I have been debating a Christian over ICQ and his argument for the resurrection is sumed up as:

"Ok, there's a creedal formula dated within 2-8 years of Jesus' "Death" in 1 Chor 15. It's states that he died was buried and rose, then states several appearances. The argument runs as follows: 1. 2-8 years is too short for significant legendary development 2. there was enough opposition to overturn the claim 3. argument for the empty tomb 4. it would seem the best explanation is Jesus' resurrection."

"This is the best I can do to sum up. It would take 20 pages to sum up the argument."

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Now I don't know a whole lot about the resurrection thing. Could someone help me out? Thanks.

PS, he also complains about atheists:

"But, as I try to get across to people that think the way you do; individual arguments and squabbles over details don't do much of anything for either side. What counts is when you study enough to get a good enough picture that you can step back from it and take it all in at the same time."

I think the usual atheist argument to this passage is that it was a late addition to Paul's letter. Of course you could deny that Corinthians is written by Paul and insist on dating it late.

As for his observation, it is pretty much true. Atheists tend to nit-pick on the details more than theists. -Normally because they're looking hard for contradictions.

Opus1

Never seen the former objection before. Only the uneducated or truly radical would argue for the second.

The most common rebuttal--and the one to which I subscribe--is that Paul never mentions a physical resurrection. In fact, if we believe Acts, Jesus bodily ascended into Heaven well before Paul came onto the scene. Thus Jesus could not possibly have appeared bodily to Paul. And yet Paul lists himself among Jesus' resurrection appearances, in no way distinguishing himself from the earlier ones. Thus Paul is clearly speaking of a spiritual, rather than bodily resurrection.

As I've explained in a few other threads, many scholars are of the opinion that the early Christians saw Jesus in the same sense that modern ones speak to him--not in any sense which is recordable, reproducable, or physical.

There is strong evidence that the later Gnostics all believed that they were communicating with Jesus in exactly this way. Furthermore, they derived policies and beliefs based upon these later revelations. Needless to say, the orthodoxy found these beliefs quite threatening, but they did not want to do away with the idea of the resurrection. Sometime around the year 100, the idea arose of differentiating between the early, authoritative appearances of Jesus, and the later, spurious ones. This differentiation was, of course, that of bodiliness. Jesus' apperances to Simon, Mary Magdalene, and the disciples were bodily; those to the later Gnostic leaders were spiritual, and no more authoritative than Joe Christian's communications with him 2000 years later. This was done late enough that all the original disciples had died or been exiled (the revolt against Rome in 66-70 did a great job of destroying all of the original Jewish Christians, leaving only the gentile ones).

This is all partially speculative, but in terms of plausibility, it has much greater odds than that of a man defying physical law by coming back from the dead.

Off the top of my head, it would be more like 20+ years between the death of Christ and the writing of 1 Cor.

Since Paul is RECOUNTING something that he is clear was already taught to the church in Corinthians, most scholars agree that he passed on that tradition when he first established the church, not that he invented it in the letter.

There's no textual support for it being a late addition. That's based entirely upon wishful thinking.

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Opus1:
Never seen the former objection before. Only the uneducated or truly radical would argue for the second.

The most common rebuttal--and the one to which I subscribe--is that Paul never mentions a physical resurrection. In fact, if we believe Acts, Jesus bodily ascended into Heaven well before Paul came onto the scene. Thus Jesus could not possibly have appeared bodily to Paul. And yet Paul lists himself among Jesus' resurrection appearances, in no way distinguishing himself from the earlier ones. Thus Paul is clearly speaking of a spiritual, rather than bodily resurrection.[/font]


Meta =&gt;No that's not so clear. Of course he was counting himself among those who had seen the risen Christ, that ehanced his authority and also as he probably did have some sort of experience upon which his faith was based, he includes himself as having seen Christ. But in his own case he is clearly speaking of post-asscention visionary sort of expeirnce, although for all we know it may have been bodily; that however does not mean in anyway that he didn't accept what the chruch taught him about the bodily reusrrection. Paul was not a Gnsotic. He didn't deny the fleshly reussurection of Jesus. At best this is merely argument from siclence. At worst, it ignores the talk about resurrection bodies which is plainly inteneded to explain the bodily resurrection. The Jewish concept was the bodily res. To think that a jew could talk about ressurection apart form the body is abusrd. Jesu would be a mere ghost at that point.The whole idea was that the Messiah would reaise all of dead Israel bodily, the Messiah held the keys to life and death. That's why he speaks of Jesus as the first fruits. That precludes any notion of non-bodily res. That just doesn't work with the first fruits concept.


Meta =&gt;I don'tknow of any who think that. Maybe the Jesus Seminar people, but that's to be expected for an organization that is 90% meida hype. Serious schoalrs do not think that, from N.T. Wright to way back the 19th century with Alfred Edersheime all the indictations point to the Jewish concept of bodily resurrection.



Meta =&gt;Why would the Gnostics be a model for first century Christinaity? I find that all of that is merely an agenda of postmodernist "schoalrs" to re-write the ruels for Biblical critcism and to obsurure the facts in such a way as to re-write history. I say that and I'm a liberal!

This is all partially speculative,


Meta =&gt;Kinda.

but in terms of plausibility, it has much greater odds than that of a man defying physical law by coming back from the dead.


Meta =&gt;Un hu! In orther words,you're doing it to. Ideological agenda determines reading of historical fact. Why is it so implaussible anyway? Only because you accpet a naturalistic philosophy that contraidcts itself through circular reasoning:
A) Ciruclar reasoning in ruling out suspernatural:
1) Only that which conforms to our rules of obserfation can be considered fact.
2) The Suerpnatural is a violation of our rules
3) Therefore, the Supernatural is impossible because it can't be verified according to our ruels.
B) Ciruclar reasoning in naturalisitc cause
And 1) We don't need God to expalin things becasue we have naturalistic cause and effect
and everything can be expalined by naturalistic cause and effect.
2)But the universe itself doens't need a cuase
3) therefore there are no fianl causes

If the Ressurection were plausible it woudlnt' be a miracle.

We have been through this discussion on enough other threads, that I will refer Neo to those. But I would like to address one point in your post Opus.

This is simply factually wrong. The Christians specifically rejected the revolt, and left Jerusalem well before its final destruction in 70AD. The Jewish Christians joined the rest of the Diaspora, and were absorbed into the wider Church.

At the same time, many Jewish Christians continued to attend worship services in the synagogue well into the 4th Century, prompting John Chrysostom (archbishop of Constantinople 398-403AD) to speak out forcefully against the practice. The final expulsion of Jewish Christians from the synagogues did take place by the end of the 5th Century, but Jewish Christians continue to live to this day.

If you want to visit some sites on these Christians, take a look at MessianicArt.com and Jews for Jesus.

Nomad