Did Jesus come back to life and 'ascend' into the sky?

[Zzyzx]

The KEY question is "Did Jesus come back to life and 'ascend' into the sky?" because unless those claims are true, Christianity is based on fraud.

No contemporary historian, chronicler, recorder, or anyone else mentioned Jesus during his lifetime or anything he may have said or done.

Half a century later (40 to 60 years or more) four religion promoters wrote stories about him. The true identity of those 'gospel' writers is unknown to theologians and scholars, and none of them can be shown to have personally witnessed anything Jesus may have said or done.

"In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!" Dr. Bart Ehrman Professor of Religious Studies

AND only ONE of the gospel writers (whoever wrote 'Luke' and 'Acts') described the 'ascension', and he admits in his introduction that he is recording what he heard from others.

I, for one, would NOT believe tales told by four people claiming that someone came back to life (because a tomb was supposedly found empty). I certainly would not believe a tale told by one person about what he had heard from others that, half a century earlier, someone 'rose up into the sky'.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to Zzyzx in post #39]


I would like to take on one thing at a time at this point. In this way our posts will not take up so much of our time, and maybe we can come to some sort of agreement one point at a time.

Okay, we have reports but do not know if the writers were witnesses or not.

Would we place great credibility on such reports concerning a different matter?

A "different matter" has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand. I am not at all suggesting that anyone simply believe what is contained in the NT. It is a fact that the overwhelming majority of Christians really do not know what they claim to believe, nor why they believe it, and most of them believe what is contained in the Bible simply because this is what they were taught to believe, and they are believing in the way in which you suggest above. However, you also have to know there are extremely intelligent folk who are Christians, and they are not Christian simply because they decided to place "great credibility on such reports." Rather, they followed the facts and evidence and have become convinced by the evidence.

We certainly have evidence of who the authors of the gospels were, and that is by the testimony of those much closer in time than we are today, and it is because of these early witnesses that the Gospels bear the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, there are critics who want to call this into question, and we will have to agree that we cannot absolutely demonstrate who the authors may have been.

So then, for the sake of the argument I will have to agree that we cannot know who the authors were, but even admitting this to be the case, it is still from this material we have enough facts and evidence to know the reports of the resurrection was not made up. With the facts and evidence, we have coming from this material which we cannot identify who the authors may have been, we can know that it is not even a possibility that the reports were made up. The reports of the resurrection being made up is unlikely on the same level as a resurrection.

So then, we can eliminate the possibility that the reports of the resurrection were made up, and we can also know that there is no known alternative explanation which would be likely in the least. All the alternative explanations become extremely unlikely when we compare them to the facts and evidence we can know. On the other hand, the resurrection does not collapse under the facts and evidence we have in the NT, but rather the resurrection is unlikely simply because we all know a resurrection is not likely at all.

The whole point I am making is; I do not suggest that anyone at all should simply believe what is contained in the NT, because that would be insane. However, I also do not believe we can dismiss the reports simply on the basis that we cannot be absolutely certain the authors were eyewitnesses, as you seem to be suggesting that we do. Rather, I suggest we follow the facts and evidence where they lead, and thus far we have been able together to determine a lot of things we can know by reading the material, whether the authors were eyewitnesses are not, nor whether the material is trustworthy or not. In other words, my suggestion is to apply the historical method in order to determine the things we can know, as opposed to attempting to determine what it is we cannot know.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to 1213 in post #40]

Tell you what, lets attempt to do it this way. Are you suggesting that Ehrman is incorrect when he says,

In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!

[Zzyzx]

Replying to Realworldjack

Are we willing to accept that a different 'god' resurrected and ascended if the claim is supported by stories produced decades or centuries later -- containing descriptions, testimonials, reported personal experiences, and 'many believed'?

If nothing said can be verified, and there are no independent, disconnected sources mentioning the 'miraculous' events, does that cause us to doubt their authenticity?

If the stories are presented by people promoting worship of their favorite 'god', do we sense a vested interest?

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to Zzyzx in post #43]

Are we willing to accept that a different 'god' resurrected and ascended if the claim is supported by stories produced decades or centuries later -- containing descriptions, testimonials, reported personal experiences, and 'many believed'?

I really do not know what to say here? I do not simply accept the reports in the NT, and I do not recommend anyone else just simply accept the reports are true. In fact, I rail against Christians who do simply accept what it is they believe, because they actually do more harm than good. Moreover, I do not reject any other religion simply because it does not happen to be my favorite. I am more than willing to follow the evidence where it leads concerning another religion, but I am not aware of any other religion in the world in which even the critical scholars are convinced by the historical evidence that the religion could not have possibly been made up. In fact, I do not know of any other religion at all which stakes it's claims on historical events. With that being said, I want to be sure to stress that I do not have to know a thing at all about any other religion, in order to know if there are facts, evidence, and reasons to believe the claims of another religion.

If nothing said can be verified

This is what is called "fake news." Allow me to give you a very short list of what has been verified. We can know that Jesus was a real historical figure, we can know he had a very large following, we can know that this same Jesus got himself in trouble with the religious leaders and the Roman government, we can know that Jesus was crucified, we can know that Jesus died, we can know there were those who claimed to have witnessed Jesus alive after the crucifixion, and we can know these reports were not made up, because we can know they all had some sort of experience of Jesus alive after the crucifixion.

As I said, this is a very short list of the things we can be certain of, based upon the historical facts and evidence we can know. Again, I know of no other religion in the world, in which we can verify so much, by analyzing the historical facts and evidence. So then, there is a whole lot which can be verified.

and there are no independent, disconnected sources mentioning the 'miraculous' events

Exactly how are the reports contained in the NT not independent sources? How are they connected?

does that cause us to doubt their authenticity?

I am not arguing for the "authenticity" of the reports. Rather, I am demonstrating what we can know by reading the material whether it is authentic or not.

If the stories are presented by people promoting worship of their favorite 'god', do we sense a vested interest?

What we have already demonstrated is if the authors of the NT were "promoters" of their favorite religion, they are no longer with us to promote said religion. We also have demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of what is contained in the NT cannot be said to have been an attempt to promote Christianity to the unbelieving world, since the overwhelming majority of the NT can be demonstrated to have been addressed to those who already believed. We cannot insist that what little is left was an attempt to convert the unbeliever, since what little is left does not identify an intended audience.

If these reporters had some sort of "vested interest" we can know the life of the Apostles and the early Christians did not improve because of what they were proclaiming, but rather we can know their lives became much worse. We can know this to be a fact by knowing of the life of Paul and how it was Paul who was one of those out to persecute Christians, only to become persecuted himself because of his conversion. Can you imagine why I enjoy the conversations so much? It is because of understanding all that we can know by examining the facts and evidence surrounding the reports of the resurrection, and I am unconcerned with were those facts lead. It's just good stuff.

[OneJack]

[Replying to Zzyzx in post #43]

Are we willing to accept that a different 'god' resurrected and ascended if the claim is supported by stories produced decades or centuries later -- containing descriptions, testimonials, reported personal experiences, and 'many believed'?

I really do not know what to say here? I do not simply accept the reports in the NT, and I do not recommend anyone else just simply accept the reports are true. In fact, I rail against Christians who do simply accept what it is they believe, because they actually do more harm than good. Moreover, I do not reject any other religion simply because it does not happen to be my favorite. I am more than willing to follow the evidence where it leads concerning another religion, but I am not aware of any other religion in the world in which even the critical scholars are convinced by the historical evidence that the religion could not have possibly been made up. In fact, I do not know of any other religion at all which stakes it's claims on historical events. With that being said, I want to be sure to stress that I do not have to know a thing at all about any other religion, in order to know if there are facts, evidence, and reasons to believe the claims of another religion.

If nothing said can be verified

This is what is called "fake news." Allow me to give you a very short list of what has been verified. We can know that Jesus was a real historical figure, we can know he had a very large following, we can know that this same Jesus got himself in trouble with the religious leaders and the Roman government, we can know that Jesus was crucified, we can know that Jesus died, we can know there were those who claimed to have witnessed Jesus alive after the crucifixion, and we can know these reports were not made up, because we can know they all had some sort of experience of Jesus alive after the crucifixion.

As I said, this is a very short list of the things we can be certain of, based upon the historical facts and evidence we can know. Again, I know of no other religion in the world, in which we can verify so much, by analyzing the historical facts and evidence. So then, there is a whole lot which can be verified.

and there are no independent, disconnected sources mentioning the 'miraculous' events

Exactly how are the reports contained in the NT not independent sources? How are they connected?

does that cause us to doubt their authenticity?

I am not arguing for the "authenticity" of the reports. Rather, I am demonstrating what we can know by reading the material whether it is authentic or not.

If the stories are presented by people promoting worship of their favorite 'god', do we sense a vested interest?

What we have already demonstrated is if the authors of the NT were "promoters" of their favorite religion, they are no longer with us to promote said religion. We also have demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of what is contained in the NT cannot be said to have been an attempt to promote Christianity to the unbelieving world, since the overwhelming majority of the NT can be demonstrated to have been addressed to those who already believed. We cannot insist that what little is left was an attempt to convert the unbeliever, since what little is left does not identify an intended audience.

If these reporters had some sort of "vested interest" we can know the life of the Apostles and the early Christians did not improve because of what they were proclaiming, but rather we can know their lives became much worse. We can know this to be a fact by knowing of the life of Paul and how it was Paul who was one of those out to persecute Christians, only to become persecuted himself because of his conversion. Can you imagine why I enjoy the conversations so much? It is because of understanding all that we can know by examining the facts and evidence surrounding the reports of the resurrection, and I am unconcerned with were those facts lead. It's just good stuff.

What gains, if there would be any, do you expect from looking for more evidence for say the existence and resurrection of Jesus?

[1213]

[Replying to 1213 in post #40]

Tell you what, lets attempt to do it this way. Are you suggesting that Ehrman is incorrect when he says,

In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!

I think it is possible. If he has not found something, it does not mean something doesn't exist, or did not happen.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to OneJack in post #45]

I am not looking for any "gains." I am simply demonstrating there are facts and evidence in support of the claims, and one can use facts, evidence, reason, and logic to come to the conclusions the reports of the resurrection are true.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to 1213 in post #46]

I think it is possible. If he has not found something, it does not mean something doesn't exist, or did not happen.

What do you think is possible? It is a fact that we do not have a single mention of Jesus in the entire first century by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. That is a fact. Is it possible that one of these mentioned Jesus and we do not, have it? Sure, that is possible, but what in the world good would that be to any of us? That would be like acknowledging the fact that the Bible we now have is not inerrant but going on to insist that the original manuscripts were inerrant. Well, if we do not have the original manuscripts, we cannot possibly know them to be inerrant, and even if they were inerrant what good would that do us today? In the same way, even if one of the folks listed in Ehrman's quote did in fact mention Jesus, but we do not have this quote, then what good would that do us today?

The real question is, why do you feel it necessary to question what Ehrman is saying, when there is no question about it? Because you see, even though Ehrman is correct in what he is saying, Ehrman does not question the existence of Jesus. In fact, Ehrman thinks it to be laughable for one to question the existence of Jesus. With this being the case, why do you feel the need to question what we all know to be true?

[OneJack]

[Replying to OneJack in post #45]

I am not looking for any "gains." I am simply demonstrating there are facts and evidence in support of the claims, and one can use facts, evidence, reason, and logic to come to the conclusions the reports of the resurrection are true.

Could you give us one specific fact or evidence that you know supports the claims appurtenant thereto?

[1213]

....Is it possible that one of these mentioned Jesus and we do not, have it? Sure, that is possible...

Thank you. And when it is possible, it is wrong to say there was not something, when one just don't know about it.

The real question is, why do you feel it necessary to question what Ehrman is saying, when there is no question about it? ....

I think it is wrong to claim something was not there, when one just doesn't know it.