The "Apostles Died For the Rez" Lie.

[boatsnguitars]

Christian clergy and apologists claim that "All the Apostles died instead of recanting their belief in the Resurrection."

Josh McDowell ("More Than A Carpenter, Evidence Demands a Verdict") says,

“Even though they were crucified, stoned, stabbed, dragged, skinned and burned, every last apostle of Jesus proclaimed his resurrection until his dying breath, refusing to recant under pressure from the authorities. Therefore, their testimony is trustworthy and the resurrection is true.”

Josh McDowell.

This is a demonstrable lie.

Sean McDowell, son of Josh McDowell, says:

If you have followed popular–level arguments for the resurrection (or ever heard a sermon on the apostles), you’ve likely heard this argument. Growing up I heard it regularly and found it quite convincing. After all, why would the apostles of Jesus have died for their faith if it weren’t true?

Yet the question was always in the back of my mind — how do we really know they died as martyrs?

(Note, he was told that lie by his father.)

The claim that all of Jesus' disciples were killed for their unwavering belief in the resurrection is a popular and often-repeated narrative. However, this claim is not entirely accurate and is based on a limited understanding of the available historical evidence.

Firstly, it is important to note that the historical record of the disciples' deaths is sparse and often unreliable. Many of the accounts of the disciples' deaths were written years or even centuries after the events they describe, and some of them contain obvious embellishments and inaccuracies.

Furthermore, there is significant debate among historians about the veracity of these accounts. Some historians argue that the disciples' deaths are well-documented and reliable, while others argue that the available evidence is too thin and contradictory to draw any definitive conclusions.

Even assuming that the accounts of the disciples' deaths are accurate, it is not clear that they were all killed specifically because of their belief in the resurrection. Many of the disciples lived and died in relative obscurity, and there is little or no historical record of how or why they died.

For example, we know almost nothing about the deaths of most of the disciples, including James the Less, Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot. The accounts of the deaths of Peter and Paul are somewhat more reliable, but they provide no evidence that these disciples were specifically targeted for their belief in the resurrection.

Moreover, it is worth noting that many religious figures throughout history have been persecuted and even killed for their beliefs. The fact that the disciples were killed for their beliefs does not necessarily make those beliefs true, nor does it provide any evidence for the resurrection itself.

In conclusion, while it is certainly possible that some or all of the disciples were killed for their beliefs, it is far from clear that this is the case. Furthermore, even if the accounts of the disciples' deaths are accurate, they do not provide any evidence for the resurrection itself. Therefore, the claim that the disciples were all killed for their belief in the resurrection is a problematic and oversimplified narrative that should be approached with caution.

1. To what extent do the deaths of the apostles prove the veracity of the resurrection story?
2. Can we trust the accounts of the apostles' deaths as historically accurate, or are they subject to bias and myth-making?
3. Is it possible for someone to be so convinced of a belief that they are willing to die for it, even if the belief is not true?
4. How do we reconcile the apostles' willingness to die for their belief in the resurrection with similar accounts of martyrs in other religions?
5. Do contemporary Christians have a responsibility to question the historical accuracy of their religious texts and teachings, or is faith sufficient?
6. If the clergy is lying so easily about this, what are we to believe about their other claims?

[TRANSPONDER]

Sorry. This just dismissive excuses. The whole reason I got into debates was because Contradictions were dismissed by the believers and they seemed to get away with it, or Bible critics didn't take it further. The thing was, they explained simple problems (see the two angels) but so many big ones got ignored.

That’s simply not true. You summarized your thoughts quickly and so did I. You didn’t restate the reasons you think contradictions exist or why those contradictions are reasons to see them all as inventions. You didn’t restate your reasoning about why Mark ends at 16:8. You didn’t restate your reasoning about why you think 1 Corinthians contradicts the gospel appearance accounts. You didn’t restate your reasoning about Paul’s view of resurrection being spiritual rather than bodily. You’ve shared those reasonings before (here, I think, and definitely elsewhere). I’ve responded to all of those points here and elsewhere. Neither of us is using dismissive excuses.

Now, with Paul, swallowing your explanation that the women finding the tomb empty and hearing the angelic explanation that Jesus had risen (or not, as in John) and had met Jesus (or not as in Luke) was not evidence as they were women, we start with Peter having a view of a risen Jesus. Then the 12..or the 11 as Luke says,though apparently Thomas wasn't there as John claims, so it was 10) hang on, let's post it.

The Twelve is a title for the group, not just a description of number. Just like the Big Ten.

Cephas (Peter) first THEN to the 12. Well, clearly that is not what happens, as Jesus walks in on them all that evening. Now I saw one online apologetic that noted that Jesus did appear first to Simon, but ignores (as happens all the time) that nobody but Luke mentions this and Luke doesn't even describe it. The 12 just say that Jesus has risen and appeared to Simon when Cleophas gets back. I suggest that there are MANY reasons to think that Luke knew Paul's letters and amended his gospel to wangle this sighting in. He also alters the angelic message so the disciples are NOT told to go to Galilee. That would explain why Luke cannot relate what happened as he doesn't know and he has the Cleophas excursion to get us out of the way so he doesn't have to describe it.

No, it’s not ignored by Christian philosophers and theologians. Writings back then weren’t as concerned as you in having exact chronological details of every known appearance and all of that. To hold them to that standard is not rational. If Luke felt the need to make sure Peter’s vision comes first to fit Paul’s letters, why not give more detail? He’s the only one with the Road to Emmaus and that has great detail, so why not more detail on the Peter one?

This appearance to Simon is the first contradiction. Appearing to the 'twelve' more or less fits, but the appearance to 500 at once is clearly NOT what went down on resurrection night, apart from James being the last to 'see' Jesus, though I always thought he was one of the 12 (James the Less).

It is a clue that what cannot be a solid body appearance to the 500 (though Acts tries to suggest it could be) is more visionary, and Paul's belated vision surely is. Thus the serious discrepancies between the gospel account and between those and Paul, plus the clear suggestion that this was all in the head, anyway, makes a case that I Cor is NOT any good support for the gospel resurrection.

You may deny that or try to excuse it with the 'witness error' excuse, but I'll need better than excuses and denial to make me think they describe the same events, and I trust that idea will occur to others as they debate the matter.

1 Cor 15 doesn’t say the 500 all at once happened on resurrection night. James could be Jesus’ actual brother who became a prominent leader in the Jerusalem church and the apostles could be a different designation than the 12 or these could be additional appearances to the same 12 (and possibly others).

How is any of this a clue to how it couldn’t be a solid body appearance to the 500, but more visionary? How is it a clear suggestion it is all in the head?

And why do you think Paul doesn’t claim to have seen Jesus’s body physically? In 1 Cor 9:1 he uses the normal word for physical seeing Jesus. The tradition in 1 Cor 15 talks of Jesus being buried, raised, and appeared, stating these are the same as the other appearances. Paul says his audience can still question many of the 500. If Paul saw those as merely personal visions (a shared vision for 500?) would be telling his critics that the resurrection is psychological, but Paul’s case in 1 Cor 15 is about the physical nature of resurrection that we will eventually share in.

Paul and the early Christians knew and distinguished between appearances and visions, with the church believing appearances eventually stopped. Paul connects his apostleship as to one who has seen Jesus, not just had a vision of it, because those who hadn’t seen Jesus couldn’t be called an apostle. Paul doesn’t speak of his Damascus road experience when boasting of his visions in 2 Cor 12. The Jerusalem pillars accept Paul as an apostle in Galatians 2.

Paul speaks of Jesus having a physical body in Colossians 2, where all the fulness of deity lives in bodily form, where we are buried with him in baptism and raised with him. Luke in Acts describes Jesus’ resurrection as physical and that this Jesus appeared to Paul in ways that physically impacted those around him as well.

Great. You are evidently scrabbling for excuses. Again I take the points in one lump as there was a complaint I don't quote properly, but I don't see how other to do it.

You took the 'two angels' personally. But it was aimed as Biblical excuses generally. I'm sure I have stated why the contradictions exist, generally (the writers made the stories up separately...which hardly needs further explanation) or specifically: I Cor differs from thew gospels as it is about a visionary (in the head) resurrection, not the solid body. Whether I explained it here (I have done so elsewhere), the reason Mark end with the women running away is because that's all the Synoptic gospel originally had and the contradictory accounts of Matthew and Luke were invented. That is why they contradict so badly.

I am sure i have said (but maybe not here) why I think 1 Cor talks of a spiritual resurrection, because Paul equates that coming to him after the 500 all at once with the others, and if his is in the head, so probably are the 500 others, who sure didn't see it Resurrection night (though Acts tries to have Jesus come back and give a scripture lesson). It starts with Jesus appearing to Simon, which isn't in the gospels (except \Luke who tries to wangle that in) and thus I propose that Simon first visualised a risen spirit Jesus. That at least explains the discrepancies.

As you say, I have done it elsewhere and you say, you have responded. Nowhere convincingly nor adequately, as I recall. I know that 1 Cor refers to 'the 12' generically whether they are all present or not. That does not alter the record of Luke talking of the actual number - the eleven (minus Judas) which means Thomas was there and not absent as in John, so they contradict there, even without James the less not apparently seeing Jesus until after the scriptural slide show before 500 brothers in Acts. So where was he? The two accounts cannot be about the same thing.

It makes no difference that the old writers were not concerned about contradictions (no credit to them) but it matters that it has been ignored by all up to the present day. They prefer the discrepancies they can easily dismiss like 'the two angels' and pretend that answers them all; and I never saw 'No angelic message in John'. Why not? Does nobody ever read this book?

However you want to go translation - shopping and invent stuff (as Luke does) to explain how 500 saw Jesus walking in the risen body still with holes in, what Paul claimed to have seen cannot be resurrection night or even in the scripture lesson of Acts. He has to be equating a later vision (spirit or physical) with what the twelve saw.

You may fool yourself, but you don't fool me. Paul works out his theory with chop logic in Romans but obliquely suggests 'A man' (himself) who hobnobbed with Jesus in heaven where I think he claims his Gospel and apostleship was approved, not by being there resurrection night. If you want to say Paul distinguished between the physical and the visionary, I think you are fooling yourself and trying to bamboozle me.

Aside Colossians is one of the spurious epistles isn't it? (1), where is this claim that Jesus appears in the solid body? I know the dead are supposed to come to life in the Pharisee resurrection, but that has nothing to do with the spirit of the messiah that left Jesus and floated to heaven, and less with the vision of Paul and the rest of Jesus in heaven, spirit or solid; it is not the gospel account.

So aside from the topic which fails because the resurrection is not proven because the disciples would die (or put up with persecution) rather than deny it (there no real evidence of that) I Cor does not support the gospel resurrection because it is not the same thing, whether a claim of risen spirit or body. That the claim of a risen Jesus without evidence of it wouldn't do, a solid risen Jesus had to be invented. First an empty tomb and where else could the body have gone? Then an angel telling us where it went (as in Mark) just to make sure everyone got the message, and because that wasn't good enough, three contradictory stories were invented by Matthew, Luke and John.

You may reject that but i don't see that your arguments make a case, but others will have to decide,

(1) Whether Paul wrote the three other epistles in his name (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians) is widely debated.[Wiki]