What is the best hypothesis to explain the resurrection?

[Willum]

Alternatives to explain the resurrection seem to be a theme of late. So even if wrong, is there a best way forward on what actually happened?

I think if we put our heads together we can form the best explanation of the resurrection, that does not involve anything impossible, like aliens, or magic, etc., we can come up with one or more reasonable explanations.

AlexxJRO, ToN and many others have specialized approaches - let's see what happens if we go for the most elegant, Occam's Razor solution to the subject, perhaps incorporating the best elements of each - seeing if they fit like a puzzle.

Let's not assume any particular fact is valid until the group weighs in on reasonability.

I'll start with my own hypothesis: Rome, had a long history of using religion to pacify it's conquests - beginning long before the Caesars:

It would invade countries, draw analogies between and hybridize Roman and other deities, claiming, ultimately, that Zeus was the supreme deity, Zeus empowered Rome, and therefore everyone should obey Rome.

The corollary for the resurrection, is; Jesus and the Apostles advocate obeying Roman Law (something no Jew would), paying Roman tax with idolatrous coins (as no Jew would), claiming Jesus was a demi-god (as no Jew would), and so on.

This neatly explains the Diaspora, Rome unable to assuage Jerusalem, dispersed it.

So, Liam - could an invisible undetectable creature with the power to resurrect someone, have used such an ineffective means to make converts to principles mankind adopts anyway?
AlexxJRO, could Joseph of Arimathea been a Roman stooge? The crucifixion staged and false?
ToN - the Bible presents good explanation itself...
Riku...
Others...?

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 1 by Willum]

I've always liked the idea that Paul/Saul was in league with Rome and it was his job to spread a peaceful religion tale to the Jews. Rome loved it's spies, it loved messing with the religion of others, and it loved collecting taxes (render unto Caesar, after all). It was worth a shot to invent something that verified OT scripture AND changed the old Semitic war god Yahweh into a kinder, fluffier version of a deity that wanted the Golden Rule...

This of course makes Paul/Saul a big liar. All humans lie. It fits.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Alternatives to explain the resurrection seem to be a theme of late. So even if wrong, is there a best way forward on what actually happened?

I think if we put our heads together we can form the best explanation of the resurrection, that does not involve anything impossible, like aliens, or magic, etc., we can come up with one or more reasonable explanations.

AlexxJRO, ToN and many others have specialized approaches - let's see what happens if we go for the most elegant, Occam's Razor solution to the subject, perhaps incorporating the best elements of each - seeing if they fit like a puzzle.

Let's not assume any particular fact is valid until the group weighs in on reasonability.

I'll start with my own hypothesis: Rome, had a long history of using religion to pacify it's conquests - beginning long before the Caesars:

It would invade countries, draw analogies between and hybridize Roman and other deities, claiming, ultimately, that Zeus was the supreme deity, Zeus empowered Rome, and therefore everyone should obey Rome.

The corollary for the resurrection, is; Jesus and the Apostles advocate obeying Roman Law (something no Jew would), paying Roman tax with idolatrous coins (as no Jew would), claiming Jesus was a demi-god (as no Jew would), and so on.

This neatly explains the Diaspora, Rome unable to assuage Jerusalem, dispersed it.

So, Liam - could an invisible undetectable creature with the power to resurrect someone, have used such an ineffective means to make converts to principles mankind adopts anyway?
AlexxJRO, could Joseph of Arimathea been a Roman stooge? The crucifixion staged and false?
ToN - the Bible presents good explanation itself...
Riku...
Others...?

The Bible DOES present a good explanation itself. Whether or not it is the correct explanation we can never know. But the NT is the argument that Christians present as proof of their beliefs and their claims, and the NT is the basis for their entire religion. And yet even by using the information found in the NT we can see that the origins of Christianity can be completely explained as natural human endeavors, with NO supernatural recourse necessary. The nature of supernatural claims is that for them to become even remotely plausible, they must represent be the only available answer. And yet they never are! No unambiguous no doubt about it generally accepted as true supernatural event has EVER occurred. If even one such event had ever occurred it would serve to prove that the supernatural exists. But there has never been such an event. Given the various religious beliefs that exist worldwide, what we do see is billions of people worldwide who have taken a leap of faith and have subscribed to some form of belief system that appears to be based on some measure of unrealistic foolishness to those outside of that system of belief. And of course there are those of us who are outside of ALL of the various current system of beliefs. Those for whom obvious foolishness is nothing but obvious foolishness no matter what part of the world it originates in.

[Divine Insight]

I think if we put our heads together we can form the best explanation of the resurrection, that does not involve anything impossible, like aliens, or magic, etc., we can come up with one or more reasonable explanations.

The first thing we need to make crystal clear is there is no need to explain any actual "resurrection" at all. There is no historical evidence that any actual resurrection ever occurred. All that exists are tales of a resurrection.

So all we need to explain is how these tales of a resurrection might have come to be.

For me this is extremely simple.

1. A guy was crucified and thought to be dead but ultimately actually survived the ordeal.

2. His believed-to-be-dead body was given over to his followers.

3. His followers realized that he wasn't actually dead so they rush him off to a place where they could care for him.

4. A tomb had already been donated for his corpse, but since there was no corpse the tomb remained empty.

5. There's even good reasons why his followers may have made it appear that they had place the body in the tomb. After all, they didn't want the authorities to discover that Jesus was still a live in the fear that they would then return to finish him off.

6. Thus we have the origins of the tales of an empty tomb explained. The tomb actually was found to be empty.

7. This also explains why people may have claimed to have seen this living Jesus after the crucifixion. He was in fact, still alive. So we have explained the tales of people having seen Jesus after the crucifixion.

Keep in mind that all of this would have just been crude word-of-mouth tales (true as they may have been, they would have still been verbal "rumors") A rumor doesn't necessarily need to be false.

These rumors would have then included claims that Jesus had actually died and rose from the dead, which in this proposed scenario would obviously be false rumors.

So we end up with many rumors being spread. Some true, some not true.

Now let's consider the following:

I'll start with my own hypothesis: Rome, had a long history of using religion to pacify it's conquests - beginning long before the Caesars:

It would invade countries, draw analogies between and hybridize Roman and other deities, claiming, ultimately, that Zeus was the supreme deity, Zeus empowered Rome, and therefore everyone should obey Rome.

The corollary for the resurrection, is; Jesus and the Apostles advocate obeying Roman Law (something no Jew would), paying Roman tax with idolatrous coins (as no Jew would), claiming Jesus was a demi-god (as no Jew would), and so on.

Willum is perfectly correct. The Roman authorities saw that these rumors of Jesus having been resurrected from the dead were circulating among the masses. They were also well aware of the content of these rumors and they saw how they could use them to political advantage. So they created the formal writings of Paul. In other words, Paul was working for the Romans throughout.

They also created the formal writings of Mark, Matthew, and Luke which were most likely based upon common verbal rumors that were already being spread.

The Gospel of John may have been written by an overzealous "Christian" since it was the latest document. And the Romans just gave it their seal of approval since it only helped to serve their agenda.

Question: Were the Christian Gospels given Roman approval, and was this approval required to be included in the Gospels?

Answer: Clearly yes.

In fact, that was what made the Gospels what they have become today. It was descreed by Roman authority that these are indeed the only acceptable "Gospel Scriptures" and anyone denying them would be branded a heathen.

In other words, Rome had effectively taken full control of the content of these Gospel Scriptures and anyone disagreeing with these forum documents would be branded as a heretic.

In other words, Rome had laid claim to the "Official Rumors" of Jesus and all other rumors would be challenged as "Blaspheme".

And so there we have it. Everything fits neatly with all known history of these Gospels. And Jesus never actually died.

Not only this, but this explanation wins a double prize!

How so?

Well, there are historical rumors in Kashmir India that also claim that Jesus survived the crucifixion and went to live in Kashmir India until he died a natural death a the age of 120 years.

So now we not only have a viable explanation for what happened in Rome, but we also have an explanation for what happened in Kashmir India.

It's a double Grand Slam.

No supernatural resurrection required. No aliens required. No totally fabricated rumors required. Every rumor has a natural explanation for why it arose. Some rumors were based on truths, others were based on the false superstitious belief that Jesus had actually died and rose from the dead.

We've covered all the bases with nothing left unexplained.

Jesus survived the crucifixion. A very simple and straight-forward explanation.

No actual "resurrection" needs to be explained at all.

We've explained how the tales of a resurrection arose. So we're done.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to post 1 by Willum]

I could make a hybrid between my hypothesis and yours.
Joseph was co-opted by Rome as a local asset and made a spy in the region.
Roman started an operation to pacify the Jews using the religion. Pacify the Old Testament God: Yahweh.
Like you said: "Rome, had a long history of using religion to pacify it's conquests - beginning long before the Caesars.
They co-opted also a person with good knowledge of Jewish religion and customs; an intelligent, well spoken, with good qualities of a leader; a local rabbi Jew called Jesus to play the central role of the operation; which was about faking his death and after presenting him as "resurrected" as a convincing evidence of His godlike qualities; as an effective way of steering the Jewish religion in the direction they wanted.
This also would explain why Jesus stayed on cross only few hours.
The survival goes as according to my hypothesis.
The difference is that after he was taken off the cross, he was taken to Joseph house were he was treated by some of best physicians of Rome.
The final differs as well. Jesus does not die in the desert.
After he told the apostles to spread the good news and after he told them he will return to Heaven, he went to Rome where he lived a comfortable life as a reward for helping Rome.

This hybrid hypothesis would also explain why Jesus advocated for obeying Roman Law (something no Jew would), paying Roman tax with idolatrous coins (as no Jew would), claiming Jesus was a demi-god (as no Jew would), and so on.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by Willum]

So even if wrong, is there a best way forward on what actually happened?

I think if we put our heads together we can form the best explanation of the resurrection, that does not involve anything impossible, like aliens, or magic, etc., we can come up with one or more reasonable explanations.

Someone, at some point in time, somewhere, made stuff up. The stuff got passed around and more stuff was added to it. It may have had connections to an actual event that really happened, but sadly, we'll never really know.
I'm going to take an agnostic approach to this. Whatever the real explanation is, we'll more than likely never know, since anything that would vindicate it would either have never been made (would Paul have written in a private journal "I twirl my mustache laughing at the thought that some people believe the lies I have spoken"?) or have been lost to the sands of time.

What I can say with convince though is that the Christian hypothesis does not stand. By admission, liam says it is divine. He has to reach outside of reality in order to try to explain something within reality. Basically "A wizard did it"

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 3 by Tired of the Nonsense]

The nature of supernatural claims is that for them to become even remotely plausible, they must represent be the only available answer. And yet they never are!

I disagree. If my TV is missing from my house, yet there are no signs of forced entry, it doesn't follow that someone offering "Scotty beamed it to the Enterprise" as 'the only available answer' means that Scotty beamed it to the Enterprise. What positive evidence do we have that transporters can actually exist? Even within Star Trek lore, they have to resort to the equivalent of magic by saying that a 'Heisenberg compensator' is able to, well, compensate for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (with no explanation for how it is able to do it. It just does apparently).

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 3 by Tired of the Nonsense]

The nature of supernatural claims is that for them to become even remotely plausible, they must represent be the only available answer. And yet they never are!

I disagree. If my TV is missing from my house, yet there are no signs of forced entry, it doesn't follow that someone offering "Scotty beamed it to the Enterprise" as 'the only available answer' means that Scotty beamed it to the Enterprise. What positive evidence do we have that transporters can actually exist? Even within Star Trek lore, they have to resort to the equivalent of magic by saying that a 'Heisenberg compensator' is able to, well, compensate for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (with no explanation for how it is able to do it. It just does apparently).

I think you misunderstood TotN's statement. He's not saying that if you can't think of a natural explanation then any other supernatural claim you offer must be true.

Quite the opposite. He's saying that before a supernatural claim can even be remotely plausible at the very least you need to first eliminate all possible natural explanations.

In the case of the Christian Gospels, there are TONS of rational natural explanations. So the point is that there's simply no need to even bother suggesting that a supernatural explanation might be required.

Liamconnor's entire argument is based on his claim that no possible natural explanation can explain the Gospels rumors. But that's clearly nothing more than his own personal opinion. One that most rational people aren't going to even remotely entertain.

In fact using the your missing TV example. You claim that it couldn't have been theft because there is no sign of forced entry.

But then we realize that there is an OPEN QUESTION of whether or not you had ever locked the back door? You swear it was locked, but when the police came they found it unlocked and no one recalls unlocking it.

So now we have weeks and weeks and weeks of arguing over whether or not the back door had ever been locked.

Something we can never prove one way or the other.

This is more like what we have with the Gospels. No one knows whether any body was actually missing from any tomb, never mind knowing whether or not it actually rose from the dead.

To compare with your missing TV scenario, in the case of the Gospels we can't even say for certain that the TV is missing! Never mind that the back door might not have been locked.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 5 by alexxcJRO]

Would it be too much to say the entire crucifixion was a fix? That way the Roman's plant wouldn't even have to be injured...

Not that I would put it past the Tiberian Empire of Rome to think it was actually funny to betray Jesus. Tiberius was one of the worst used food dispensers in history.

We are looking for the most likely theory.

Unfortunately I lost ToN's bible verses... (hint).

So far, it hasn't taken much to construct a perfectly plausible resurrection scenario, sans miracles or hallucinations.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by Willum]

First, Love the OP Willum.

Second, love the results!

Can't wait to see the final product.