The Resurrection

[Sleepy]

I'm slowly working on this topic and have summarised some key aspects of this debate which are nicely truncated by the likes of Gary Habermas (the name should be familiar to all those who know of Anthony Flew) and some other authors. Let me first set the biblical and historical scene.

The eye witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus.

- All the Gospels in the bible refer to the death and resurrection of Jesus. This miraculous event is the pivot on which all Christianity turns

- Paul a previous critic and opponent of Christians became a contemporary eye witness claiming that the risen Jesus appeared personally to him. This was corroborated by another NT author in Acts.

- Paul refers to an oral tradition in 1 Cor 15:3-8 which claims Jesus appeared to numerous others of his followers, this tradition is estimated to date back to the first two years after the crucifixion (pre-Paul). Paul made trips to Jerusalem to check out the consistency of his gospel teaching with those who knew Jesus (Gal 2:1-10). Paul confirms the consistency (1 Cor:15:11-15). Many other similar creedal messages are found in many of the sermons in Acts

- James the brother of Jesus had previously been a skeptic of his brother. Suddenly after the resurrection appearances (one of which was to him according to the creedal message), James becomes the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.

- The empty tomb has not been successfully doubted, this adds some support to the claim that the disciples saw the risen Jesus being that those around them could not just point to the tomb where Jesus body was. Interestingly, the bible sites women as witnesses (something remarkable to do in a culture that would not have allowed female testimony in a court of law), if it was a made up story men would have been used to add credibility. Jerusalem would be the least likely of places to claim Jesus tomb was empty unless it actually was being that people there would know where the tomb was. Jewish leaders at the time did not dispute the empty tomb.

- The disciples lives all radically transformed after the supposed the resurrection of Christ even to the point of the majority being killed for their faith, some brutally so. This is often put down to them trying to start up their own lie, compared to suicide bombers. However suicide bombers actually believe the lies fed to them by others. In the case of the disciples, these men would have had to make up the lie and make it plausible enough to start up a faith in an area where the evidence would have otherwise said to the contrary. These men who then would have known they were preaching a lie are not likely to have died by numerous methods having never recanted their faith.

- We know medically that groups of people do not experience the same hallucination, likewise the same hallucination appearing to different people at different times is even more implausible. Isolated hallucinations do not change lives. Paul and Jesus brother James would not have had any reason to have made up this hallucination. Putting this down to some sort of mass delusion would be ignorant.

All these reasons suggest that the disciples truly thought they had seen the risen Christ.
This is accepted among most scholars including many skeptical scholars, Ehrman, Koester, Ludemann etc...

Either the most likely explanation is that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead or the disciples were all wrong.

To do this successfully a more plausible explanation should be found...

My Question for debate - What plausible explanation for what happened to the disciples and Jesus body is there?

Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. What really happened was _____.

[Goat]

I don't wish to get totally embroiled in this particular debate, but this truck my interest.

If the God of the Hewbrews intended to be one from the beginning until all time, then this passage is hard to explain.

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Daniel 7: 13-14

Notice that the ancient of Days puts one like the son of man up to be worshiped.

Yet God is one.

The term 'son of man' is a ephanism meaning 'human'. In this case, the
celestrial being has a human countenance. The author at this point is arguing that the predictions have all been fullilled in the past (san 97b), or that Dnaiels predictions dd not include the end of time (Gen Rab. 98.2). Later Jewish interpretations interpret that to mean the nation of Israel. (Ibn Ezra, Rashi).

14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Exodus 34:14


8 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Deut 5: 8-10


7 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me.

Deut 5 : 7


How do you reconcile these passages without reference to the Trinity?

You have to remember in those days (600 bce and earlier), there were many other gods worshipped all around the Jewish tribes. These were an attempt to make sure that the ancient hebrews did not stray, and start worshipping the neighbor's gods. In other words , it was a call to be faithfull to the God of Abraham, and not to the foreign Gods. That is entirely different that the concept of the Trinity, which they claim that there is a father , son and holy spirit, all mashed up in one.

[achilles12604]

I don't wish to get totally embroiled in this particular debate, but this truck my interest.

If the God of the Hewbrews intended to be one from the beginning until all time, then this passage is hard to explain.

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Daniel 7: 13-14

Notice that the ancient of Days puts one like the son of man up to be worshiped.

Yet God is one.

The term 'son of man' is a ephanism meaning 'human'. In this case, the
celestrial being has a human countenance. The author at this point is arguing that the predictions have all been fullilled in the past (san 97b), or that Dnaiels predictions dd not include the end of time (Gen Rab. 98.2). Later Jewish interpretations interpret that to mean the nation of Israel. (Ibn Ezra, Rashi).

14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Exodus 34:14


8 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Deut 5: 8-10


7 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me.

Deut 5 : 7


How do you reconcile these passages without reference to the Trinity?

You have to remember in those days (600 bce and earlier), there were many other gods worshipped all around the Jewish tribes. These were an attempt to make sure that the ancient hebrews did not stray, and start worshipping the neighbor's gods. In other words , it was a call to be faithfull to the God of Abraham, and not to the foreign Gods. That is entirely different that the concept of the Trinity, which they claim that there is a father , son and holy spirit, all mashed up in one.

I think you totally missed my point. Daniel, a Jewish prophet, speaks of God himself appointing someone, (or I'll even say something for the sake of arguement) to a position and allows them to be worshiped by all the nations of the earth.

This is totally incompatible with Jewish belief in one God and only he is worthy of Worship.


If God is one, and only he is worthy of worship, then why is he purposefully placing someone else in a position where this person is worshiped instead of God, and furthermore, why would God be ok with this?

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to achilles12604 in post #102]
But for a humanly thought up construction it would be typical. A ruler sets his son up for worship so to make sure he gets to be future ruler.
Makes God Kim Yong Il and Jesus Kim Yong Un.
Oh, and the Holy Spirit would be Kim Il Sung!

[TRANSPONDER]

I wonder whether Paul was writing about a physical resurrection? I wonder whether he was writing about what was written in the gospels? When you compare them, it doesn't look like it.

I have doubts about the Last Supper, too. Of all the things Jesus supposedly did, that's the only thing Paul wants to tell us? That he said to have a ritual meal to remember him?

Paul is so cagey that it's not sure what actually happened, other than crucifixion - that's for sure. And the claim of resurrection, but that it's the one described in the gospels is not so sure.

[Cathar1950]

Greetings goat, achilles12604, long time. It has been some time since I have thought about the Resurrection(s). I suspect all they needed was someone having a dream that Jesus, if that was his name and not a title, was sitting one the right hand of God. I don't trust what Paul writes any more than I do the Deuteronomists or the unknown author of Daniel (160s BCE). I suspect that when they first wrote I will call my son out of Egypt they meant Jeroboam I. Like a long game of phone.

[TRANSPONDER]

I suspect that, too. I have a Theory.... that Peter had a vision of Jesus in heaven and the disciples, despondent at the apparent failure of his mission bought that and told themselves he would be returning to finish the job. Probably before they had all tasted death. That is certainly more what I Cor. looks like than a description of what's in the gospels.

[The Nice Centurion]

I'm slowly working on this topic and have summarised some key aspects of this debate which are nicely truncated by the likes of Gary Habermas (the name should be familiar to all those who know of Anthony Flew) and some other authors. Let me first set the biblical and historical scene.

The eye witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus.

- All the Gospels in the bible refer to the death and resurrection of Jesus. This miraculous event is the pivot on which all Christianity turns

- Paul a previous critic and opponent of Christians became a contemporary eye witness claiming that the risen Jesus appeared personally to him. This was corroborated by another NT author in Acts.

- Paul refers to an oral tradition in 1 Cor 15:3-8 which claims Jesus appeared to numerous others of his followers, this tradition is estimated to date back to the first two years after the crucifixion (pre-Paul). Paul made trips to Jerusalem to check out the consistency of his gospel teaching with those who knew Jesus (Gal 2:1-10). Paul confirms the consistency (1 Cor:15:11-15). Many other similar creedal messages are found in many of the sermons in Acts

- James the brother of Jesus had previously been a skeptic of his brother. Suddenly after the resurrection appearances (one of which was to him according to the creedal message), James becomes the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.

- The empty tomb has not been successfully doubted, this adds some support to the claim that the disciples saw the risen Jesus being that those around them could not just point to the tomb where Jesus body was. Interestingly, the bible sites women as witnesses (something remarkable to do in a culture that would not have allowed female testimony in a court of law), if it was a made up story men would have been used to add credibility. Jerusalem would be the least likely of places to claim Jesus tomb was empty unless it actually was being that people there would know where the tomb was. Jewish leaders at the time did not dispute the empty tomb.

- The disciples lives all radically transformed after the supposed the resurrection of Christ even to the point of the majority being killed for their faith, some brutally so. This is often put down to them trying to start up their own lie, compared to suicide bombers. However suicide bombers actually believe the lies fed to them by others. In the case of the disciples, these men would have had to make up the lie and make it plausible enough to start up a faith in an area where the evidence would have otherwise said to the contrary. These men who then would have known they were preaching a lie are not likely to have died by numerous methods having never recanted their faith.

- We know medically that groups of people do not experience the same hallucination, likewise the same hallucination appearing to different people at different times is even more implausible. Isolated hallucinations do not change lives. Paul and Jesus brother James would not have had any reason to have made up this hallucination. Putting this down to some sort of mass delusion would be ignorant.

All these reasons suggest that the disciples truly thought they had seen the risen Christ.
This is accepted among most scholars including many skeptical scholars, Ehrman, Koester, Ludemann etc...

Either the most likely explanation is that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead or the disciples were all wrong.

To do this successfully a more plausible explanation should be found...

My Question for debate - What plausible explanation for what happened to the disciples and Jesus body is there?

Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. What really happened was _____.

What really happened was : NO ONE SAW THE ACTUAL RESURRECTION !!!

WHYYYYY ???

I want just one detailed description of this greatest miracle ever by at.last one eyewitness .

Perhaps the Penguin from Batman could have played around with a time machine and landed in the filled tomb. Seconds later Jesus begins to stir.

Penguin Squawks : Waaaauugh - He Resurrects !

[The Nice Centurion]

I'm slowly working on this topic and have summarised some key aspects of this debate which are nicely truncated by the likes of Gary Habermas (the name should be familiar to all those who know of Anthony Flew) and some other authors. Let me first set the biblical and historical scene.

The eye witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus.

There are none. For some unexplainable reason NO ONE EYEWITNESSED THE ACTUAL RESURRECTION!

- We know medically that groups of people do not experience the same hallucination,

AAAAAHHH - THAT MEANS THERE IS NO LONGER THE SHADOW OF DOUBT THAT THE SUN REALLY DANCED AROUND AT FATIMAH.
YOU MUST BE A GOOD CATHOLIC TO GO ALL THE WAY TO PROVE THAT!

likewise the same hallucination appearing to different people at different times is even more implausible. Isolated hallucinations do not change lives. Paul and Jesus brother James would not have had any reason to have made up this hallucination. Putting this down to some sort of mass delusion would be ignorant.

Paul and James had every reason to lie. They draw all their authority and enchanced position from theyr alleged private revelations.

All these reasons suggest that the disciples truly thought they had seen the risen Christ.
This is accepted among most scholars including many skeptical scholars, Ehrman, Koester, Ludemann etc...

Either the most likely explanation is that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead or the disciples were all wrong.

To do this successfully a more plausible explanation should be found...

My Question for debate - What plausible explanation for what happened to the disciples and Jesus body is there?

Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. What really happened was _____.

WHY COULDNT PILATE (WHILE HAVING A SLEEPLESS NIGHT OUT OF GUILT FOR HAVING CRUCIFIED THE MESSIAH) WANDER AROUND AND SNEAK INTO THE TOMB? HE WOULD HAVE BEEN A VIP WITNESS FOR THE ACTUAL RESURRECTION!

[Pytine]

The eye witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus.

We don't have any eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. The gospels are written by anonymous authors and attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John arount the year 180 CE by Irenaeus. We don't have good reasons to believe those attributions are correct.

Paul a previous critic and opponent of Christians became a contemporary eye witness claiming that the risen Jesus appeared personally to him. This was corroborated by another NT author in Acts.

Paul was not an eyewitness. He never met Jesus, he only had a visionary experience. While the conversion of Paul is often brought up, it is actually irrelevant for the discussion about the resurrection. Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day and then ascended to heaven on the fortieth day from the resurrection. In other words, both Christians and non-Christians agree that Jesus was not physically on earth later than 42 days after the crucifixion. Pauls conversion experience happend a year or two later, so whatever lead to his conversion experience wasn't the risen Jesus. People today from various religions report similar experiences, and those experiences are not relevant for the historicity of the resurrection either. This means that we don't have to account for this claim.

James the brother of Jesus had previously been a skeptic of his brother. Suddenly after the resurrection appearances (one of which was to him according to the creedal message), James becomes the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.

The word skeptic is highly anachronistic. He was a Jew who wasn't part of the Jesus movement as far as we know. He may have had an experience which he interpreted as an appearance from the risen Jesus, but we don't have evidence for that outside of the 1 Corinthians 15 creed. We have no idea what kind of experience this would have been or when it would have occurred. The is no reason to assume it must have happened during the 40 day window, so this claim doesn't require an explanation either.

The empty tomb has not been successfully doubted, this adds some support to the claim that the disciples saw the risen Jesus being that those around them could not just point to the tomb where Jesus body was. Interestingly, the bible sites women as witnesses (something remarkable to do in a culture that would not have allowed female testimony in a court of law), if it was a made up story men would have been used to add credibility. Jerusalem would be the least likely of places to claim Jesus tomb was empty unless it actually was being that people there would know where the tomb was. Jewish leaders at the time did not dispute the empty tomb.

The empty tomb is disputed among scholars. While the majority of scholars support the claim, most of the scholars are Christians. Among non-Christians, there is significantly less support for it. Since the positions mostly allign with theological commitments, we can't call it a scholarly consensus. For this reason, Habermas and Licona don't call this a minimal fact or part of the historical bedrock anymore. Since the claim is disputed, it is not necessary to account for it.

The disciples lives all radically transformed after the supposed the resurrection of Christ even to the point of the majority being killed for their faith, some brutally so.

There simply is no good evidence that the disciples died were killed for their faith. For some of the disciples, the earliest sources mentioning their martyrdom come from the fourth century. This is almost certainly not historical. Because of this, we don't need to account for it.

We know medically that groups of people do not experience the same hallucination, likewise the same hallucination appearing to different people at different times is even more implausible. Isolated hallucinations do not change lives. Paul and Jesus brother James would not have had any reason to have made up this hallucination. Putting this down to some sort of mass delusion would be ignorant.

This is not an accurate representation of hallucinations and apparitional experiences. Hallucinations can be very convincing and can absolutely change lives. Visionary experiences can happen in groups, for example with Marian apparitions or with Elvis sightings.


The main point of the minimal facts argument seems to be missing here. That point is that some people had experiences which they believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. This is generally agreed upon by scholars. It is also necessary to explai the origin of Christianity. Paul was persecuting Christians, so there must have been some Christians before Paul. We also have multiple attestation for the appearances, adding plausibility. An important point is that we don't have good evidence for the group appearances though. It could have started with just one or two people having these experiences.

With all of this background, it's time to answer the actual question.

Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. What really happened was _____.

Jesus was an apocalyptic rabbi who preached that people should repent for their sins because the kingdom of God was near. He gathered a group of followers who believed that he was the messiah. As the messiah, he would overthrow the Romans, return the Israelites to their homeland, bring world peace, and so on. The Romans heard about him and executed him because they saw him as a challenge to political stability. The death of Jesus was a clear failure of eschatological prophecies. Apocalyptic cults always respond the same way to this. They spiritualize the prophecies (for example, my kingdom is not of this world), postpone the eschaton (second coming), and reinterpret the scriptures to allign with this. As a result of the cognitive dissonance that arose when Jesus died, some of his followers had post bereavement hallucinatory experiences (PBHE's), a rather common phenomenon among people who just lost a loved one. If I had to guess, I would pick Peter and Mary Magdalene as the first people to experience PBHE's, based on the accounts in the NT. Soon they converted several other people with the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. Eventually, Paul also got converted. He preached that gentiles were welcome in the movement and didn't have to follow the Torah in order to become a Christian. While the disciples preached the religion of Jesus, Paul preached a religion about Jesus. He converted many gentiles, such that the gentile soon became the majority among the Christians. Stories about Jesus circulated among the converts. The stories about Jesus grew and became more legendary over time. Eventually some of them were written down in gospels, both canonical and non-canonical. While these gospels were reliable in the general overview of the life of Jesus (grew up in Nazareth, baptized by John, had 12 disciples, was killed in Jerusalem, and so on), they contained many legendary elements as well, especially about the nature of the post-resurrection appearances and the view that Jesus was God.

[TRANSPONDER]

Yes. The problem is that all the Christian arguments are insisting that explanations take the Christian scenario as valid. Not even scenraio, but Dogma. The (Shhh.) whispeed Dogma is that Paul taught Jesus as God. He does not. And so neither did the disciples. Neither is it for sure he got his argument against Mosaic law from the disciples - he had to argue it out himself. This if he didn't get that from the disciples, they didn't get that from Jesus. So Jesus rubbishing the Law in the gospels is indeed the view of Christian writers rather than anything Jesus said.

Cue 'Jesus said he had not come to abolish the law'... Sure, but Matthew valued the OT as a quarry for prophectic quotemines, not as something to Observe. Instead, he replaces all the old rules with what Jesus says (fulfilment).