing Jesus is fair enough given that he had 12 disciples, though of course the first appearance to Simon contradicts the gospel account, but the appearance to 500 sounds a very different fishy kettle. It sounds like a large bunch of Jesus - followers all getting to see Jesus probably at once, but maybe in groups or individuals. Since we have no details, we have various possibilities, but it does sound like a lot of believers all getting an 'experience' and not like anything related in the resurrection, not even Luke who altered and embellished the story to introduce the church in Jerusalem with the first group of believers dipping into their wallets. But even that hardly amounts to 500 before Jesus returns to heaven.

With James (the less, the brother of Jesus) being the last named apart from (belatedly) Paul himself, and surely he was one of the 12, in the gospels at least, it seems clear that Paul is not describing the claimed appearances on the resurrection Sunday, which means that Paul is no support for the gospel resurrection, no matter what the believers want to claim.

[The Tanager]

Before I begin, I cannot stress this enough... We seem to agree that direct eyewitness attestation is about the only way to 'validate' a one time claimed miraculous even; especially a long time ago.

No, we don’t agree on this point. My argument is not “since we have the direct eyewitness accounts of a resurrection, it must be true.” Even if we knew we had writings from all 500+, they could still be lying. If we could also interview them all, that wouldn’t guarantee what they said was true. That kind of approach is flawed.

My argument is that an actual resurrection makes the most sense out of there being an empty tomb, post-mortem appearances to the earliest disciples, and the rise of the Christian movement with a message centered on a resurrected Jesus.

Paul makes a claim that 500+ others saw something. And yet, none of these '500' are named. Here are the inherent problems I see with this logic....

--- Paul does not place pen to paper, about this particular claim to '500', until about two decades after the alleged claim.

Paul brings it up to remind Corinthian Christians to hold fast to the gospel he and they originally believed and then to talk about the resurrection of the dead, which Paul felt they were misunderstanding. Why should he have written it down sooner?

--- None of these 500 are named.

Why is that a problem? That in a formulaic gospel spiel meant to be short to not include the various names?

--- Since the average life span was 35, it's likely most/all of these "eyewitnesses" would be dead by the time Paul placed pen to paper.

Paul says some are still alive. Peter and many other disciples are still alive at this time.

--- Most people were illiterate. Thus, most would not know what Paul wrote here 20 years later. However...
--- Even if someone read this passage to the interested illiterate, who wanted to (follow up/corroborate) this claim, they would not know who to cross reference; because there is no names listed. And....
--- Even if they wanted to, it's likely such said person is already dead.

This isn’t just Paul saying these things, he’s quoting an obviously well known formula that he got passed down to him when he converted. The context of 1 Cor 15 shows that the Corinthians already knew this story as well. Paul is reminding them. These details are obviously well known throughout the Christian community.

--- But even if Paul was still alive to ask, and so was this named 'eyewitness', is the interested party going to track Paul down, ask him, and then venture off to go find this person????

Eventually, yes the eyewitnesses all pass away, but there is still a continuity within the Christian community that provides checks on information getting changed, at least on the big fronts I'm talking about.

Your response here is contradictory...

(you) "I never argued that we have 500 eyewitnesses" -- But then you say, in the same sentence....
(you) "including one appearance to about 500"

The “appearance to about 500” (let’s call that X) is one of the various supposed “claims of post-mortem appearances” (let’s call that Y). I have never argued we have 500 eyewitnesses to Y. We have multiple eyewitnesses to Y (which includes an X). No contradiction.

Let me rephrase my question....

Is the claim of '500' eyewitnesses based upon (fact or faith)?

Let me rephrase my answer. We have multiple attestation (the Jewish formula Paul quotes and Paul) to an appearance to about 500. More to the point, we have good reasons (including multiple attestation) to believe the disciples claimed to have experienced post-mortem appearances of Jesus.