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.

[brunumb]

IF! You have no case if time didn't start. All you have is fanciful speculation. We can trace the evolution of our universe almost back to what we refer to as t=0, but that is just the possible beginning of this iteration of space-time and not necessarily the beginning of time. We don't know exactly what existed or what happened in that infinitesimally small period of time that we can't reach back past.

The phrase lacks merit. You want to point to t=0 but that isn't the beginning of time?!

It doesn't have to be. If now is the starting point and we trace back through the history of the universe, at t=0 we theoretically may have the start of the universe. It may not be and it is not necessarily the start of time. t=0 is commonly used to designate the starting time of an experiment or event, but it is not actually the start of time itself.

[TRANSPONDER]

As I understand it t as the start of the 'experiment' of the universe (our universe emerging from the BB - event) is not the start of time except (arguably) for the universe we know. The Theist apologists, quite reasonably, argue that there had to be 'stuff' from which the BB -event coalesced. So it's reasonable to suppose a cosmos of Stuff which implies that it has Time of its' own (and I'd speculate that there are other universes being produced out of it). So the issue of where 'time' started would seem to be otiose.

[Difflugia]

Very good. I have long had doubts about the twelve disciples. I have read quite a few theories about this being based on zodiacal signs for no very good reason that I could see. But I had a nagging feeling that Jesus' family might have been more involved in his mission than the Gospels imply. I'd always thought that James (the Lord's brother as Paul calls him) was identified with James the less (not the son of Zebedee) of the disciples and he got his position as spokesbod for the Jesus -party because he was related to Jesus, otherwise, why? I'd also been struck by how the disciples seem to double - up. We have two Simons; Cephas and Simon the zealot, father of Judas Iscariot. And how interesting that the 'bad guy' of the apostles has a zealot for a father. I niff a long hidden herring.

Because we have so little information in general, there have been a number of plausible ideas about the "real" early church, including versions of what you propose here. James Tabor and Robert Eisenmann have both published books describing how they think the family of Jesus was behind the original church. Both authors base much of their idea on the same fact that you note, that the majority of the named disciples share the names of Jesus' named family members. The crux is that stories about these real men expanded each into multiple characters. The James that Paul knew was the only James, the flesh-and-blood brother of Jesus.

And wasn't there another Judas 'not Iscariot'?

That specific reference in John 14:22. Mark and Matthew list Jesus' brothers as James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. Luke has a "Judas of James" (Ἰούδαν Ἰακώβου). The book of "Jude" (Judas in Greek, I've never understood why it gets written "Jude" in English) claims to have been written by "Judas, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James."

[TRANSPONDER]

Very good. I have long had doubts about the twelve disciples. I have read quite a few theories about this being based on zodiacal signs for no very good reason that I could see. But I had a nagging feeling that Jesus' family might have been more involved in his mission than the Gospels imply. I'd always thought that James (the Lord's brother as Paul calls him) was identified with James the less (not the son of Zebedee) of the disciples and he got his position as spokesbod for the Jesus -party because he was related to Jesus, otherwise, why? I'd also been struck by how the disciples seem to double - up. We have two Simons; Cephas and Simon the zealot, father of Judas Iscariot. And how interesting that the 'bad guy' of the apostles has a zealot for a father. I niff a long hidden herring.

Because we have so little information in general, there have been a number of plausible ideas about the "real" early church, including versions of what you propose here. James Tabor and Robert Eisenmann have both published books describing how they think the family of Jesus was behind the original church. Both authors base much of their idea on the same fact that you note, that the majority of the named disciples share the names of Jesus' named family members. The crux is that stories about these real men expanded each into multiple characters. The James that Paul knew was the only James, the flesh-and-blood brother of Jesus.

And wasn't there another Judas 'not Iscariot'?

That specific reference in John 14:22. Mark and Matthew list Jesus' brothers as James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. Luke has a "Judas of James" (Ἰούδαν Ἰακώβου). The book of "Jude" (Judas in Greek, I've never understood why it gets written "Jude" in English) claims to have been written by "Judas, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James."

Thank you. You show up your greater reading than mine, but at least my conclusions are based on the internal evidence of the Bible, not getting the ideas from some erudite publication. Of course there is a suspicion that the same Jewish names recurred and Jesus wasn't the only one of that name. But I have long had the feeling that Jesus' disciples were much more family -based than called at Lake Galilee (especially since John implies that they were 'called' at the place of Baptism), that they seem to have dual identities, meaning that a lot of those of the same name were the same person, and that they were all a lot more involved in the pharisee -zealotry - mission (something the Gospel keeps hinting at) than Christianity would have us believe. I could be building a conspiracy theory based on a few possible hints, but I still have strong suspicions - including that Jesus and Barabbas were actually the same person. And I'm not the only one to have come to that conclusion.

[Noose001]

IF! You have no case if time didn't start. All you have is fanciful speculation. We can trace the evolution of our universe almost back to what we refer to as t=0, but that is just the possible beginning of this iteration of space-time and not necessarily the beginning of time. We don't know exactly what existed or what happened in that infinitesimally small period of time that we can't reach back past.

The phrase lacks merit. You want to point to t=0 but that isn't the beginning of time?!

It doesn't have to be. If now is the starting point and we trace back through the history of the universe, at t=0 we theoretically may have the start of the universe. It may not be and it is not necessarily the start of time. t=0 is commonly used to designate the starting time of an experiment or event, but it is not actually the start of time itself.

A universe is all there can be; a multiverse is a cop out.
A t0 in a universe, means eternity and in eternity, nothing ever starts/begin or ends.

[The Tanager]

You are missing my point here... We already know Paul was not there himself. He obtained his 'information' from another, or made it up.

What is the fact used in the argument? That the earliest disciples claimed to have experienced post-mortem appearances. Do you dispute this fact? Are you claiming that all claims of experiencing post-mortem appearances were made up by later Christians?

[The Tanager]

Good. Then you should at least accept that the serious contradiction in the resurrections leads to the conclusion that they were making up their own stories, just as is the case in the nativities which I regard the test case for the principle of serious contradiction leading to a conclusion of fabricated stories.

Why should I? Different accounts don’t match for various reasons. One is that they aren’t talking about the same event(s). One is that chronology isn’t a big concern. One is that they had access or wanted to focus on different details. One is that they made it all up. There are others as well, I’m sure. You have supported why you think it is one of these over others. I’ve supported why I don’t agree.

This is the validation of 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' and is why anecdotal miracle - claims can't be accepted at face value.

I never said to accept them at face value.

Right let's try these damn' nested quotes again.. I never said that you did. It was an aside to many claims pf personal experience miracles.

the use of analogies as evidence is a misuse, but theist apologists use it all the time. So we have to look out for that.

Yes, we have to look out for such things. I don’t understand bringing them up in direct response to an opponent that doesn’t do such things, though. It’s irrelevant to the discussion, yet makes it look like you are critiquing your opponent on this front.

[The Tanager]

Those additional facts you mentioned above are, as you've acknowledged, demonstrable in reality and collectively function to justify "eating an apple" as an inference to the best explanation. So, this does not negate the requirement that the things described in an explanation be demonstrable in reality.

Yes, it’s the facts of the case and the reasoning surrounding them that points to the theory being the best explanation. It’s not that all parts of the conclusion are a thing that has been proven to exist in other contexts. That certainly helps the case. It makes one’s level of ‘ad-hoc-ness’ (in the way I’ve used that term) go down, which strengthens one’s case.

I’ve clearly said the existence of the supernatural is an element that is ‘ad-hoc’ in the resurrection theory if one rejects other arguments for God’s existence. I think there is a very strong cumulative case for the existence of God but I realize many come to a different conclusion. Even assuming such people are right, the resurrection hypothesis is not more ad hoc than other theories, at least in my analysis, which I shared.

The facts of the case here are an empty tomb, people claiming post-mortem appearances, and people claiming their leader resurrected as the center of their movement, which are things that are demonstrable in reality.

Please give an example of "X" because I'm unaware of anything I believe exists in reality which hasn't been demonstrated to exist through direct or indirect observation (e.g. novel testable predictions). Please understand, "X" needs to be example of something with an empirical existence because the NT claims of a resurrection are describing the empirical existence of a supernaturally resurrected decomposing corpse. Therefore, it would not be analogous for an example of "X" to be an abstract or a conceptual thing like a number or the feeling of hunger.

This is why I’ve talked about things like electrons. The existence of electrons is a conclusion to an argument concerning the cause of observed effects.

If the word "true" was used inappropriately in one of my earlier posts, I apologize for the error. I usually take an almost unreasonable amount of time carefully considering my word choices and often go back to edit my posts when I subsequently notice an error. Nevertheless, if I substitute the word "valid" for the word "true" in your original statement, it remains in error:

If an argument is valid, yes. By definition a valid argument is an argument that gives us truth about reality. What’s wrong with that? The aether argument was not valid, thus it isn’t shown to exist in reality.

Again, a valid argument does not necessarily give us truth about reality. The luminiferous aether argument was valid but failed to demonstrate the existence of luminiferous aether in reality.

We all make errors. Clarifications of what we meant are needed and very helpful. I agree with you about the above. I don’t think ‘valid’ can be rationally substituted for ‘true’ in what I wrote.

I stand by my comments, as they relate to the implications of your claims. You keep on atelling how the "rise of the Christian movement" somehow supports a "factual" claim regarding the OP/resurrection. That they "wouldn't have made that up" is no better'n, "but danged if they didn't". We have no means of confirming this, either way.

What we can say, what evidence does support, is sometimes, well, humans think em up some goofy stuff. They might be good folk, they might mean well, but, well, goofy.

If we only had that one fact, I’d agree. But the argument is built off of 3 (4 if you count Jesus’ existence separately) facts. Theories need to account for all of them. I’ve shared why I think the disciples making it all up (intentionally or not) doesn’t account for everything as well as the resurrection hypothesis.

Then bring Cephas here, that we may cross examine. Bring one, or all them 500, that we may confirm Cephas accurately and reliably recorded what it is they had to tell.

I’ve shared already, numerous times, about why I think requiring cross examination is flawed and have nothing new to say there.

I propose that's exactly your argument, on account of that's the argument you keep presenting.

I don’t see why you are still thinking that. There are three facts (empty tomb, claims of post-mortem appearances, a central message of resurrection for the Christian movement. Yet you continue to say that my argument is only the third one, that it’s just about the resurrection claim being passed down. I don’t know how else to put it. It seems straightforward to me that you are wildly misunderstanding my argument if you think the above.

[The Tanager]

Who and what the Twelve are is not clear.

I wasn’t intending to make as all encompassing a claim as you seemed to have taken it. And the gospels are not meant as exhaustive accounts on the terms/groupings, so we shouldn’t hold it to that kind of standard. My thought was more about that this was the main, initial leadership group that was singled out and sent by Jesus. This is true regardless of whether Thaddeus/Lebbaeus and Judas of James are the same person or there was disagreement on that one member.

Paul doesn't name the Twelve. He only mentions them in 1 Corinthians 15:5. Paul is notoriously sloppy about his wording in general, but a plain reading here is that Cephas wasn't one of the Twelve and the Twelve weren't Apostles.

I agree that Paul doesn’t name them. Why is the “plain reading” a reading that requires us to assume all terms are meant to be mutually exclusive of each other?

For Mark, the Twelve are named, but seem to be neither disciples nor apostles. Apostles are only mentioned once (6:30) and in a way that might refer to the disciples (6:35), but it's not clear. The Twelve and the disciples are both mentioned numerous of times, but rarely in the same context and never in a way that makes perfectly clear what the relationship is. There are a few references that can be read as either inclusive (14:32-33) or exclusive (16:7), but they're ambiguous. My personal guess is that Mark collected stories about both the Twelve and the disciples and just didn't work too hard to make them consistent with each other.

The twelve are explicitly called apostles in 3:14. The twelve and disciples are mentioned in the same contexts (such as 3:7-13, 9:30-37, 11:11-14, 14:12-17, 14:32-33, 16:7). Mark doesn’t address your question directly, so there will always be some wriggle room. The three options are that:

1. The twelve and the disciples are mutually exclusive terms
2. They are identical synonyms
3. There is some overlap but the ‘twelve’ is more narrow

If it were (2) or (3), then using them interchangeably within the same context makes sense. If it were (1), then why would they be used in the same contexts without making the distinction clear? For that reason, I think (1) is the weakest option. One should also look at how other Christian sources use these terms, when there is some ambiguity. The oral traditions are already being passed down and used by Mark and Matthew. It doesn’t make sense to assume that Mark wrote it first and then everyone else is changing things.

Matthew names the Twelve using mostly the same list Mark does, but manuscripts are confused about whether the tenth named member is Lebbaeus, Thaddeus, or both ("Lebbaeus, also called Thaddeus"). Perhaps tellingly, one manuscript went the other way and changed Mark's Thaddeus to Lebbaeus. Matthew explicitly refers to the Twelve as both apostles and disciples and treats all three as identically the same group (Matthew's Jesus has exactly twelve disciples that are also the apostles).

The strength of manuscripts seems to be behind Thaddeus or they would have Thaddeus in the footnote. There is some room in Matthew’s text in some contexts that leaves open the possibility that there are more disciples than just the twelve disciples. You can use the term “the twelve disciples” in a context to speak to a specific, known group and still allow for more than twelve disciples in other contexts.

Luke names them, but Thaddeus/Lebbaeus is now "Judas of James." Luke says that the twelve apostles were chosen from among the larger group of disciples.

That the twelve were chosen from a larger group is consistent with the text in Mark and Matthew. They could be different names for the same person or one could be wrong. That wouldn’t change my claim about knowing the twelve as the leadership nor about the three facts the argument is built upon.

John explictly names only three of the Twelve: Simon Peter, Judas Iscariot, and Thomas. The Twelve may be disciples (it's not clear), but are not the entire group (6:66-70). Andrew, Philip, and Nathaniel are named in contexts that may mean that they were also of the Twelve, but it's not explicit. John never uses the word "apostle." John is potentially the only one that refers to Peter as Cephas (all references to Peter in the Pauline epistles are likely harmonizations based on an interpolated Galatians 2:7-8).

First, In 14:22 John speaks of a Judas who isn’t Judas Iscariot. This is during the passover when Jesus is with his disciples. This adds reason to believe Thaddeus and Judas could be the same person. Lebbaeus, itself, seems to mean “courageous” and could be another nickname, just like Simon being nicknamed Rock and James and John being nicknamed the sons of thunder and Thomas being nicknamed the Twin.

Second, not using the term ‘apostle’ doesn’t mean he doesn’t think it existed.

Third, if Galatians 2:7-8 is the outlier, then wouldn’t Paul have referred to him as Cephas in his writings, rather than only John doing that?

I take this to mean that there was a tradition about who the Twelve were, but it was at least somewhat malleable. Nobody seemed to agree on what their relationships were between the Twelve, disciples, and apostles, so I infer from this that by the time these traditions were written down, the Twelve were legendary enough that nobody knew exactly who or what they were. Any testimony attributed to any of them, either by name or as "the Twelve" collectively, is equally legendary.

The only malleability was on one of the twelve and even that could be the same person with different ways to refer to him. Each text is open to the same relationships between the groups and do not directly contradict each other on that front. They simply aren’t focused on that question when writing. Thus, I see no good reason to infer your conclusions of “legend”.

The original audience would have known some of the 500, could have been told who if they asked further. Naming all 500 is silly for a short tradition to pass down or a letter written to people who have already heard about the 500.

You're stating this as an established fact. What evidence establishes this as more than your own speculation?

I’m not stating it as an established fact. I’m saying this seems to make the most sense to me. Whoever the originals were, people would have come into contact with them and knowledge of who they were would be passed down, especially since the apostles were probably included in the 500. It also doesn’t make sense to list all 500 names and, even if they did, this would accomplish nothing further towards the types of issues we are discussing.

The people would almost certainly be the disciples and early Church leadership. The tradition doesn’t get formulated in that way and passed down outside of them.

So, no actual people who can be specifically identified with their verified claims. Just almost certainly a bunch of people. Faith it is then. [emphasis mine]

Okay, if you require 100% certainty, then have fun with math and definitions and not believing anything else about the world. If you aren’t requiring 100% certainty, then “almost certainly” should be good enough.

It's not about being 100% certain. It's about your statement being an expression of opinion rather than actual evidence.

What I responded to was what you wrote above. You equated “almost certainly” with “faith”. That assumes “almost certainly” was true. Questioning whether “almost certainly” is true is another matter. I see no reason to assume that the tradition gets formulated and passed down without the leadership behind it. It makes much more sense for the leadership to be the ones formulating the traditions.

Again, names are not the real issue. What hasn't been established is that there actually were these 500. Easy enough for someone to make false claims such as that in order to prop up whatever it is they are trying to sell to the punters.

It may not be the issue to you, but it was an issue to POI in post 563 and JoeyKnothead in post 577 and so I responded to how it’s not a problem. If the early Christians disagreed with their being a 500+ sighting, then they wouldn’t have put in in their tradition that scholars date back to within a decade, or even half of a decade, of the supposed resurrection. Again, at the point of the facts, we aren’t saying they didn’t lie about it. The lying theory suffers in the second part of the argument when trying to make sense of all 3 facts.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #651]

I'm not sure your post affects the argument, but in case you think it does, I thought I should begin to respond and go further if you like. I think your theory here is full of ad-hoc speculation. Sharing names were common back then, just like today. That James becomes a leader is common knowledge, not something hidden. Simon the Zealot and Judas were both disciples, not one the father of the other. You are just assuming Paul misrepresents the letter from James with no evidence for doing so. You aren't providing the OT quotes ripped out of context, or how it is obviously a departure from Abraham's righteousness, how Paul is teaching salvation by works instead of salvation to works.