Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Paul of Tarsus
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Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by Paul of Tarsus »

Can the resurrection of Christ be explained as a case of mistaken identity? Apologist William Lane Craig finds this notion to be absurd. He has explained that he debated a skeptic who, out of desperation to save face in his debate over the resurrection with Craig, argued that Jesus could have had an identical-twin brother who was mistaken for Jesus after Jesus was executed.

I'm not so sure if the idea of Jesus having an identical twin brother is so absurd. No doubt there are cases in which an identical twin is misidentified as his or her deceased twin, and some people, especially those who are unaware that the deceased twin had an identical twin brother or sister, could think the deceased twin has come back from the dead!

But a case of misidentifying Jesus need not involve a twin or even a sibling. Any man who resembled Jesus may have been mistaken for Jesus. In those days there were no cameras, and exactly what Jesus looked like may have been unknown to most people who had heard of him. Consequently, it would not have been hard for them to believe that the man they were seeing was the risen Christ.

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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by AgnosticBoy »

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #1]

If we grant the details of the story, then the answer is no. A twin would not have known the details that Jesus knew unless he was around Jesus and his circle, pre-resurrection.

If we ignore certain parts of the story or even change (add and/or remove) some of the the details, just as some skeptical explanations involve doing, then I suppose any natural explanation is possible.
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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by Paul of Tarsus »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 5:38 pm
Paul of Tarsus wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 12:30 pm Can the resurrection of Christ be explained as a case of mistaken identity?
If we grant the details of the story, then the answer is no. A twin would not have known the details that Jesus knew unless he was around Jesus and his circle, pre-resurrection.
Why do you conclude that a hypothetical twin brother of Jesus would not be familiar with Jesus' knowledge and beliefs without accompanying Jesus? The gospel tells us that Jesus' family was aware of what he was doing and saying.
If we ignore certain parts of the story or even change (add and/or remove) some of the the details, just as some skeptical explanations involve doing, then I suppose any natural explanation is possible.
The story I'm examining here is the story of sightings of the risen Christ especially 1 Corinthians 15:6. A crowd of five hundred might consist of people who could have been fooled by a Jesus look-alike. Some skeptics have argued that any such naturalistic explanation of the resurrection is more probable than an actual resurrection.

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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by Goat »

Paul of Tarsus wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 12:30 pm Can the resurrection of Christ be explained as a case of mistaken identity? Apologist William Lane Craig finds this notion to be absurd. He has explained that he debated a skeptic who, out of desperation to save face in his debate over the resurrection with Craig, argued that Jesus could have had an identical-twin brother who was mistaken for Jesus after Jesus was executed.

I'm not so sure if the idea of Jesus having an identical twin brother is so absurd. No doubt there are cases in which an identical twin is misidentified as his or her deceased twin, and some people, especially those who are unaware that the deceased twin had an identical twin brother or sister, could think the deceased twin has come back from the dead!

But a case of misidentifying Jesus need not involve a twin or even a sibling. Any man who resembled Jesus may have been mistaken for Jesus. In those days there were no cameras, and exactly what Jesus looked like may have been unknown to most people who had heard of him. Consequently, it would not have been hard for them to believe that the man they were seeing was the risen Christ.
Well, that is the case when it comes to the elvis sightings. There are other possibilities I find much more likely though.
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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by Paul of Tarsus »

Goat wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 9:33 pmWell, that is the case when it comes to the elvis sightings. There are other possibilities I find much more likely though.
If people today can mistake some guy for Elvis, then why couldn't the people of first-century Israel mistake some guy for Jesus? I see no reason why a man could not be mistaken for Jesus.

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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by AgnosticBoy »

Paul of Tarsus wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 9:04 pm Why do you conclude that a hypothetical twin brother of Jesus would not be familiar with Jesus' knowledge and beliefs without accompanying Jesus? The gospel tells us that Jesus' family was aware of what he was doing and saying.
I presumed there were some details that Jesus told to the 12 disciples alone. Here's one example,

Matthew 20:17-19
17 Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18 “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Even if that was not good enough evidence against your explanation, then I would think that the physical wounds that would be left on Jesus would be enough.
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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by JoeyKnothead »

From The OP:
Paul of Tarsus wrote: Can the resurrection of Christ be explained as a case of mistaken identity?
Heck, I reckon, considering all the other sense assaulting claims belonging to the story.

I think a better explanation is folks'v set to telling tales they can't show to be truth, in order to get folks to believe in some entity they can't show to be there.

Without being able to speak to these 'eyewitnesses', we're left to rely on the recounting of such from the very humans the bible considers so fallible to begin with. That's not a reliable way to interrogate folks who would be long since dead when these claims were put to the printed page.
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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by Goose »

Paul of Tarsus wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 12:30 pmCan the resurrection of Christ be explained as a case of mistaken identity?
Sure if we are just throwing around possibilities. There are a number of possible explanations. Advanced alien technology, that's another possibility.
I'm not so sure if the idea of Jesus having an identical twin brother is so absurd.
It's not absurd in the sense of being logically impossible. But when we couple the low prior probability of Jesus having an identical twin (it would take an identical twin to make the argument) with the fact there isn't a single scrap of evidence in the early historical record that even suggests Jesus had a twin, it does seem to be moving towards the absurd. Certainly it seems to be grasping at straws. There are other naturalistic arguments that at least benefit from a higher prior probability.
But a case of misidentifying Jesus need not involve a twin or even a sibling. Any man who resembled Jesus may have been mistaken for Jesus. In those days there were no cameras, and exactly what Jesus looked like may have been unknown to most people who had heard of him. Consequently, it would not have been hard for them to believe that the man they were seeing was the risen Christ.
But the records we have say that it was Jesus' family and disciples who also saw him, not just people who had only "heard of him."
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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by Paul of Tarsus »

AgnosticBoy wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 3:20 am
Paul of Tarsus wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 9:04 pm Why do you conclude that a hypothetical twin brother of Jesus would not be familiar with Jesus' knowledge and beliefs without accompanying Jesus? The gospel tells us that Jesus' family was aware of what he was doing and saying.
I presumed there were some details that Jesus told to the 12 disciples alone. Here's one example,

Matthew 20:17-19
17 Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18 “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Even if that was not good enough evidence against your explanation, then I would think that the physical wounds that would be left on Jesus would be enough.
Yes, of course Jesus' family didn't know everything he said and did, but I think that they, including a twin brother if he had one, would know enough about what Jesus preached to allow a twin brother to convince at least some people that not only did he look like Jesus but talked like him too. As superstitious as the people of that time were, many could easily have thought that the surviving twin they were seeing and hearing was Jesus raised from the grave.

Regarding the wounds of the executed Jesus, not everybody would expect to see them on the twin brother because they probably would have seen him fully clothed which would hide most if not all of any wounds a risen Jesus might have. Besides, if they could believe God raised Jesus from the dead, they could believe God would have healed all his wounds.

Honestly, I should admit that this hypothesis does suffer from a serious difficulty. While a twin brother might fool a lot of people into thinking he was Jesus, it is less likely that that twin brother would fool Jesus' closest disciples that way. The apostles probably would have known Jesus too well to mistake even an identical-twin brother for him. It's possible that if many were thinking that the brother was Jesus, the apostles didn't bother to persuade them that they were wrong. As belief in the supposedly resurrected Christ spread among the masses, the apostles exploited that belief to start a new religion.

Again, this hypothesis is arguably unlikely, but it's more likely than a resurrection.

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Re: Can the resurrection be explained as a case of mistaken identity?

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Post by AgnosticBoy »

Paul of Tarsus wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 5:54 pm

Again, this hypothesis is arguably unlikely, but it's more likely than a resurrection.
I would further qualify your statement to say that your explanation is more likely because it is more in line with natural explanations (preexisting scientific knowledge). It is not because of evidence from the account itself.


In this case, natural explanations would be favored over supernatural ones, by default..without even having to examine the story.
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