Why did they scoff?

[stevencarrwork]

Why did people in Corinth convert to Jesus-worship, apparently accepting Old Testament stories of God creating Adam from dead matter, and yet still scoff at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse?

The proposition is that they scoffed at the idea of God choosing to raise a corpse , because the resurrection of the Jesus they worshipped cast doubt on the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse.

[stuart shepherd]

stuart shepherd wrote:
Paul said the following to the Corinthians........ 1 Corinthians 15:14 (King James Version) 14And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. He might as well of said that to all of us. """if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.""" The Bible accounts do not even say that ANYONE witnessed Jesus rising from the grave. So what is the proof of the resurrection???

Goose wrote
And why would they witness it? It's not good enough for you that He died and the witnesses saw Him alive after?

Stuart Shepherd writes……
I don’t believe that Jesus was resurrected and the Bible is my proof.

Show me this "proof" in the Bible that Jesus was not resurrected. Do you have a rational reason for rejecting Christ's resurrection? If it is simply your belief, then fine, I have no problem with that.

Examine the following verse from Mark’s Gospel.
Mark 8:11-12 (King James Version)

11And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him.
12And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

As we know from Bible Scholars, Mark was the first Gospel writer.
In Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus is asked for a sign, Jesus tells them that ""There shall no sign be given unto this generation.""
Jesus couldn’t give them a sign in Mark’s Gospel because there was nothing to see.

But Matthew improved on Mark.
Examine the following.
Matthew 12:39-40 (King James Version)

39But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Where Mark knew that there was nothing for Jesus’ ""evil and adulterous generation"" to see, Matthew has Jesus promising that his ""evil and adulterous generation"" would see Jesus after Jesus was ""three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."" In other words, dead and buried and risen from the grave.
Matthew should have just copied Mark and not elaborated on this tale. Think about it….Did Jesus show himself to his ""evil and adulterous generation""? No he did not. All the Bible tales only report Jesus showing himself only to his own followers.

First we don't know for sure Mark was written first. It's a theory.

Secondly, why is this a problem for you even if Mark was written first? Your assumption is that because Matthew's version is apparently later that it was altered. Your also assuming that Matthew is much later and therefore legend has crept in, which is not necessarily the case. Matthew was writting to the Jews, it only makes sense that his version is more elaborate and referenced Jewish history and prophecy (thus the Jonah reference). Mark's version is shorter with less elabotion. So what? Maybe Matthew used Mark as a reference and remembered the account slightly different than Mark. Why would this be a problem? The core of the passage is consistent, there will be no sign to this generation. Jesus had already been preforming mircales and the sceptics didn't accept them. So why would He respond any differently to show He was who He claimed to be. I don't see a problem with this at all.

Why didn’t Jesus show himself to to the High Priest?
The High Priest asked Jesus, "", I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God."" Matthew 26:63
And Jesus answered the High Priest, """I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.""

This scripture says nothing about Jesus showing Himself to the High Priest after His death. Jesus is simply confirming to the High Priest His claim to be the Son of God. It's an expression of His realtionship to His father. The same expression is made by Stephen in Acts 7:55-56.

If you follow along to the next verses, the High Priest expresses his anger with Jesus's respsone and calls Jesus a blashemer.

65Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. 66What do you think?"
"He is worthy of death," they answered.

I don't see where you draw a reasonable conclusion that Jesus has said He will show Himself to the High Priest after His death. It's just simply not there.

Do you believe that Jesus was referring to himself in this boast?

Yes.

Why didn’t Jesus show himself to the High Priest?

Why would He? Jesus never said He would.

The High Priest died and never saw the sign that Jesus promised.

Jesus performed many signs and miracles. The High Preist along with others simply chose to not believe.

Isn't it Christianity's responsibility to prove that Jesus was resurrected rather than asking me to prove that he was not?
Don't extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof?
Where is the extraordinary proof?

Stuart Shepherd

Once again it comes back again to proving something. I can not prove that I went to bed three days ago. But I know I did. You can not prove that the sun will rise tomorrow until it does. We expect the sun to rise, but one day it won't. You can not prove that a slight wind blew through the air right before you walked outside, but that does not mean it did not happen. Proof is not everything. Faith is accepting that something happened even though you did not see it happen. Asking for proof of something that happened hundreds of years ago is ridiculous. You can not prove that certain thingsin history happened because you weren't there. You have to take the word of whomever was there and recorded it. The Bible is kind of like a history book. It contains facts of thins that really happened just like our history books of today. But you can not prove it. To prove history, you have to look at more history. So to prove the Bible, you have to read more of the Bible. Not just taking a verse here or there, read the whole chapter and have a positive look on it and see if maybe you might have read something wrong.

Of course there are things which cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
But some things can be proved.
I think that I can prove that I went to bed 3 nights ago. My wife can testify that I was in bed with her. My mother, and my children all saw me go to bed. A forensic test would show my DNA on the sheets, and my hair on the pillow.
Of course one could examine my witnesses to see if they are truthful, and examine my forensic evidence for validity.

It is the same thing with the New Testament.
Think of the Gospel writers as witnesses at a trial. Must I believe everything that they have written? Or can one point out contradictions, inaccuracies, etc to discount their testimony so that they cannot be believed beyond a reasonable doubt. Would you believe the testimony of a murderer? Don't they usually lie?

You and I were not there in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. We only have the testimony of the NT. Do we just believe it without question? Why? Or do we examine it in detail and weigh the evidence and decide if the testimony is worthy to be believed?

Stuart Shepherd

[stuart shepherd]

Dear Goose,
Show me your evidence which you say proves that Jesus rose from the dead.
I will examine it.
I have an open mind. Let's see what you got.
Do you have an open mind?

One piece of evidence at a time. Give me a chance to examine, research and respond

Stuart Shepherd

.

[Goose]

Dear Goose,

Show me your evidence which you say proves that Jesus rose from the dead.

I will say this only one more time. There is no "proof". There is evidence and there are conclusions.

I will examine it.

You have not answered an important request of mine. And I will not proceed until you do.

If you will not accept the New Testament and non-Biblical writings as evidence, perhaps you can outline the criteria by which you have come to this decision. Then we can look at other ancient writings to see if your criteria would fail most other ancient documents. If it would, then we can assume your criteria is fallacious and based upon your bias. What I'm asking for here is an equal and fair evaluation of the evidence. Can you overlook your presuppositions in order to accomplish this? Or will it be a waste of time?

The point here Stuart is we need to establish the methodology and criteria by which you will "examine" the evidence. The reason for this is simple. It's fallacious to examine evidence in a vacuum. I need to know that the evidence will be treated fairly.

I have an open mind. Let's see what you got.
Do you have an open mind?

Yes.

One piece of evidence at a time. Give me a chance to examine, research and respond

Let's get some ground rules in place and then proceed. Sound fair? I'll let you come up with the criteria to establish what constitutes historical evidence if you wish. I only reserve the right to pass other apparent historical documents and events through the same criteria to see if they pass or fail under the same criteria. IOW, if the other historical facts, from the ancient world, we accept as relatively reliable don't pass your criteria then we have a problem.

If you won't comply with this I don't see any point in proceeding as I can't be assured you will treat the evidence impartially and rationally.

[stuart shepherd]

Goose wrote....

Let's get some ground rules in place and then proceed. Sound fair? I'll let you come up with the criteria to establish what constitutes historical evidence if you wish. I only reserve the right to pass other apparent historical documents and events through the same criteria to see if they pass or fail under the same criteria. IOW, if the other historical facts, from the ancient world, we accept as relatively reliable don't pass your criteria then we have a problem.

If you won't comply with this I don't see any point in proceeding as I can't be assured you will treat the evidence impartially and rationally.OOSE wrote....

Stuart Shepherd replies....

I don't understand your point??????
I think that we will mainly be using the Bible. But other documents can be examined.
All materials, including the Bible, have to be examined and critiqued. The jury decides what evidence is credible or not.
I think that I am a reasonable person. My aim is not to win a debate. My aim is to prove to you and the jury, [others who read this thread] that the evidence that exists for the resurrection of Jesus is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead.
If Jesus didn't rise, your faith is in vain and you might as well give up Christianity unless you enjoy the entertainment.

One thing though. I expect that you believe the words of the Bible. You can question my interpretation, but you can't disavow the words of the Bible otherwise this whole thing is meaningless.
If you want to communicate with me privately send a PM or you can use email.
stuartshepherd@earthlink.net

Stuart Shepherd

[Goose]

Let's get some ground rules in place and then proceed. Sound fair? I'll let you come up with the criteria to establish what constitutes historical evidence if you wish. I only reserve the right to pass other apparent historical documents and events through the same criteria to see if they pass or fail under the same criteria. IOW, if the other historical facts, from the ancient world, we accept as relatively reliable don't pass your criteria then we have a problem.

If you won't comply with this I don't see any point in proceeding as I can't be assured you will treat the evidence impartially and rationally.

I don't understand your point??????
I think that we will mainly be using the Bible. But other documents can be examined.
All materials, including the Bible, have to be examined and critiqued. The jury decides what evidence is credible or not.

I think I see where you want to take this; into a court room style situation. Here's the problem, we're not dealing with a court of law, but the court of ancient history. I don't necessarily have a problem with what you are proposing as long as we determine the methodology of what constitutes credible evidence. For example, if you say the Gospels can't be trusted because they are written by people with a bias then we have an immediate problem because that would cause us to question almost all of ancient history.

I think that I am a reasonable person. My aim is not to win a debate. My aim is to prove to you and the jury, [others who read this thread] that the evidence that exists for the resurrection of Jesus is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead.

I've been over this with you before. What you or I consider reasonable doubt is irrelevant. It's purely subjective. Have you ever heard the term "Hung Jury"? Why do you think there is an appeal process in our legal system? When constructing an argument we evaluate the evidence and draw a conclusion that best fits all the evidence.

I've got no problem with this approach necessarily as long as we can pass through other evidences of other historical events through the same process with out destroying almost all of what we generally consider to be reliable historical events. After all in a court room there are standards for admissability of evidence are there not? And they are consistent for all evidences, yes? So if we are evaluating events that reportedly took place 2000 years ago then we need a standard for evaluating 2000 year old evidence that is consistent for all evidences of that time frame. Agreed?

If Jesus didn't rise, your faith is in vain and you might as well give up Christianity unless you enjoy the entertainment.

Yup, that's what Paul said too. I'm not worried.

One thing though. I expect that you believe the words of the Bible. You can question my interpretation, but you can't disavow the words of the Bible otherwise this whole thing is meaningless.

Are you saying that you agree to what ever the Bible says? With out question? Or are you planning to critique the Bible. If so, what I'm asking you for is the criteria and methodology you will use to do this.

Here's a link you might find applicable to your approach.

http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/the-c ... christ.htm

We're starting to cover old ground here and not making progress.

[stuart shepherd]

Let's get some ground rules in place and then proceed. Sound fair? I'll let you come up with the criteria to establish what constitutes historical evidence if you wish. I only reserve the right to pass other apparent historical documents and events through the same criteria to see if they pass or fail under the same criteria. IOW, if the other historical facts, from the ancient world, we accept as relatively reliable don't pass your criteria then we have a problem.

If you won't comply with this I don't see any point in proceeding as I can't be assured you will treat the evidence impartially and rationally.

I don't understand your point??????
I think that we will mainly be using the Bible. But other documents can be examined.
All materials, including the Bible, have to be examined and critiqued. The jury decides what evidence is credible or not.

I think I see where you want to take this; into a court room style situation. Here's the problem, we're not dealing with a court of law, but the court of ancient history. I don't necessarily have a problem with what you are proposing as long as we determine the methodology of what constitutes credible evidence. For example, if you say the Gospels can't be trusted because they are written by people with a bias then we have an immediate problem because that would cause us to question almost all of ancient history.

I think that I am a reasonable person. My aim is not to win a debate. My aim is to prove to you and the jury, [others who read this thread] that the evidence that exists for the resurrection of Jesus is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead.

I've been over this with you before. What you or I consider reasonable doubt is irrelevant. It's purely subjective. Have you ever heard the term "Hung Jury"? Why do you think there is an appeal process in our legal system? When constructing an argument we evaluate the evidence and draw a conclusion that best fits all the evidence.

I've got no problem with this approach necessarily as long as we can pass through other evidences of other historical events through the same process with out destroying almost all of what we generally consider to be reliable historical events. After all in a court room there are standards for admissability of evidence are there not? And they are consistent for all evidences, yes? So if we are evaluating events that reportedly took place 2000 years ago then we need a standard for evaluating 2000 year old evidence that is consistent for all evidences of that time frame. Agreed?

If Jesus didn't rise, your faith is in vain and you might as well give up Christianity unless you enjoy the entertainment.

Yup, that's what Paul said too. I'm not worried.

One thing though. I expect that you believe the words of the Bible. You can question my interpretation, but you can't disavow the words of the Bible otherwise this whole thing is meaningless.

Are you saying that you agree to what ever the Bible says? With out question? Or are you planning to critique the Bible. If so, what I'm asking you for is the criteria and methodology you will use to do this.

Here's a link you might find applicable to your approach.

http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/the-c ... christ.htm

We're starting to cover old ground here and not making progress.

I don't think that we need a complex set of rules.
You seem to have something in mind but you aren't telling me plainly.
Tell me what rules you want.
I do not believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Some of it may be true, some of isn't.

Stuart Shepherd

[stuart shepherd]

Let's get some ground rules in place and then proceed. Sound fair? I'll let you come up with the criteria to establish what constitutes historical evidence if you wish. I only reserve the right to pass other apparent historical documents and events through the same criteria to see if they pass or fail under the same criteria. IOW, if the other historical facts, from the ancient world, we accept as relatively reliable don't pass your criteria then we have a problem.

If you won't comply with this I don't see any point in proceeding as I can't be assured you will treat the evidence impartially and rationally.

I don't understand your point??????
I think that we will mainly be using the Bible. But other documents can be examined.
All materials, including the Bible, have to be examined and critiqued. The jury decides what evidence is credible or not.

I think I see where you want to take this; into a court room style situation. Here's the problem, we're not dealing with a court of law, but the court of ancient history. I don't necessarily have a problem with what you are proposing as long as we determine the methodology of what constitutes credible evidence. For example, if you say the Gospels can't be trusted because they are written by people with a bias then we have an immediate problem because that would cause us to question almost all of ancient history.

I think that I am a reasonable person. My aim is not to win a debate. My aim is to prove to you and the jury, [others who read this thread] that the evidence that exists for the resurrection of Jesus is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead.

I've been over this with you before. What you or I consider reasonable doubt is irrelevant. It's purely subjective. Have you ever heard the term "Hung Jury"? Why do you think there is an appeal process in our legal system? When constructing an argument we evaluate the evidence and draw a conclusion that best fits all the evidence.

I've got no problem with this approach necessarily as long as we can pass through other evidences of other historical events through the same process with out destroying almost all of what we generally consider to be reliable historical events. After all in a court room there are standards for admissability of evidence are there not? And they are consistent for all evidences, yes? So if we are evaluating events that reportedly took place 2000 years ago then we need a standard for evaluating 2000 year old evidence that is consistent for all evidences of that time frame. Agreed?

If Jesus didn't rise, your faith is in vain and you might as well give up Christianity unless you enjoy the entertainment.

Yup, that's what Paul said too. I'm not worried.

One thing though. I expect that you believe the words of the Bible. You can question my interpretation, but you can't disavow the words of the Bible otherwise this whole thing is meaningless.

Are you saying that you agree to what ever the Bible says? With out question? Or are you planning to critique the Bible. If so, what I'm asking you for is the criteria and methodology you will use to do this.

Here's a link you might find applicable to your approach.

http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/the-c ... christ.htm

We're starting to cover old ground here and not making progress.

I don't think that we need a complex set of rules.
You seem to have something in mind but you aren't telling me plainly.
Tell me what rules you want.
I do not believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Some of it may be true, some of isn't.

Stuart Shepherd

OK my friend GOOSE,
I now see where you are going with this.
You don't want to debate; you want to play the debate game.
I looked up the website that you noted.
You want to stack the deck by using Simon Greenleaf's rules.
Is this what Jesus would do? If you can't discuss fair and square, you can fix the outcome by rigging the rules.
In my opinion Simon Greenleaf was nothing but a Christian Apologist who formulated rules to rig the outcome of any debate in favor of Christianity with debate rules favorable to Christianity.
I would first have to debate Greenleaf's rules before I could make my case.
Are you interested in truth or defending Jesus with any means?

Stuart Shepherd

[Goose]

I don't think that we need a complex set of rules.
You seem to have something in mind but you aren't telling me plainly.
Tell me what rules you want.

Stuart, it is not about rules per se. I am trying to establish what you use as an historical methodology to determine what is considered to be a reasonably reliable historical fact. I'm asking you for this because if I give my own methodology then I will be accused of stacking the deck in my favor as you've done with your Simon Greenleaf remark. Don't you see why we need to agree on this before proceeding? If we don't then it becomes the "I don't like that, but I like this, game." There's no bench mark.

]I do not believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Some of it may be true, some of isn't.

We don't need to assume the Bible is the inspired word of God to provide a good case for Christ's resurrection.

This is what I want to know. How do you determine what is true and what is not in the Bible? Do you have a consistent method that we could apply to all ancient documents, without rendering all those documents inadmissable? Or do you only accept what you like and what helps support your argument?

OK my friend GOOSE,
I now see where you are going with this.
You don't want to debate; you want to play the debate game.
I looked up the website that you noted.
You want to stack the deck by using Simon Greenleaf's rules.
Is this what Jesus would do? If you can't discuss fair and square, you can fix the outcome by rigging the rules.
In my opinion Simon Greenleaf was nothing but a Christian Apologist who formulated rules to rig the outcome of any debate in favor of Christianity with debate rules favorable to Christianity.
I would first have to debate Greenleaf's rules before I could make my case.
Are you interested in truth or defending Jesus with any means?

Actually Stuart, you are the one that first proposed the idea of the court room drama with reasonable doubt etc. I merely referred you to a site that notes a few prominent legal minds that have been through this.

Let me know what you will allow as evidence and why. Then maybe we can make some progress.

[Cathar1950]

Goose:

But I wonder if that is because you've looked at all the evidence fairly and rationaly or have simply discarded it because of the potential consequences if were to be true.

I couldn't help noticing the psychological ploy. Here you question his fairness, honesty and reasoning ablities to poke at fear you hope has been drilled into him by someone just to tell him the consequences of his not believing is hell.

I wrote this for a little thing on Greenleaf and thought I would add it for fun.

Greenleaf
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... leaf#89237
It is one of the modern day believer’s myths among some Christians.
It usually goes I was an atheist just like you but I was lying, fooling myself, faking it but I, as the great thinker I am, decided to look into it and low and behold I was forced intellectually to accept the evidence. So in a spurt of rational insight into the great truth repented, took Jesus in my heart and now want us to not be the fool he was and join.

They usually give some dopy story about a great skeptic that gets ask by a dump humble naive believer that as a question that causes the person to study the evidence and use some means of operation. Of course these people really have a disposition and desire to be Christian and believe in Jesus. I was reading about these myths like Greenfield or Greenleaf. I have heard similar things about Josh McDowell and Kevin Bachelor or something like that, He is a Seventh Day Adventist and love to tell how he lived in a cave. There is a pattern. Then they hammer away at atheist while booting their ego with New struggling Christian that have not yet be indoctrinated to believe anything.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... leaf#90942

I doubt the story too. It sounds like the myths of the lowly believer that challenges the scholarly non-believer and the non-believer goes and studies and become a believer. Most of those stories are about people that already have a commitment and it becomes reinforced with rationalizations and missing information.
The guy that wrote "who moved the stone" already revered Jesus. Greenleaf was a graduate of a religious college. Just myths appealing to sentiment.