Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury: What is your verdict?

[Nick Hallandale]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury.
I want you to consider the eyewitness testimony and decide if Jesus of Nazareth arose from the dead, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Concerning the supposedly resurrected Jesus consider the following scriptures.

Luke 24:16 NAS
"""But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him."""

Luke 24:37 KJV
""But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.""

Matthew 28:17 KJV
And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

John 20:14 KJV
""And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.""

John 21:4 KJV
""But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.""

After his supposed resurrection, Jesus only showed himself to his own followers according to the Bible. You would expect that his followers would be able to recognize him after his resurrection. But look again at the scriptures you just read. Jesus own followers didn't recognize him.
Pay special attention to the following...Matthew 28:16-17 KJV
16Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
17And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

""" eleven disciples """ """but some doubted"""
After spending years traveling, eating, sleeping, talking, etc with Jesus, some of his closest disciples were doubtful that this was him.

Perhaps they were deceived by an imposter and Jesus was dead? After all nobody actually saw him rise from the dead.

Perhaps one of Jesus' brothers were taking his place to keep Jesus' ministry alive?

In a court room an identification requires 100% accuracy.
As a juror would you accept the identification of the supposedly resurrected Jesus beyond a reasonable doubt?

[Nick Hallandale]

It is a fascinating study. Certainly no stone left unturned.

Here is a bit of it:

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/ ... idence.htm

the failure of Christ's enemies to produce his corpse, the empty tomb,

Let's take a look at the Bible and learn more about that empty tomb.

Jesus is buried.....Matthew 27:57-61KJV
57When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple:

58He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

59And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

60And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

61And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.

So what happened the NEXT DAY?......Matthew 27:62-66
62Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

63Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.

64Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.

65Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.

66So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

As you can see if you are reading along carefully, Jesus was placed in the tomb. Joseph of Arimathaea rolled the stone over the door of the tomb all by himself, and then left. On the next day, the Jews requested a guard on the tomb, and the tomb was sealed. FOR ONE WHOLE NIGHT THE TOMB WAS UNGUARDED AND NOT SEALED. It would have been easy for just one man to remove Jesus' body and set the stone back in place by himself.
Or perhaps it only took two women to remove the body and set the stone
61And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.Matthew 27:61

An empty tomb is only evidence that the body was removed. That's all

[Nick Hallandale]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury.
The facts are very clear in this case.
The followers of Jesus were doubtful that the man they saw was a resurrected Jesus.

Concerning the supposedly resurrected Jesus consider the following scriptures.

Luke 24:16 NAS
"""But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him."""

Luke 24:37 KJV
""But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.""

Matthew 28:17 KJV
And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

John 20:14 KJV
""And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.""

John 21:4 KJV
""But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.""

After his supposed resurrection, Jesus only showed himself to his own followers according to the Bible. You would expect that his followers would be able to recognize him after his resurrection. But look again at the scriptures you just read. Jesus own followers didn't recognize him.
Pay special attention to the following...Matthew 28:16-17 KJV
16Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
17And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

""" eleven disciples """ """but some doubted"""
After spending years traveling, eating, sleeping, talking, etc with Jesus, some of his closest disciples were doubtful that this was him.

Perhaps they were deceived by an imposter and Jesus was dead? After all nobody actually saw him rise from the dead.

Perhaps one of Jesus' brothers were taking his place to keep Jesus' ministry alive?

In a court room an identification requires 100% accuracy.
As a juror would you accept the identification of the supposedly resurrected Jesus beyond a reasonable doubt?

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury
The Christians are attempting to refute the facts by literally burying you in thousands of words of worthless arguments, which appear below. Try and read through their words. I think that you will be satisfied that they are trying to deceive you by offering QUANTITY rather than QUALITY.
You will be forgiven if you fall asleep and need to be revived.

Quote:
No alternative to a real resurrection has yet explained: the existence of the Gospels, the origin of the Christian faith, the failure of Christ's enemies to produce his corpse, the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances. Swoon, conspiracy, hallucination and myth have been shown to be the only alternatives to a real resurrection, and each has been refuted.

What reasons could be given at this point for anyone who still would refuse to believe? At this point, general rather than specific objections are usually given. For instance:

Objection 1: History is not an exact science. It does not yield absolute certainty like mathematics.

Reply: This is true, but why would you note that fact now and not when you speak of Caesar or Luther or George Washington? History is not exact, but it is sufficient. No one doubts that Caesar crossed the Rubicon; why do many doubt that Jesus rose from the dead? The evidence for the latter is much better than for the former.

Objection 2: You can't trust documents. Paper proves nothing. Anything can be forged.

Reply: This is simply ignorance. Not trusting documents is like not trusting telescopes. Paper evidence suffices for most of what we believe; why should it suddenly become suspect here?

Objection 3: Because the resurrection is miraculous. It's the content of the idea rather than the documentary evidence for it that makes it incredible.

Reply: Now we finally have a straightforward objection—not to the documentary evidence but to miracles. This is a philosophical question, not a scientific, historical or textual question. (See chapter five in this book for an answer).

Objection 4: It's not only miracles in general but this miracle in particular that is objectionable. The resurrection of a corpse is crass, crude, vulgar, literalistic and materialistic. Religion should be more spiritual, inward, ethical.

Reply: If religion is what we invent, we can make it whatever we like. If it is what God invented, then we have to take it as we find it, just as we have to take the universe as we find it, rather than as we'd like it to be. Death is crass, crude, vulgar, literal and material. The resurrection meets death where it is and conquers it, rather than merely spouting some harmless, vaporous abstractions about spirituality. The resurrection is as vulgar as the God who did it. He also made mud and bugs and toenails.

Objection 5: But a literalistic interpretation of the resurrection ignores the profound dimensions of meaning found in the symbolic, spiritual and mythic realms that have been deeply explored by other religions. Why are Christians so narrow and exclusive? Why can't they see the profound symbolism in the idea of resurrection?

Reply: They can. It's not either-or. Christianity does not invalidate the myths, it validates them, by incarnating them. It is "myth become fact," to use the title of a germane essay by C.S. Lewis (in God in the Dock). Why prefer a one-layer cake to a two-layer cake? Why refuse either the literal-historical or the mythic-symbolic aspects of the resurrection? The Fundamentalist refuses the mythic-symbolic aspects because he has seen what the Modernist has done with it: used it to exclude the literal-historical aspects. Why have the Modernists done that? What terrible fate awaits them if they follow the multifarious and weighty evidence and argument that naturally emerges from the data, as we have summarized it here in this chapter?

The answer is not obscure: traditional Christianity awaits them, complete with adoration of Christ as God, obedience to Christ as Lord, dependence on Christ as Savior, humble confession of sin and a serious effort to live Christ's life of self-sacrifice, detachment from the world, righteousness, holiness and purity of thought, word and deed. The historical evidence is massive enough to convince the open-minded inquirer. By analogy with any other historical event, the resurrection has eminently credible evidence behind it. To disbelieve it, you must deliberately make an exception to the rules you use everywhere else in history. Now why would someone want to do that?

Ask yourself that question if you dare, and take an honest look into your heart before you answer.



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From the Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli, SJ (Intervarsity Press, 1994)

Sources for Further Study:

Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison (1930)
The Son Rises (Moody Press, 1981)Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection (Servant Books, 1988) Apologetics: An Introduction (Moody Press, 1984) all three by William Lane Craig
The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Baker Books, 1980)Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (Harper and Row, 1987) both by Gary Habermas (latter with atheist Antony Flew)
Christian Apologetics (Baker Books, 1976) by Norman Geisler
Easter Enigma (Academie Books, 1984) by John Wenham (on the consistency of the Gospel narratives)
The Resurrection Report (Broadman and Holman, 1998) by William Proctor (journalist)
Quote:
Evidence for the Resurrection of Christ
More Featured Writing
The Strategy: Five Possible Theories
We believe Christ's resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies: The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.

The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?

There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.

1 Jesus died Jesus rose Christianity
2 Jesus died Jesus didn't rise—apostles deceived Hallucination
3 Jesus died Jesus didn't rise—apostles myth-makers Myth
4 Jesus died Jesus didn't rise—apostles deceivers Conspiracy
5 Jesus didn't die Swoon

Theories 2 and 4 constitute a dilemma: if Jesus didn't rise, then the apostles, who taught that he did, were either deceived (if they thought he did) or deceivers (if they knew he didn't). The Modernists could not escape this dilemma until they came up with a middle category, myth. It is the most popular alternative today.

Thus either (1) the resurrection really happened, (2) the apostles were deceived by a hallucination, (3) the apostles created a myth, not meaning it literally, (4) the apostles were deceivers who conspired to foist on the world the most famous and successful lie in history, or (5) Jesus only swooned and was resuscitated, not resurrected. All five theories are logically possible, and therefore must be fairly investigated—even (1) ! They are also the only possibilities, unless we include really far-out ideas that responsible historians have never taken seriously, such as that Jesus was really a Martian who came in a flying saucer. Or that he never even existed; that the whole story was the world's greatest fantasy novel, written by some simple fisherman; that he was a literary character whom everyone in history mistook for a real person, including all Christians and their enemies, until some scholar many centuries later got the real scoop from sources unnamed.

If we can refute all other theories (2-5), we will have proved the truth of the resurrection (1). The form of the argument here is similar to that of most of the arguments for the existence of God. Neither God nor the resurrection are directly observable, but from data that are directly observable we can argue that the only possible adequate explanation of this data is the Christian one.

We shall take the four non-believing theories in the following order: from the simplest, least popular and most easily refuted to the most confusing, most popular and most complexly refuted: first swoon, then conspiracy, then hallucination and finally myth.


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Refutation of the Swoon Theory: Nine Arguments

Nine pieces of evidence refute the swoon theory:

(1) Jesus could not have survived crucifixion. Roman procedures were very careful to eliminate that possibility. Roman law even laid the death penalty on any soldier who let a capital prisoner escape in any way, including bungling a crucifixion. It was never done.

(2) The fact that the Roman soldier did not break Jesus' legs, as he did to the other two crucified criminals (Jn 19:31-33), means that the soldier was sure Jesus was dead. Breaking the legs hastened the death so that the corpse could be taken down before the sabbath (v. 31).

(3) John, an eyewitness, certified that he saw blood and water come from Jesus' pierced heart (Jn 19:34-35). This shows that Jesus' lungs had collapsed and he had died of asphyxiation. Any medical expert can vouch for this.

(4) The body was totally encased in winding sheets and entombed (Jn 19:38-42).

(5) The post-resurrection appearances convinced the disciples, even "doubting Thomas," that Jesus was gloriously alive (Jn 20:19-29). It is psychologically impossible for the disciples to have been so transformed and confident if Jesus had merely struggled out of a swoon, badly in need of a doctor. A half-dead, staggering sick man who has just had a narrow escape is not worshiped fearlessly as divine lord and conquerer of death.

(6) How were the Roman guards at the tomb overpowered by a swooning corpse? Or by unarmed disciples? And if the disciples did it, they knowingly lied when they wrote the Gospels, and we are into the conspiracy theory, which we will refute shortly.

(7) How could a swooning half-dead man have moved the great stone at the door of the tomb? Who moved the stone if not an angel? No one has ever answered that question. Neither the Jews nor the Romans would move it, for it was in both their interests to keep the tomb sealed, the Jews had the stone put there in the first place, and the Roman guards would be killed if they let the body "escape."

The story the Jewish authorities spread, that the guards fell asleep and the disciples stole the body (Mt 28:11-15), is unbelievable. Roman guards would not fall asleep on a job like that; if they did, they would lose their lives. And even if they did fall asleep, the crowd and the effort and the noise it would have taken to move an enormous boulder would have wakened them. Furthermore, we are again into the conspiracy theory, with all its unanswerable difficulties (see next section).

( If Jesus awoke from a swoon, where did he go? Think this through: you have a living body to deal with now, not a dead one. Why did it disappear? There is absolutely no data, not even any false, fantastic, imagined data, about Jesus' life after his crucifixion, in any sources, friend or foe, at any time, early or late. A man like that, with a past like that, would have left traces.

(9) Most simply, the swoon theory necessarily turns into the conspiracy theory or the hallucination theory, for the disciples testified that Jesus did not swoon but really died and really rose.

It may seem that these nine arguments have violated our initial principle about not presupposing the truth of the Gospel texts, since we have argued from data in the texts. But the swoon theory does not challenge the truths in the texts which we refer to as data; it uses them and explains them (by swoon rather than resurrection). Thus we use them too. We argue from our opponents' own premises.

Refutation of the Conspiracy Theory: Seven Arguments
Why couldn't the disciples have made up the whole story?

(1) Blaise Pascal gives a simple, psychologically sound proof for why this is unthinkable:

The apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition is difficult, for it is not possible to imagine that a man has risen from the dead. While Jesus was with them, he could sustain them; but afterwards, if he did not appear to them, who did make them act? The hypothesis that the Apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end, and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus' death and conspiring to say that he has risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out. (Pascal, Pensees 322, 310)

The "cruncher" in this argument is the historical fact that no one, weak or strong, saint or sinner, Christian or heretic, ever confessed, freely or under pressure, bribe or even torture, that the whole story of the resurrection was a fake a lie, a deliberate deception. Even when people broke under torture, denied Christ and worshiped Caesar, they never let that cat out of the bag, never revealed that the resurrection was their conspiracy. For that cat was never in that bag. No Christians believed the resurrection was a conspiracy; if they had, they wouldn't have become Christians.

(2) If they made up the story, they were the most creative, clever, intelligent fantasists in history, far surpassing Shakespeare, or Dante or Tolkien. Fisherman's "fish stories" are never that elaborate, that convincing, that life-changing, and that enduring.

(3) The disciples' character argues strongly against such a conspiracy on the part of all of them, with no dissenters. They were simple, honest, common peasants, not cunning, conniving liars. They weren't even lawyers! Their sincerity is proved by their words and deeds. They preached a resurrected Christ and they lived a resurrected Christ. They willingly died for their "conspiracy." Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom. They change in their lives from fear to faith, despair to confidence, confusion to certitude, runaway cowardice to steadfast boldness under threat and persecution, not only proves their sincerity but testifies to some powerful cause of it. Can a lie cause such a transformation? Are truth and goodness such enemies that the greatest good in history—sanctity—has come from the greatest lie?

Use your imagination and sense of perspective here. Imagine twelve poor, fearful, stupid (read the Gospels!) peasants changing the hard-nosed Roman world with a lie. And not an easily digested, attractive lie either. St. Thomas Aquinas says:

In the midst of the tyranny of the persecutors, an innumerable throng of people, both simple and learned, flocked to the Christian faith. In this faith there are truths proclaimed that surpass every human intellect; the pleasures of the flesh are curbed; it is taught that the things of the world should be spurned. Now, for the minds of mortal men to assent to these things is the greatest of miracles....This wonderful conversion of the world to the Christian faith is the clearest witness....For it would be truly more wonderful than all signs if the world had been led by simply and humble men to believe such lofty truths, to accomplish such difficult actions, and to have such high hopes. (Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6)

(4) There could be no possible motive for such a lie. Lies are always told for some selfish advantage. What advantage did the "conspirators" derive from their "lie" ? They were hated, scorned, persecuted, excommunicated, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, crucified, boiled alive, roasted, beheaded, disemboweled and fed to lions—hardly a catalog of perks!

(5) If the resurrection was a lie, the Jews would have produced the corpse and nipped this feared superstition in the bud. All they had to do was go to the tomb and get it. The Roman soldiers and their leaders were on their side, not the Christians'. And if the Jews couldn't get the body because the disciples stole it, how did they do that? The arguments against the swoon theory hold here too: unarmed peasants could not have overpowered Roman soldiers or rolled away a great stone while they slept on duty.

(6) The disciples could not have gotten away with proclaiming the resurrection in Jerusalem-same time, same place, full of eyewitnesses—if it had been a lie. William Lane Craig says,

The Gospels were written in such a temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events....The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection (and been believed) under such circumstances had it not occurred. (Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection, chapter 6)

(7) If there had been a conspiracy, it would certainly have been unearthed by the disciples' adversaries, who had both the interest and the power to expose any fraud. Common experience shows that such intrigues are inevitably exposed (Craig, ibid).

In conclusion, if the resurrection was a concocted, conspired lie, it violates all known historical and psychological laws of lying. It is, then, as unscientific, as unrepeatable, unique and untestable as the resurrection itself. But unlike the resurrection, it is also contradicted by things we do know (the above points).

Refutation of the Hallucination Theory: Thirteen Arguments
If you thought you saw a dead man walking and talking, wouldn't you think it more likely that you were hallucinating than that you were seeing correctly? Why then not think the same thing about Christ's resurrection?

(1) There were too many witnesses. Hallucinations are private, individual, subjective. Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples minus Thomas, to the disciples including Thomas, to the two disciples at Emmaus, to the fisherman on the shore, to James (his "brother" or cousin), and even to five hundred people at once (1 Cor 15:3-. Even three different witnesses are enough for a kind of psychological trigonometry; over five hundred is about as public as you can wish. And Paul says in this passage (v. 6) that most of the five hundred are still alive, inviting any reader to check the truth of the story by questioning the eyewitnesses—he could never have done this and gotten away with it, given the power, resources and numbers of his enemies, if it were not true.

(2) The witnesses were qualified. They were simple, honest, moral people who had firsthand knowledge of the facts.

(3) The five hundred saw Christ together, at the same time and place. This is even more remarkable than five hundred private "hallucinations" at different times and places of the same Jesus. Five hundred separate Elvis sightings may be dismissed, but if five hundred simple fishermen in Maine saw, touched and talked with him at once, in the same town, that would be a different matter. (The only other dead person we know of who is reported to have appeared to hundreds of qualified and skeptical eyewitnesses at once is Mary the mother of Jesus [at Fatima, to 70,000]. And that was not a claim of physical resurrection but of a vision.)

(4) Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. This one hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3).

(5) Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane. This one returned many times, to ordinary people (Jn 20:19-21:14; Acts 1:3).

(6) Hallucinations come from within, from what we already know, at least unconsciously. This one said and did surprising and unexpected things (Acts 1:4,9)—like a real person and unlike a dream.

(7) Not only did the disciples not expect this, they didn't even believe it at first—neither Peter, nor the women, nor Thomas, nor the eleven. They thought he was a ghost; he had to eat something to prove he was not (Lk 24:36-43).

( Hallucinations do not eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14).

(9) The disciples touched him (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27).

(10) They also spoke with him, and he spoke back. Figments of your imagination do not hold profound, extended conversations with you, unless you have the kind of mental disorder that isolates you. But this "hallucination" conversed with at least eleven people at once, for forty days (Acts 1:3).

(11) The apostles could not have believed in the "hallucination" if Jesus' corpse had still been in the tomb. This is very simple and telling point; for if it was a hallucination, where was the corpse? They would have checked for it; if it was there, they could not have believed.

(12) If the apostles had hallucinated and then spread their hallucinogenic story, the Jews would have stopped it by producing the body—unless the disciples had stolen it, in which case we are back with the conspiracy theory and all its difficulties.

(13) A hallucination would explain only the post-resurrection appearances; it would not explain the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the inability to produce the corpse. No theory can explain all these data except a real resurrection. C.S. Lewis says,

Any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention [rather than fact], it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Lk 24:13-31; Jn 20:15; 21:4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely believed without it, and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at least hope that he would get the face of the hallucination right? Is he who made all faces such a bungler that he cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was himself? (Miracles, chapter 16)

Some of these arguments are as old as the Church Fathers. Most go back to the eighteenth century, especially William Paley. How do unbelievers try to answer them? Today, few even try to meet these arguments, although occasionally someone tries to refurbish one of the three theories of swoon, conspiracy or hallucination (e.g. Schonfield's conspiratorial The Passover Plot). But the counter-attack today most often takes one of the two following forms.

Some dismiss the resurrection simply because it is miraculous, thus throwing the whole issue back to whether miracles are possible. They argue, as Hume did, that any other explanation is always more probable than a miracle. For a refutation of these arguments, see our chapter on miracles (chapter 5).
The other form of counter-attack, by far the most popular, is to try to escape the traditional dilemma of "deceivers" (conspirators) or "deceived" (hallucinators) by interpreting the Gospels as myth—neither literally true nor literally false, but spiritually or symbolically true. This is the standard line of liberal theology departments in colleges, universities and seminaries throughout the Western world today.
Refutation of the Myth Theory: Six Arguments
(1) The style of the Gospels is radically and clearly different from the style of all the myths. Any literary scholar who knows and appreciates myths can verify this. There are no overblown, spectacular, childishly exaggerated events. Nothing is arbitrary. Everything fits in. Everything is meaningful. The hand of a master is at work here.

Psychological depth is at a maximum. In myth it is at a minimum. In myth, such spectacular external events happen that it would be distracting to add much internal depth of character. That is why it is ordinary people like Alice who are the protagonists of extra-ordinary adventures like Wonderland. That character depth and development of everyone in the Gospels—especially, of course, Jesus himself—is remarkable. It is also done with an incredible economy of words. Myths are verbose; the Gospels are laconic (concise).

There are also telltale marks of eyewitness description, like the little detail of Jesus writing in the sand when asked whether to stone the adulteress or not (Jn 8:6). No one knows why this is put in; nothing comes of it. The only explanation is that the writer saw it. If this detail and others like it throughout all four Gospels were invented, then a first-century tax collector (Matthew), a "young man" (Mark), a doctor (Luke), and a fisherman (John) all independently invented the new genre of realistic fantasy nineteen centuries before it was reinvented in the twentieth.

The stylistic point is argued so well by C.S. Lewis in "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" (in Christian Reflections and also in Fern-Seed and Elephants) that we strongly refer the reader to it as the best comprehensive anti-demythologizing essay we have seen.

Let us be even more specific. Let us compare the Gospels with two particular mythic writings from around that time to see for ourselves the stylistic differences. The first is the so-called Gospel of Peter, a forgery from around A.D. 125 which John Dominic Crossan (of the "Jesus Seminar"), a current media darling among the doubters, insists is earlier than the four Gospels. As William Lane Craig puts it:

In this account, the tomb is not only surrounded by Roman guards but also by all the Jewish Pharisees and elders as well as a great multitude from all the surrounding countryside who have come to watch the resurrection. Suddenly in the night there rings out a loud voice in heaven, and two men descend from heaven to the tomb. The stone over the door rolls back by itself, and they go into the tomb. The three men come out of the tomb, two of them holding up the third man. The heads of the two men reach up into the clouds, but the head of the third man reaches beyond the clouds. Then a cross comes out of the tomb, and a voice from heaven asks, 'Have you preached to them that sleep?' And the cross answers, 'Yes.' (Apologetics, p. 189)

Here is a second comparison, from Richard Purtill:

It may be worthwhile to take a quick look, for purposes of comparison at the closest thing we have around the time of the Gospels to an attempt at a realistic fantasy. This is the story of Apollonius of Tyana, written about A.D. 250 by Flavius Philostratus....There is some evidence that a neo-Pythagorean sage named Apollonius may really have lived, and thus Philostratus' work is a real example of what have thought the Gospels to be: a fictionalized account of the life of a real sage and teacher, introducing miraculous elements to build up the prestige of the central figure. It thus gives us a good look at what a real example of a fictionalized biography would look like, written at a time and place not too far removed from those in which the Gospels were written.

The first thing we notice is the fairy-tale atmosphere. There is a rather nice little vampire story, which inspired a minor poem by Keats entitled Lamia. There are animal stories about, for instance, snakes in India big enough to drag off and eat an elephant. The sage wanders from country to country and wherever he goes he is likely to be entertained by the king or emperor, who holds long conversations with him and sends him on his way with camels and precious stones.

Here is a typical passage about healing miracles: 'A woman who had had seven miscarriages was cured through the prayers of her husband, as follows. The Wise Man told the husband, when his wife was in labor, to bring a live rabbit under his cloak to the place where she was, walk around her and immediately release the rabbit; for she would lose her womb as well as her baby if the rabbit was not immediately driven away.' [Bk 3, sec 39]

The point is that this is what you get when the imagination goes to work. Once the boundaries of fact are crossed we wander into fairyland. And very nice too, for amusement or recreation. But the Gospels are set firmly in the real Palestine of the first century, and the little details are not picturesque inventions but the real details that only an eyewitness or a skilled realistic novelist can give. (Thinking About Religion, p. 75-76)

(2) A second problem is that there was not enough time for myth to develop. The original demythologizers pinned their case onto a late second-century date for the writing of the Gospels; several generations have to pass before the added mythological elements can be mistakenly believed to be facts. Eyewitnesses would be around before that to discredit the new, mythic versions. We know of other cases where myths and legends of miracles developed around a religious founder—for example, Buddha, Lao-tzu and Muhammad. In each case, many generations passed before the myth surfaced.

The dates for the writing of the Gospels have been pushed back by every empirical manuscript discovery; only abstract hypothesizing pushes the date forward. Almost no knowledgeable scholar today holds what Bultmann said it was necessary to hold in order to believe the myth theory, namely, that there is no first-century textual evidence that Christianity began with a divine and resurrected Christ, not a human and dead one.

Some scholars still dispute the first-century date for the Gospels, especially John's. But no one disputes that Paul's letters were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses to Christ. So let us argue from Paul's letters. Either these letters contain myth or they do not. If so, there is lacking the several generations necessary to build up a commonly believed myth. There is not even one generation. If these letters are not myth, then the Gospels are not either, for Paul affirms all the main claims of the Gospels.

Julius Muller put the anti-myth argument this way:

One cannot imagine how such a series of legends could arise in an historical age, obtain universal respect, and supplant the historical recollection of the true character [Jesus]....if eyewitnesses were still at hand who could be questioned respecting the truth of the recorded marvels. Hence, legendary fiction, as it likes not the clear present time but prefers the mysterious gloom of gray antiquity, is wont to seek a remoteness of age, along with that of space, and to remove its boldest and most rare and wonderful creations into a very remote and unknown land. (The Theory of Myths in Its Application to the Gospel History Examined and Confuted [London, 1844], p. 26)

Muller challenged his nineteenth-century contemporaries to produce a single example anywhere in history of a great myth or legend arising around a historical figure and being generally believed within thirty years after that figure's death. No one has ever answered him.

(3) The myth theory has two layers. The first layer is the historical Jesus, who was not divine, did not claim divinity, performed no miracles, and did not rise from the dead. The second, later, mythologized layer is the Gospels as we have them, with a Jesus who claimed to be divine, performed miracles and rose from the dead. The problem with this theory is simply that there is not the slightest bit of any real evidence whatever for the existence of any such first layer. The two-layer cake theory has the first layer made entirely of air—and hot air at that.

St. Augustine refutes the two-layer theory with his usual condensed power and simplicity:

The speech of one Elpidius, who had spoken and disputed face to face against the Manichees, had already begun to affect me at Carthage, when he produced arguments from Scripture which were not easy to answer. And the answer they [the Manichees, who claimed to be the true Christians] gave seemed to me feeble—indeed they preferred not to give it in public but only among ourselves in private—the answer being that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by some persons unknown...yet the Manicheans made no effort to produce uncorrupted copies. (Confessions, V, 11, Sheed translation)

Note the sarcasm in the last sentence. It still applies today. William Lane Craig summarizes the evidence—the lack of evidence:

The Gospels are a miraculous story, and we have no other story handed down to us than that contained in the Gospels....The letters of Barnabas and Clement refer to Jesus' miracles and resurrection. Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Christ, and Irenaeus relates that he had heard Polycarp tell of Jesus' miracles. Ignatius speaks of the resurrection. Puadratus reports that persons were still living who had been healed by Jesus. Justin Martyr mentions the miracles of Christ. No relic of a non-miraculous story exists. That the original story should be lost and replaced by another goes beyond any known example of corruption of even oral tradition, not to speak of the experience of written transmissions. These facts show that the story in the Gospels was in substance the same story that Christians had at the beginning. This means...that the resurrection of Jesus was always a part of the story. (Apologetics, chapter 6)

(4) A little detail, seldom noticed, is significant in distinguishing the Gospels from myth: the first witnesses of the resurrection were women. In first-century Judaism, women had low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses. If the empty tomb were an invented legend, its inventors surely would not have had it discovered by women, whose testimony was considered worthless. If, on the other hand, the writers were simply reporting what they saw, they would have to tell the truth, however socially and legally inconvenient.

(5) The New Testament could not be myth misinterpreted and confused with fact because it specifically distinguishes the two and repudiates the mythic interpretation (2 Peter 1:16). Since it explicitly says it is not myth, if it is myth it is a deliberate lie rather than myth. The dilemma still stands. It is either truth or lie, whether deliberate (conspiracy) or non-deliberate (hallucination). There is no escape from the horns of this dilemma. Once a child asks whether Santa Claus is real, your yes becomes a lie, not myth, if he is not literally real. Once the New Testament distinguishes myth from fact, it becomes a lie if the resurrection is not fact.

(6) William Lane Craig has summarized the traditional textual arguments with such clarity, condensation and power that we quote him here at length. The following arguments (rearranged and outlined from Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection) prove two things: first, that the Gospels were written by the disciples, not later myth-makers, and second, that the Gospels we have today are essentially the same as the originals.

(A) Proof that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses:

1. Internal evidence, from the Gospels themselves:

The style of writing in the Gospels is simple and alive, what we would expect from their traditionally accepted authors.
Moreover, since Luke was written before Acts, and since Acts was written prior to the death of Paul, Luke must have an early date, which speaks for its authenticity.
The Gospels also show an intimate knowledge of Jerusalem prior to its destruction in A.D. 70. The Gospels are full of proper names, dates, cultural details, historical events, and customs and opinions of that time.
Jesus' prophecies of that event (the destruction of Jerusalem) must have been written prior to Jerusalem's fall, for otherwise the church would have separated out the apocalyptic element in the prophecies, which makes them appear to concern the end of the world. Since the end of the world did not come about when Jerusalem was destroyed, the so-called prophecies of its destruction that were really written after the city was destroyed would not have made that event appear so closely connected with the end of the world. Hence, the Gospels must have been written prior to A.D. 70.
The stories of Jesus' human weaknesses and of the disciples' faults also bespeak the Gospels' accuracy.
Furthermore, it would have been impossible for forgers to put together so consistent a narrative as that which we find in the Gospels. The Gospels do not try to suppress apparent discrepancies, which indicates their originality (written by eyewitnesses). There is no attempt at harmonization between the Gospels, such as we might expect from forgers.
The Gospels do not contain anachronisms; the authors appear to have been first-century Jews who were witnesses of the events.
We may conclude that there is no more reason to doubt that the Gospels come from the traditional authors than there is to doubt that the works of Philo or Josephus are authentic, except that the Gospels contain supernatural events.

2. External evidence:

The disciples must have left some writings, engaged as they were in giving lessons to and counseling believers who were geographically distant; and what could these writings be if not the Gospels and epistles themselves? Eventually the apostles would have needed to publish accurate narratives of Jesus' history, so that any spurious attempts would be discredited and the genuine Gospels preserved.
There were many eyewitnesses who were still alive when the books were written who could testify whether they came from their purported authors or not.
The extra-biblical testimony unanimously attributes the Gospels to their traditional authors: the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle of Clement, the Shepherd of Hermes, Theophilus, Hippolytus, Origen, Puadratus, Irenaeus, Melito, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Tatian, Caius, Athanasius, Cyril, up to Eusebius in A.D. 315, even Christianity's opponents conceded this: Celsus, Porphyry, Emperor Julian.
With a single exception, no apocryphal gospel is ever quoted by any known author during the first three hundred years after Christ. In fact there is no evidence that any inauthentic gospel whatever existed in the first century, in which all four Gospels and Acts were written.
(B) Proof that the Gospels we have today are the same Gospels originally written:

Because of the need for instruction and personal devotion, these writings must have been copied many times, which increases the chances of preserving the original text.
In fact, no other ancient work is available in so many copies and languages, and yet all these various versions agree in content.
The text has also remained unmarred by heretical additions. The abundance of manuscripts over a wide geographical distribution demonstrates that the text has been transmitted with only trifling discrepancies. The differences that do exist are quite minor and are the result of unintentional mistakes.
The quotations of the New Testament books in the early Church Fathers all coincide.
The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of all orthodox Christians.
No one could have corrupted all the manuscripts.
There is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the Church Fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate such tampering.
The text of the New Testament is every bit as good as the text of the classical works of antiquity. To repudiate the textual parity of the Gospels would be to reverse all the rules of criticism and to reject all the works of antiquity, since the text of those works is less certain than that of the Gospels.
Richard Purtill summarizes the textual case:

Many events which are regarded as firmly established historically have (1) far less documentary evidence than many biblical events; (2) and the documents on which historians rely for much secular history are written much longer after the event than many records of biblical events; (3) furthermore, we have many more copies of biblical narratives than of secular histories; and (4) the surviving copies are much earlier than those on which our evidence for secular history is based. If the biblical narratives did not contain accounts of miraculous events, biblical history would probably be regarded as much more firmly established than most of the history of, say, classical Greece and Rome. (Thinking About Religion, p. 84-85)
Quote:
The Take Your Pick Jesus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Survey of Contradictory Claims

Some time ago a reader suggested that it might be interesting to lay out all in one place all the various claims made by persons about who Jesus was. Here is that idea brought to fruition, and we invite readers to make their own contributions. The confusion of ideas certainly indicates that there is not exactly scholarship at work in deriving these claims -- for of course, it is hardly possible that all of them are right!

Who Was Jesus? Well --

He didn't exist; he was a figment or partial figment derived from pagan religions (Acharya S, G. A. Wells, early) or from Jewish Wisdom figures (Wells, later) or from Platonism (Doherty) or Egyptian monuments (Wallack) or by the Piso family (Reuchlin)
He existed but was displaced in time by the church (Relivo Oliver, Ellegard)
He was the literalization of an initiation symbol in Gnostic mystery rites (Freke and Gandy)
He was just some average Joe God picked out (adoptionism)
A magician and a homosexual (Morton Smith)
One of many manifestations of God (New Agers, Bahais)
A faker who conspired to seem to be Messiah (Schoenfield)
A mentally imbalanced person with delusions of identity (Elst)
The archangel Michael (JWs)
Spirit brother of Lucifer (Mormons)
The symbolic representative of the Christ Self (E. C. Prophet)
A black man (Rastafarianism)
An Irish priest (Ku Klux Klan)
A cynic sage (Crossan, Mack)
An Essene preacher (Thiering)
A product of rape (Schaberg)
An Arabian in the fifth century BC (Salibi)
A pacifist (Nelson-Pallmyer)
A preacher to whom were applied Gnostic Redeemer myths (Bultmann)
A spirit-possessed healer and exorcist (Davies)
Founder of an elaborate psycho-conspiratorial movement (Edmund Cohen)
A rabbi who suffered psychological trauma (Chilton)
The founder of the "Holy Grail" bloodline with Mary Magdelene (Baigent and Leigh)
The soul of Elvis Presley, the true Messiah (Yes -- believe it)
An advocate of New Age Gnosticism (the Aquarian Gospel)
A symbol of perfection (Thurman)
A wealthy man (Kenneth Copeland)
A sacred mushroom (Allegro)
A violator of the Jewish law (Yosef)
A son of God that Satan has imitated (Harrington)
A Freemason (Hiram Key)
A Rosicrucian (the Rosicrucians)
An advocate of racial unity (Lamsa)
An advocate of religious tolerance (Moore)
Antidote to Homer's Ulysses (MacDonald)
Son of an alien (McPherson, Rael)
A nasty moron and an idiot (Tulbure)
An advocate of vegetarianism and kindness to animals (Ouseley, Gospel of the Holy Twelve, PETA)
Nobody, really, he was more like a standup comedian (Jesus Seminar)
A rebel who assembled a large force and occupied the Temple (Carmichael)
A teacher that the high priest actually cared deeply about (Cohen)
An advocate of reincarnation who thereby offended the establishment
A mask of the Father (Oneness Pentacostals)
An advocate of the feminized divine (Brown, DaVinci Code)
A hero who was hung on a real tree, later changed to a cross (Sheaffer)
A prophet who was not crucified, but replaced on the cross (Muslim apologists)
A faker who survived the cross and went to India, or Japan, or Tibet (various New Agers) or just hung around until he died of old age (Turner)
One of 330,000 gods, or an avatar of Vishnu (Hinduism
A promoter of the "true self" (Buddhism)


Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury
Have you reached a verdict?

[melikio]

It seems to me that there is so much to argue for both belief and unbelief.

I believe that "faith" is generally required to "believe" in what many say, believe or think is "true".

I don't see anything wrong with exercising that "faith" (not at all); I'm not anti-religious. But I do see a MASSIVE problem with those who have DECIDED or CONCLUDED and demanded that other people MUST accept the "stories", "accounts" or "analyses" of biblical writings AS THEY THEMSELVES DO.

Leading others to faith by example or other truly passive methods isn't a problem. Religion forcing and coercing people to adhere to itself IS. And while I agree that certain people are hostile to God, relgion and the Bible (and those who believe), I don't necessarily agree that such hostility is always sensible or completely justified.

Still, there are those things which certain large numbers of "believers" have DONE to unbelievers (or those who doubt), that have caused many to be UNWILLING to consider adopting faith. And certainly, I believe that God can repair the DAMAGE caused by those who were over-zealous and/or basic hypocrites; but that is HIS providence to inact such a thing.

Some are trying SO HARD to do what ONLY GOD CAN. And instead of BY FAITH trusting God to change hearts and minds, THEY are trying to change people with "religion".

Finally, I respect those thoughts of people who by whatever means have concluded things about God, Jesus, The Bible and faith. But some of the most difficult aspects of all that (for many), are these:

1. Accepting that "faith" is required to hold absolute certitude that the Bible, all its stories and various interpretations or history are true (accurate).

2. Accepting that is takes different things (and often unique amounts of them), for something so DEEP and seemingly untangible as religion to take root in a person.

Every person's measure of "faith" is different-enough, that the places where love, compassion and grace are only properly-defined by the direct touch of God Himself (for the person in question).

Many faithful, brilliant and well-educated people have believed and NOT believed in the Bible and religion (Christianity and other things). And if there is a God (I believe there is), He can read my heart like a BILLBOARD... knowing perfectly what I can believe and why I do (better that I know it myself). He also knows WHAT and WHY I do not or cannot believe certain things.

I don't know how many times, someone SURE of what they found in the Bible (or had taught to them), approached me exuberantly, while my honest response (in my heart) was "good for you". I don't bother making a BIG POINT of arguing and telling people that their belief or unbelief doesn't "mesh" with my own. And I do believe that love is superior to being (necessarily) "right" all of the time; it is the only thing I have found to possess the level of universality that it does.

Jesus (or those who penned the accounts of Him), were onto something where it pertains to LOVE itself; and despite all the stories (history) and various meanings ascribed to them, love is the ONLY thing that has consistently made sense to me, where it concerns Jesus and my understanding of what He was all about.

I surely wouldn't be a "Christian" today, if love did not repeatedly break through the static, and harmonize all the dissonance of this existence from time-to-time.

So, I ask that people will forgive my lack of scholarship or perfection, while I endeavor to love them anyway. That is my way of LIVING what I believe; instead of just knowing the "right" things to believe in.

Faith hope and love go together (just as it says in 1Cor13); religion or history themselves cannot compare or compete with those things (working in concert with one another). Not that the "intellectual" approach has zero use, but that it is not necessarily as compatible for ALL human beings as it sometimes seems to be.

-Mel-

[MrWhy]

Imagine how much evidence it would take to convince that a body dead for days was this week resurrected. I don't see how it's possible for any document as old as the Bible to achieve this. Too much time has passed with too many opportunities for self delusion, deception for the good of the people, deception for purpose of personal power, wishful thinking, incorrect translation, and creative interpretation. There are far too many opportunities for truth to be left behind, and too little opportunity for objective corroboration.

Historical accounts are not totally reliable concerning normal events, how can we trust them on something as incredible as a resurrection? If the same story had been told by numerous uninvolved (non Christian) writers who were always present during the entire process, there would be some corroboration.

[1John2_26]

One of the apostles was flayed. Most were killed one way or the other. They didn't suffer for a lie they willingly promoted.

Imagine how much evidence it would take to convince that a body dead for days was this week resurrected. I don't see how it's possible for any document as old as the Bible to achieve this. Too much time has passed with too many opportunities for self delusion, deception for the good of the people, deception for purpose of personal power, wishful thinking, incorrect translation, and creative interpretation. There are far too many opportunities for truth to be left behind, and too little opportunity for objective corroboration.

Historical accounts are not totally reliable concerning normal events, how can we trust them on something as incredible as a resurrection? If the same story had been told by numerous uninvolved (non Christian) writers who were always present during the entire process, there would be some corroboration.

http://www.tektonics.org/guest/wildvis.html

What reasons then are there to assert that the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were in fact NOT subjective visions? The first and most obvious reason to differentiate the post-resurrection appearances from the later visions of the early church seems to be that the writings of the New Testament themselves both implicitly and explicitly make this distinction.

The place to start this discussion is with a consideration of the gospel narratives themselves. Sandra Schneiders elaborates on how the post-resurrection appearances contained in the gospels are not descriptive of visionary experiences:

Secondly, the appearances, however extraordinary and non-physical in the natural sense of the term, were objective in the sense that they were not self-induced on the one hand or hallucinatory on the other. They were real and their cause was independent of the experiencing subject. The narratives testify to this 'objectivity' in a number of subtle but convincing ways. The recipients, we are told, did not expect to see Jesus alive. Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the way to Emmaus, the gathered disciples in Luke were lost in grief and despair and were totally astonished, even to the point of disbelief, by the appearance. Furthermore, the recipients were manifestly incapable of inducing the appearances. Mary Magdalene searches for the body, questions the angels and Jesus himself; the disciples on the way to Emmaus admit to Jesus their despair. Had they been able to 'conjure up' his presence these stories would have been unnecessary and pointless. It is also important to note that the appearances are not 'visions of the night' like Joseph's or the Magi's dreams in Matthew's infancy narrative (see Mt 1:20-23; 2:12, 19-20) or ecstatic experiences like Paul's rapture to the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2) or Peter's vision at Joppa (Acts 11:5-20) or the apocalyptic vision of the Seer on Patmos (Rev 1:9ff) (14). The Easter appearances happened in 'broad daylight' while their subjects are fully awake and going about their ordinary, historical business such as meeting, eating, traveling, and fishing in the very real world of houses, gardens, cities, roads, and boats. Finally, the Easter appearances were unique, limited to the time just after the death of Jesus, and they came to a definitive end after the appearance ('as to one untimely born' [1 Cor 15:8]) to Paul on the road to Damascus (15). Although the history of spirituality is replete with accounts of visionary encounters of the mystics with Jesus, e.g. those of Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, or Catherine of Siena, the church has never suggested that these visions were identical in kind or comparable in significance with the Easter appearances. The faith of the church does not rest upon these experiences even though it is greatly enriched by them. [Schneiders 1995; 90-91]

So, the description of the appearances themselves within the gospels indicate that they were essentially mundane in nature, lacking in visionary elements. Note here the contrast in how the gospels present the post-resurrection appearances from the "altered states of consciousness" described in section II by Malina & Rohrbaugh. More evidence of the New Testament differentiation can be found in Acts:

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:1-11; emphasis added)

It is first of all notable that Luke states that the time frame of Jesus' appearances was finite, occurring over a period of 40 days. Furthermore, Luke appears to clearly be describing a "final appearance" here in chapter 1 of Acts given that Jesus' ascension takes place at the end of it. After this scene, the disciples returned to Jerusalem, instated Matthias as the twelfth disciple to replace Judas Iscariot, and then chapter 2 describes the coming and advent of the Holy Spirit (the theme of the Holy Spirit's advent after Christ's departure from earth is not peculiar to Luke - see John 14:16-20, 25-31; 15:26-27; and esp. 16:7-16). Furthermore, while the pre-ascension appearances of Jesus to his disciples are obviously physical, yet essentially mundane, the post-ascension encounters of Jesus found in the book of Acts are visionary in character, including even the appearance to Paul (see last section). Thus, it is clear that for Luke the visionary encounters experienced in the early church are different from Christ's post-resurrection appearances that preceded his ascension.

[Lotan]

One of the apostles was flayed. Most were killed one way or the other. They didn't suffer for a lie they willingly promoted.

To put it more accurately - The book of Acts says that "One of the apostles was flayed". You have no idea what happened to the rest of them. IF they existed the Romans would have happily killed them for being associates of a known insurrectionist regardless of what they did or did not believe.

[QED]

Objection 2: You can't trust documents. Paper proves nothing. Anything can be forged.

Reply: This is simply ignorance. Not trusting documents is like not trusting telescopes. Paper evidence suffices for most of what we believe; why should it suddenly become suspect here?

Utter nonsense. Anyone can take a telescope, point it in a given direction and see the same thing as everyone else. Taking any of his other arguments seriously after reading this is virtually impossible. Besides, while paper evidence might suffice if it provides us with something unremarkable like a Roman Soldiers laundry list, the quality of paper evidence must rise to much higher standards when it is presented as sole proof for a remarkable thing like a resurrection. Is this not common sense?

[Brave Sir Robin]

One of the apostles was flayed. Most were killed one way or the other. They didn't suffer for a lie they willingly promoted.

Do you have any references to evidence that "most of the apostles were killed one way or the other?"

[Joe Blackbird]

Christianity is NOT self-evident. If a person grew up alone on an island, they would never conclude that the one God came to Earth as a man called Jesus, who died so that some people would not go to a place of torment called Hell, then rose and went back up to Heaven. Those are all conclusions one draws from reading a 2000 year old book that was written by adherants of a particular theological perspective, not from hard physical evidence. To use scripture passages as if they were irrefutable proof is simply faulty logic.

Again, the whole question of the Resurrection hinges entirely on the authority a person ascribes to the Bible. Granting something authority and establishing a truth are not the same thing. If they were, then by this logic I should be able to 'prove' that Peter Pan existed based on internal evidence within that book. In addition, there are hundreds of other religious texts that claim to be divinely inspired- why aren't those who defend the Bible as the final word on all truth defending those texts as well? From a non-Christian perspective, comparing one religious text to another is like comparing apples with apples. You cannot prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt with only circumstantial internal evidence. Citing a 2000 year old document written by a religious order is proof of NOTHING, except what the people who wrote those documents believed.

To have faith in the Bible is a perfectly reasonable option for someone to choose, as are many other world-views that do not directly harm others- but Christians must realize that unless someone is debating how to interpret a Bible passage, there is no gravity in using scripture passages to 'prove' something is 'the truth' to a non-Christian. The Bible is just a book to myself and many others. Saying that Jesus rose from the dead because the Bible said so depends ENTIRELY on the authority a person ascribes to the Bible. Someone's faith in a religious book is not strong enough evidence for anyone to provide a final 'verdict' on this issue. It's a matter of faith, not forensics. Why isn't it enough for you to choose to believe it- why do you have to convince myself and all others that it's true? I could accept what you are proposing ONLY by faith, why take it to trial when it will NEVER be an established fact to those who do not believe that the Bible is true? Is it really a prudent exercise to spin one's wheels trying to prove a belief?

[Nick Hallandale]

It is a fascinating study. Certainly no stone left unturned.

Here is a bit of it:

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/ ... idence.htm

No alternative to a real resurrection has yet explained: the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances.

Christians attempt to explain the supposed resurrection of Jesus by saying that the resurrected Jesus was seen by people after his supposed resurrection.
First of all....There are no accounts in the Bible, where Jesus is seen after his supposed resurrection by anyone other than his own followers. I challenge the Christians to produce evidence from the Bible where anyone other than a follower of Jesus saw Jesus in a post resurrection appearance.

But let's take a closer look at these supposed post resurrection appearances...........

An Angel tells two Marys where Jesus' disciples are to go to see Jesus Matthew 28:7 KJV
""And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.""
Jesus meets the eleven on a mountain in Galilee..Matthew 28:16KJV
""Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.""

Now that you are familiar with Matthew's tale, let's see how Mark tells a different story.
A young man tells Two Marys and Salome where Jesus' disciples are to go to see Jesus. Mark 16:7 KJV
""7But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.""

I hope that you have been alert to the differences between Matthew and Mark.
So according to Mark, the disciples meet Jesus...Mark 16:14 NAS
""Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen. ""

So what does Luke have to say?
Two men don't tell two Marys and Joanna anything about where the disciples are to meet Jesus.
Jesus is seen by two of his followers on the road to Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem and Jesus appears to the eleven in Jerusalem....Luke 24:33-36 KJV
And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

34Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.

35And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

36And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

So now let's read what John says.....John 20:1-2 KJV
1The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

2Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the LORD out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.

So when and where does Jesus meet with his disciples. John 20:19 KJV
""19Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

As you can see, Matthew Mark Luke and John all have a different tale to tell. If you were on a jury and heard the testimony of these followers of Jesus, and noted the differences.....would you believe them?

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury....
What is your verdict?