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,
This is what I stated;that the stories of the empty tomb where anything other than given as hearsay and expected to be received in faith.
"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.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.Are you saying, NONE of it aligns?
Apparently there are biblical scholars who accept that in those cases, copying may have occurred.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.
Yes - that it was unnecessary to have four exact copies of the same data.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.If they report completely different, and contradictory information, then we would complain that something is not quite right.
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.However, it seems to me we have exactly what we would expect.
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.
I am looking for evidence to the claim that Jesus died. [and was thus resurrected.]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?
Based upon the stories regarding Jesus, I would expect that Jesus didn't really die.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?
"While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him".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,
"And then their eyes were opened and they recognized 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,
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.]
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.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".
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.
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.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.
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.
