Can you please provide evidence for these Biblical events?

[Compassionist]

Can you please provide evidence for the following Biblical events?

1. Creation Miracles (Genesis 1–3)

Creation of the universe: God creates light, sky, land, seas, plants, stars, animals, and humans in six days.
Creation of angels: Implied in passages like Job 38:4–7; often considered an early act before physical creation.
Creation of Adam and Eve: God forms Adam from dust and breathes life into him; Eve is made from Adam’s rib.
Creation of other organisms: All species of plants and animals are said to have been created by divine command.
The Garden of Eden: A paradise created for Adam and Eve.
The Fall: The serpent speaks; Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit and are evicted from Eden; curses are pronounced.

2. Early Genesis Miracles

The mark and protection of Cain (Genesis 4:15).
The longevity of pre-Flood humans (many living 900+ years).
Noah’s Flood (Genesis 6–9): God floods the entire world, saving only Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark.
The rainbow covenant: God sets a rainbow as a sign of the promise never again to flood the earth.
Confusion of languages at Babel (Genesis 11): Humanity’s speech is divided, and people scatter across the world.

3. Miracles in the Patriarchal Era (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph)

Call of Abram: God speaks directly to Abram (Genesis 12).
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: Fire and brimstone from heaven (Genesis 19).
Lot’s wife turned to salt (Genesis 19:26).
Birth of Isaac to elderly Sarah (Genesis 21).
God’s testing of Abraham: A ram provided in place of Isaac (Genesis 22).
Jacob’s ladder dream and wrestling with God (Genesis 28; Genesis 32).
Joseph’s prophetic dreams and interpretations (Genesis 37–41).

4. Miracles of Moses and the Exodus

The burning bush (Exodus 3).
Staff turned into a serpent (Exodus 4).
The Ten Plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7–12):

1. Water to blood
2. Frogs
3. Gnats or lice
4. Flies
5. Livestock disease
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Death of the firstborn
The Passover protection (Israelites spared).
Parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14).
Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, guiding Israel.
Manna and quail were provided in the wilderness.
Water from the rock (Exodus 17).
Mount Sinai theophany: God’s voice, thunder, lightning, and tablets of stone.
Bronze serpent healing (Numbers 21).
Aaron’s rod budding (Numbers 17).
Moses’ radiant face after speaking with God (Exodus 34).

5. Miracles in the Time of Joshua, Judges, and Kings

Jordan River stops flowing so Israel can cross (Joshua 3).
Walls of Jericho fall (Joshua 6).
The sun stands still (Joshua 10).
Gideon’s fleece tests (Judges 6).
Samson’s strength feats (Judges 14–16).
Fire consumes Elijah’s offering on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18).
Elijah raises the widow’s son (1 Kings 17).
Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2).
Elisha parts the Jordan, purifies water, multiplies oil, raises the Shunammite’s son, feeds 100 men with loaves, heals Naaman’s leprosy, and makes an iron axe-head float (2 Kings 2–6).
The shadow on the sundial goes backwards for King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20).
Angelic destruction of the Assyrian army (2 Kings 19).
Daniel’s survival in the lions’ den (Daniel 6).
Three men survive the fiery furnace (Daniel 3).
Handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5).

6. Miracles in the Intertestamental and New Testament Era

Zechariah was struck mute until John the Baptist’s birth (Luke 1).
Virgin (immaculate) conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1; Luke 1).
Star of Bethlehem guiding the Magi (Matthew 2).
Angelic announcements to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.
John the Baptist’s prophetic calling before birth.

7. Miracles Performed by Jesus

Turning water into wine (John 2).
Healing the sick, blind, deaf, and lame (many Gospels).
Cleansing lepers (Matthew 8).
Casting out demons (Mark 5, etc.).
Feeding 5,000 (Matthew 14) and feeding 4,000 (Matthew 15).
Walking on water (Matthew 14).
Calming the storm (Mark 4).
Raising Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5).
Healing the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8).
Healing the bleeding woman (Mark 5).
Restoring sight to Bartimaeus (Mark 10).
Raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11).
The Transfiguration (Matthew 17).
Paying temple tax with a coin in a fish’s mouth (Matthew 17).
Cursing the barren fig tree (Mark 11).
The resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20).
Post-resurrection appearances (Luke 24; John 21).
Ascension into heaven (Acts 1).

8. Miracles in the Acts of the Apostles

Tongues of fire and the gift of languages at Pentecost (Acts 2).
Peter and John heal a lame man (Acts 3).
Peter raises Tabitha (Dorcas) from the dead (Acts 9).
Paul blinds and heals various people (Acts 13–28).
Earthquake freeing Paul and Silas from prison (Acts 16).
Paul survives a viper bite (Acts 28).
Philip’s teleportation (Acts 8).
Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for lying (Acts 5).

9. Apocalyptic and Prophetic Miracles

Visions of Heaven and angels (Revelation 4–5).
Trumpet and bowl judgments: cosmic catastrophes, locusts, plagues, blood rivers, darkness.
Two witnesses calling down fire (Revelation 11).
The New Jerusalem descending from heaven (Revelation 21).
Creation of a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21–22).
God dwelling with humanity eternally - the final miracle of restoration.

[William]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #199]

6. On “Extraordinary Evidence” Being Undefined

You argue I have not defined it clearly.

Here is a clear definition:

Extraordinary evidence is evidence that is sufficiently strong, independent, and resistant to common alternative explanations such that it outweighs entrenched background regularities and explanatory competitors.

For example, if there was a hair from Jesus which showed maternal chromosomes from Mary and divine chromosomes from God, that would count as extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary claim that Jesus had a virgin birth.

"Extraordinary evidence would be something like a hair follicle containing divine DNA." But that just shifts the problem- now we need a way to identify DNA as "divine" versus merely unknown or anomalous. There's no empirical test for "divinity." It's a metaphysical category, not a scientific one.

So the definition smuggles in a standard that can't be met even in principle by any observable evidence. That makes it unfalsifiable in practice - not because the claim is true, but because the evidence bar is set outside the realm of possible experience.

That's not skepticism; it's a rhetorical shield.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #199]

I’ve already supported why I think M and L are independent attestations and you’ve said nothing new there. Source critical scholars are the ones who came up with M and L to point out independent sources.

You simply repeated that embarrassment is short lived when my point was that the question is whether it lived at all.

If Roman records spoke of Jesus resurrecting, you’d then say it’s just more internal community literature. It’s a lose-lose principle.

God not using the ‘stars of the night sky’ (whatever all that is a metaphor for) to speak to the historical event of Jesus being buried in a tomb is irrelevant. And, logically, Jesus could have been buried in a tomb and not born of a virgin or vice versa; these events are isolated in that way.

I’m fine with that definition of extraordinary evidence. Your example points to you really meaning something more by ‘extraordinary evidence’.

And what does, say, God creating hell or not have to do with the historicity of the six-day creation, the flood, the virgin birth, or the miracle our discussion here has focused on: the resurrection? Hell could exist or not exist and that wouldn’t change anything about the historicity of those supposed miracles (some of which I agree with you didn’t necessarily, literally happen and some of which I disagree with you on that front).

[Compassionist]

[Replying to William in post #200]

Argument from Silence vs Argument from Context

William, the issue is not a simplistic “no Roman document = false.”
The issue is proportional expectation given the scale of the claim.

We are not discussing a routine provincial execution. We are discussing:

• A public execution during Passover in Jerusalem
• Darkness over the land
• An earthquake
• Temple veil tearing
• Dead saints walking in the city
• A missing guarded tomb
• Rapid public proclamation of bodily resurrection in the same city

Those are not ordinary administrative footnotes. If even a fraction of those occurred as described, we would reasonably expect some independent corroboration.

This is not an argument from silence. It is an argument from contextual expectation.

1. Roman Record Survival Rates

It is true that survival rates of Roman records are low.

But this cuts both ways.

If survival rates are low, then:
• We cannot appeal to hypothetical lost records as support.
• Nor can we treat absence as neutral when the claimed events are extraordinary.

Crucifixions of obscure individuals are unsurprising and undocumented.
Mass supernatural phenomena in Jerusalem during a major festival are not.

You cannot collapse those categories into one.

2. “Obscure Galilean Preacher”

The “obscure preacher” framing conflicts with the Gospel narrative itself.

According to the sources:

• Crowds hailed him publicly.
• Temple disruption occurred.
• Authorities feared unrest.
• Pilate personally interrogated him.
• A Roman guard was posted at the tomb (per Matthew).
• A resurrection proclamation spread immediately in Jerusalem.

That is not administrative invisibility.

Either the Gospel accounts lie about the events or the events occurred as described, and therefore should have left wider traces.

You cannot simultaneously claim:
“He was too obscure for documentation”
and
“He caused public upheaval significant enough to justify resurrection belief in the same city.”

3. The Resurrection Would Not Be Documented

If it truly happened, then there is no good reason why it would not be documented.

They would also document:

• Earthquakes (they did record natural phenomena).
• Civil unrest.
• Public disturbances during Passover.
• Guard failure at a tomb (if that occurred).
• Crowd movements or sectarian agitation.

If a body vanished under guard and thousands began proclaiming resurrection within days, that is precisely the kind of disturbance Romans tracked in volatile provinces.

Judea was not a sleepy village. It was a known hotspot.

4. “No Early Contesting Sources”

This argument assumes we possess comprehensive Jewish and Roman counter-literature from the 30s CE.

We do not.

We possess:

• Later polemics (e.g., theft explanation)
• Christian texts
• Sparse external references decades later

Absence of early Jewish rebuttal literature is not evidence of concession. It is evidence of documentary scarcity.

You cannot treat missing rebuttals as tacit agreement.

5. Later Roman Suppression and Adoption

Later Roman reaction proves only this:

• Christianity became socially significant.
• Rome first perceived it as destabilizing, but in 380CE it declared Nicene Christianity the official religion, which:

1. Unified doctrine under imperial authority.

2. Delegitimized rival Christian factions and other religions.

3. Reduced religious fragmentation.

4. Strengthened central control.

5. Religion became a tool of state cohesion.

That trajectory says nothing about resurrection historicity.

Movements grow for many reasons:
• Charismatic leadership
• Apocalyptic expectation
• Martyr psychology
• Social cohesion
• Moral framework appeal

Adoption by Rome centuries later is not retroactive validation of miracle claims.

If state adoption proved miracle truth, we would have to validate multiple religions historically embraced by various empires.

6. What This Actually Shows

The absence of contemporary Roman documentation does not disprove resurrection.

Agreed.

But neither does it sit neutrally.

When a claim involves:
• Public miracles
• Mass resurrection
• Temple phenomena
• Guarded tomb breach
• Immediate city-level proclamation

The lack of independent contemporaneous corroboration lowers evidential confidence.

That is not “clutching at straws.”
It is applying proportional skepticism.

7. The Core Epistemic Principle

Extraordinary claims require stronger converging evidence than ordinary ones.

A crucifixion requires minimal documentation.
A cosmic-sign, bodily resurrection in the capital during Passover does not.

If the scale described in the Gospels occurred as written, the evidential footprint would plausibly be wider.

If the footprint is narrow and exclusively internal to the movement’s literature, that affects probability assessment.

That is not hostility to history.
It is consistency in historical reasoning.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to William in post #201]

I disagree. If Jesus truly had half his chromosomes from his human mother and half from the Holy Spirit, then it would look significantly different from getting half his chromosomes from a human father. It would definitely prove that he had an immaculate conception.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #202]

1. On M and L as Independent Attestations

Source critical scholars are the ones who came up with M and L to point out independent sources.

Yes, M and L are scholarly hypotheses used to explain material unique to Matthew and Luke. But calling something an “independent source” does not make it demonstrably independent in the evidential sense required for historical confirmation.

Three issues remain:

• M and L are hypothetical reconstructions, not extant documents.
• Their independence cannot be directly examined.
• Their dating remains decades after the alleged events.

That scholars posit M and L does not transform literary inference into verifiable eyewitness testimony. It is a model explaining textual relationships — not independent corroboration in the strong historical sense.

You assert independence. I am pointing out that this independence is inferred, not empirically demonstrated.

2. On Embarrassment “Living at All”

You simply repeated that embarrassment is short lived when my point was that the question is whether it lived at all.

The problem is not whether it “lived at all.” The problem is that the criterion of embarrassment assumes:

• That the author would not invent something awkward.
• That what is awkward to us was awkward to them.
• That the community did not reinterpret it positively.

For example, women discovering the empty tomb may appear embarrassing in a patriarchal society — but it can also serve powerful theological symbolism (reversal themes, divine elevation of the lowly, etc.).

So embarrassment is not a neutral historical tool. It requires interpretive assumptions about authorial psychology and community values decades after the fact.

The burden is not merely whether the tradition existed — but whether embarrassment reliably distinguishes history from literary theology. That has not been established.

3. On Roman Records and the “Lose-Lose Principle”

If Roman records spoke of Jesus resurrecting, you’d then say it’s just more internal community literature. It’s a lose-lose principle.

No. That misrepresents my position.

If we had:

• A hostile Roman source confirming all of the extraordinary events
• Written close to the time
• Acknowledging an empty tomb
• Without theological motive

That would significantly strengthen the historical case.

The issue is not “Roman vs Christian.”
The issue is independence, proximity, and adversarial corroboration.

Right now, we have:

• Decades-later Christian theological texts
• Written by believers
• With clear theological aims

That is not a “lose-lose principle.” It is a consistent evidential standard.

4. On God and Modes of Communication

God not using the ‘stars of the night sky’ ... is irrelevant.

It is relevant if one is claiming that God intended to provide clear historical evidence for all humanity.

If:

• The event determines eternal destiny
• The claim is globally binding
• The consequences are infinite

Then it is reasonable to ask why the evidence is:

• Geographically limited
• Textually late
• Theologically embedded
• Culturally localized

That is not irrelevant. That is a proportionality question.

5. On Extraordinary Evidence

I’m fine with that definition of extraordinary evidence. Your example points to you really meaning something more.

No — I mean exactly what the definition states.

A bodily resurrection after public execution is not an ordinary historical claim. It contradicts universal biological regularity, i.e. the dead remain dead and are not resurrected. We are not discussing a routine provincial execution. We are discussing:

• A public execution during Passover in Jerusalem
• Darkness over the land
• An earthquake
• Temple veil tearing
• Dead saints walking in the city
• A missing guarded tomb
• Rapid public proclamation of bodily resurrection in the same city

Those are not ordinary administrative footnotes. If even a fraction of those occurred as described, we would reasonably expect some independent corroboration. We do not have that.

What we have is a sincere belief reported decades later.

Sincere belief is common across religions. It is not extraordinary evidence.

6. On Hell and Logical Isolation

Hell could exist or not exist and that wouldn’t change anything about the historicity of those supposed miracles.

Logically, yes — events can be isolated.

Epistemically, no — worldview coherence matters.

If a theological system includes:

• Eternal conscious torment
• A global flood
• Six-day creation
• Virgin birth
• Resurrection

Then evaluating credibility involves examining the pattern of miracle claims within the same theological framework.

If multiple foundational claims within that framework are historically or scientifically implausible, that affects the prior probability of additional miracle claims from the same system.

This is not logical entanglement.
It is Bayesian reasoning about background plausibility.

Summary

• M and L are hypothetical literary reconstructions, not directly verifiable independent eyewitnesses.
• The criterion of embarrassment is interpretively unstable.
• Asking for independent corroboration is not a lose-lose standard.
• The mode of divine communication is relevant if universal belief is expected.
• Resurrection is an extraordinary claim and requires proportionally strong evidence.
• Worldview coherence affects prior probability assessments.

Nothing in your reply neutralizes these epistemic concerns.

The issue is not hostility toward the claim.

The issue is proportional evidence for a biologically unprecedented event.

And that standard remains unmet.

[William]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #203]

C's reply is well-constructed but contains several vulnerabilities:

1. She conflates Gospel details with established historical facts.

Darkness, earthquake, veil tearing, resurrected saints—these are not independently corroborated events. They are claims within the texts whose historicity is precisely what's under dispute. To treat them as fixed data from which expectations about Roman records should flow is circular.

The core historical question is: what probably happened? Not: if everything in the Gospels happened exactly as written, where's the Roman record?

2. The "disturbance threshold" argument cuts the other way.

If a guarded tomb was breached and thousands proclaimed resurrection immediately, Romans would have responded—but the response would be localized, not necessarily documentation sent to Rome. We have no record of Pilate's career after 36 CE. He could have been quietly removed; we don't know. The absence of a document doesn't mean absence of action.

3. Earthquakes were recorded—but only when notable enough.

A local tremor in Jerusalem during Passover might not register in surviving records. We lack systematic seismic catalogs from 1st-century Judea. And if it occurred during the events described, Romans would attribute it to natural causes anyway, not theological significance.

4. Her "extraordinary evidence" principle is reasonable in the abstract—but applied inconsistently.

She demands contemporaneous non-Christian corroboration for details that even Christian sources place after the fact. The resurrection itself wasn't a publicly observed event; it was discovered by followers. So what exactly would a Roman document say? "Today, some followers claimed their executed leader is alive"? That's not corroboration; it's hearsay.

5. The later Roman adoption point was never about "proof"—it was about historical significance.

She's right that adoption doesn't validate miracles. But it does show the movement's staying power was extraordinary—which itself demands explanation. Most messianic movements died with their leaders.

Her skepticism is coherent. But the expectation of Roman documentation for theological events misunderstands what Romans documented and why.

If the events happened as described:

Immediate aftermath: We'd expect local disturbance, official concern, probably some Roman action (which may have occurred but left no documentary trace). We'd expect the empty tomb to be publicly known and disputed—which it was, with the theft explanation circulating.

First decades: We'd expect rapid growth in Jerusalem—which happened. We'd expect opposition from religious authorities—which happened. We'd expect the message to spread—which happened.

First century: We'd expect some mention in non-Christian sources once the movement became visible enough to notice. By the 90s-110s, we have Tacitus, Josephus (however interpolated), Pliny—all noting Christians, their origins, their founder executed under Pilate.

So we do have something beyond internal texts: early non-Christian acknowledgment of the movement's origins, with no alternative explanation for the empty tomb offered except theft. No one claimed the body was still there.

Is that "extraordinary evidence"? No. But it's consistent with the events generating the kind of footprint one might expect.
__________________________
But lets say - IF these asked for evidences DID existence, , would it change one's mind about ALL the biblical events mentioned in the OP, or one's truth claim that "The self is not an entity i.e. a soul that exists independent of the brain." or one's experience of an NDE at age 4, or one's idea that if there was a creator of this universe, then it (He biblically speaking) must be evil?

[William]

[Replying to William in post #201]

"Extraordinary evidence would be something like a hair follicle containing divine DNA." But that just shifts the problem- now we need a way to identify DNA as "divine" versus merely unknown or anomalous. There's no empirical test for "divinity." It's a metaphysical category, not a scientific one.

So the definition smuggles in a standard that can't be met even in principle by any observable evidence. That makes it unfalsifiable in practice - not because the claim is true, but because the evidence bar is set outside the realm of possible experience.

That's not skepticism; it's a rhetorical shield.

I disagree. If Jesus truly had half his chromosomes from his human mother and half from the Holy Spirit, then it would look significantly different from getting half his chromosomes from a human father. It would definitely prove that he had an immaculate conception.

It's a complaint about the kind of evidence history leaves—not about the specific case. Christianity doesn't claim "we have Jesus's hair." It claims events happened in the 1st century, accessible through standard historical methods: testimony, manuscripts, early sources, archaeological context, explanatory power.

Demanding physical samples from a first-century peasant is like demanding security footage of the Battle of Hastings. It's not a failure of the claim; it's a mismatch between the kind of event and the kind of evidence anachronistically demanded.

If C wants to reject all historical claims not accompanied by laboratory-ready physical samples, she's free to—but then she must reject most of ancient history, not just the resurrection. The selectivity reveals the bias.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to William in post #206]

William, thank you for the structured critique. I’ll address each point carefully.

1. “Conflation” and Circularity

You argue that I treated Gospel details (darkness, earthquake, veil tearing, resurrected saints) as established historical facts and then demanded Roman documentation.

That misrepresents my argument.

I did not assume those events happened. I examined the internal narrative and asked:

If events of that magnitude occurred publicly, what external footprint would we expect?

That is not circular. It is a consistency test.

If the texts describe:
• Darkness over the land
• Earthquake splitting rocks
• Dead saints appearing publicly
• A guarded tomb breached

— then those are not private mystical experiences. They are public physical events. Public physical events leave traces in independent records more often than purely internal religious claims. Why didn't the Roman officials record these public events if they truly took place as claimed in the Bible?

The historical question is indeed “what probably happened?”
But probability assessments must consider expected evidence patterns.

If the described magnitude produces no corresponding footprint outside the movement, that lowers probability. That is not circular — it is Bayesian reasoning.

2. The “Disturbance Threshold” Argument

You suggest Roman response may have occurred but left no documentary trace.

That is logically possible. But possibility is not probability.

We have documentation of:
• Minor provincial unrest
• Executions
• Administrative disputes

Yet for an event described as involving:
• A guarded tomb
• Immediate proclamation in Jerusalem
• Claims of resurrection within walking distance of the execution site

— there is no contemporaneous Roman or Jewish administrative mention.

Appealing to unknown lost documents is always available as a move, but it cannot increase evidential strength. It only preserves logical possibility.

When we would reasonably expect some official records of the alleged events, sustained silence becomes evidentially relevant.

3. Earthquakes and Seismic Records

You argue a local tremor might not be recorded.

That’s correct — a small tremor might not.

But Matthew does not describe a mild tremor. He describes:
• Rocks splitting
• Tombs opening
• Dead people walking into the city

That is not a subtle seismic footnote.

If such events occurred in Jerusalem during Passover — one of the most politically sensitive times of the year — it would not simply be categorized as routine geological activity without mention.

4. Extraordinary Evidence and Consistency

You say I apply the principle inconsistently.

Let’s clarify.

I do not demand “contemporaneous Roman confirmation of the resurrection itself.”

The resurrection, if it occurred, would not be directly observed by Romans.

What I examine instead are the publicly observable consequences:

• Darkness over the land
• Earthquake splitting rocks
• Dead saints appearing publicly
• A guarded tomb breached
• Guards (if historical)
• Public preaching in Jerusalem
• Alleged mass awareness

If thousands publicly proclaimed resurrection within days in the same city where Jesus was executed, and if authorities had motive to suppress false claims, we would expect some recorded reaction.

A Roman document saying:
“Followers claim their executed leader is alive”

would not prove resurrection.

But it would confirm:
• The timing
• The public disturbance
• The scope

That kind of corroboration matters historically.

5. Later Roman Adoption and Movement Survival

You argue that the movement’s staying power demands explanation.

Agreed.

But survival does not validate founding miracles.

Islam expanded rapidly.
Mormonism expanded rapidly.
Buddhism endured millennia.
Hinduism is the longest surviving religion on Earth.
Cargo cults formed after charismatic leaders died.

Movements survive for sociological reasons:
• Charismatic leadership
• Apocalyptic expectation
• Group cohesion
• Persecution strengthening identity
• Conversion networks

Survival shows sociological potency, not supernatural validation.

6. Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny

Yes — we have:

• Tacitus (early 2nd century) confirming execution under Pilate, but he did not witness the miracles of Jesus, the crucifixion or resurrection.
• Josephus (with disputed interpolations) mentioning Jesus, but he did not witness the miracles of Jesus, the crucifixion or resurrection.
• Pliny describing Christian worship, but he did not witness the miracles of Jesus, the crucifixion or resurrection.

These confirm:
• Christians existed
• They worshipped Christ
• They believed he was executed and resurrected

They do not confirm:
• Empty tomb
• Resurrection
• Guard narrative
• Earthquakes
• Saints walking

They confirm belief, not miracle.

That distinction is crucial.

7. The “If Evidence Existed” Question

You ask:

If the requested evidence existed, would it change my mind about:
• All biblical events?
• The non-existence of a soul?
• My NDE?
• My moral critique of a creator?

No — because these are separate domains.

Historical verification of a resurrection claim would affect:
→ Historical assessment of that event.

It would not automatically validate:
→ Six-day creation
→ Global flood
→ Eternal hell
→ Dualistic soul metaphysics

Each claim stands or falls on its own evidential footing.

Likewise, neuroscience evidence for brain-dependent selfhood stands independent of first-century historical claims.

And moral evaluation of a creator (if one exists) is a philosophical issue separate from whether a miracle occurred.

Truth claims are modular.

Conceding one does not entail conceding all.

Conclusion

My position is:

“When events are described as large-scale public physical phenomena, the lack of independent corroboration lowers their historical probability.”

That is not hostility.
It is methodological consistency.

And if stronger evidence existed, I would revise accordingly.

But revision in one domain does not collapse all other philosophical positions.

That is epistemic discipline — not inconsistency.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to William in post #207]

William, your analogy and critique miss a crucial distinction.

1. This Is Not About “Laboratory Standards for All History”

You say demanding physical samples is like demanding CCTV footage of the Battle of Hastings.

That analogy fails.

The Battle of Hastings was:
• A conventional military conflict
• A natural historical event
• Not a claim about supernatural biology

By contrast, Christianity claims:

• A virgin conception
• God incarnate
• Resurrection of the dead

These are not ordinary historical claims. They are biologically and metaphysically extraordinary claims.

Extraordinary ontological claims require stronger evidence than ordinary warfare.

That is not bias.
That is proportional epistemology.

2. The DNA Point Is Not “Unfalsifiable”

You argue that “divine DNA” cannot be empirically identified.

But that misunderstands the argument.

The Christian claim is specific:
• Jesus had no human father.
• He was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

If that were literally true, then biologically:

He would not possess a standard paternal human chromosome set.

DNA analysis would reveal:
• A non-human paternal contribution from God
• Or at least a radically anomalous genomic structure never seen before

We don’t need a “divinity detector.”
We would be able to detect the biological anomaly.

That is testable in principle.

So no, the standard is not metaphysical.
It is biological.

3. The Crucial Theological Problem

Now here is the part your response ignores:

If God is:
• All-knowing
• All-powerful
• All-loving

Then God would know that:

• Humans would develop DNA analysis.
• Future generations would doubt ancient testimony.
• Billions of people would suffer eternal torture in hell (according to Christian doctrine) for disbelief.

An all-knowing God would foresee evidential ambiguity.

An all-powerful God could easily ensure preservation of physical evidence.

An all-loving God would want maximal clarity for salvation.

For example:

God could have inspired followers to:
• Preserve hair samples.
• Preserve bone fragments.
• Preserve blood relics in sealed containers.
• Provide instructions to safeguard biological material for future verification.

Instead, we have:
• Texts written decades later.
• No biological samples.
• No contemporaneous Roman documentation.
• No unambiguous public physical evidence.

That is not a mere “historical limitation.”

That is a theological inconsistency.

4. The Hastings Analogy Still Fails

If someone claimed:

“King Harold was conceived by a supernatural being and rose from the dead after Hastings” — then yes, we would demand extraordinary evidence.

We do not demand lab samples for ordinary battles.

We do demand proportionally strong evidence for supernatural biological events.

That is not rejecting ancient history.
It is distinguishing between ordinary and miraculous claims.

5. The Selectivity Accusation Backfires

You say rejecting miracle claims while accepting other ancient history is selective.

It is not.

We accept:
• Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
• Pilate governed Judea.
• Executions occurred.

Because those claims fit within ordinary human experience and require no suspension of known biological laws.

We question:
• Virgin conception.
• Resurrection.
• Earthquakes opening tombs and saints walking.

Because these violate established biological and physical regularities.

That is not selective skepticism.
It is calibrated skepticism.

6. The Deeper Issue

If Christianity were true in the strong supernatural sense it claims, then:

God intentionally chose
• Ambiguous evidence,
• Testimonial dependence,
• Cultural limitation,
• And epistemic uncertainty

— instead of leaving clear, future-verifiable biological confirmation.

That is not a failure of historians.

It is a problem for classical theism.

Either:

1. God is not all-knowing (didn’t foresee evidential standards),
2. Or not all-powerful (couldn’t preserve evidence),
3. Or not all-loving (chose not to provide clarity),
4. Or the events did not occur as described.

Those are the logical possibilities.

Conclusion

This is not about demanding CCTV from antiquity.

It is about proportional evidence for supernatural biological claims — especially when eternal consequences are allegedly at stake.

If an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity truly acted in history, the evidential footprint would not be this fragile.

That is not rhetorical shielding.

It is consistency. I am 100% certain that the extraordinary claims in the Bible are false because of all the scientific errors and self-contradictions in the Bible. Please see: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/categories.html

[William]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #208]

C's reply is thoughtful and disciplined. A few observations:

On point 1 (circularity): She clarifies she's not assuming the events happened but running a consistency test: if the texts describe X, would we expect Y? That's fair methodologically. The vulnerability is that the "if" matters enormously—her list of events includes items (darkness, saints walking) that even within the texts are not presented as publicly attested by neutral observers. Matthew's saints appear only to "many" (no specification), and no non-Christian source ever mentions walking dead in Jerusalem. So the "if" is already heavier than she acknowledges.

On point 2 (disturbance threshold): She's right that possibility ≠ probability. But she underestimates how little provincial documentation survives. We don't have Pilate's annual reports, no Jerusalem garrison logs, no local census records from 30s CE. The absence is not silence from extant records—it's absence of the records themselves.

On point 4 (extraordinary evidence): Her clarification is helpful—she doesn't demand Romans witness resurrection, just observable correlates. But then her examples (darkness, earthquake, walking saints) are precisely the items least corroborated even internally. This exposes the circularity again: she's testing the texts against expectations generated by the texts' most maximalist claims.

On point 6 (Tacitus etc.): She's correct these confirm belief, not events. But for a 1st-century movement, that's exactly the footprint we'd expect: outsiders first notice the movement, then later note its origins. Direct confirmation of miracles is almost never available for ancient events.

On point 7 (modularity): Her epistemic discipline is commendable. She's consistent.

The core disagreement remains: she expects public supernatural phenomena to generate unmistakable documentary traces. But ancient documentation was sporadic, bureaucratic, and rarely concerned with verifying religious claims. Her expectation may be reasonable in principle but anachronistic in practice.