Minimalist

People are superstitious twits and tend to believe anything you tell them?

Doug Shaver

Do you mean, does it make a difference as to whether I would believe it happened?

The number of alleged witnesses doesn't matter much to me.

Solo

Assuming that I am right in that the belief in the risen Lord came as allegorization of certain well-known phenomena known to modern neuro-psychology, the witnessing of resurrected Jesus by Christians is no more suprising that visits of Boddhitsatva to a Buddhist sage.

Consider it possible that(1) Jesus rising from the dead,(2) meeting with his followers, and (3) finally ascending ascending, decodes as:

1) uncanny "presences" experienced by highly excited pneumatics (manics), in dissociative process and acute loss of ego-dominated adult personality structure,

2) their belief that they have been chosen (by God) and "communicated to" by (or about) a mysterious spiritual agency, and

3) the disapperance of the "spiritual agent", in recovering one's functioning sense of self.

The more than 500 who saw Jesus "at one time" (1 Cr 15:6) is almost certainly a mythical event, dramatizing the conviction that appearances of
Jesus were common. This tradition of Jesus posthumous "choosing" those to whom he would reveal himself ("I shall choose you, one of a thousand, two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one" GThomas 23) was worked over through in the early church into events like "the witness of >500" or the descent of the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost ( Acts 2). In reality these events are psychic and individual (see Haenchen's brilliant "outing" of the heteroi in Acts 2:13, as giving away the scheme - Ernst Haenchen,The Acts of the Apostles, tr B.Blackwell, 1971, p.175).

I believe the "sign of Jonah" was an authentic Jesus tradition which however had nothing to do with his own demise. I believe Jesus practiced resurrectional baptism in which he buried his novices to produce the psi phenomena of "the son of man coming on clouds", essentially a psychosis, which he came to believe was required (as a test of fitness) to enter his kingdom.

After his death, Jesus' proclaimed coming of the Son of man, came rapidly to be associated with Jesus' own death and belief in his resurrection.

Jiri

Jane H

An interesting question!


I think the numbers matter, but only up to a point. There had to be sufficient to establish a new movement, but that probably didn’t have to be all that many. What I am convinced about is that an empty tomb alone wouldn’t be enough to get Christianity going. There had to be a resurrection witness that was sufficiently powerful, credible and physical enough to cause a radical change about the thinking on resurrection, of people whose background was C1 Judaism.


Let us suppose that the body was taken by grave robbers- this was a practise not uncommon in the ancient world, adding insult and injury to grief. It could have been Mary and her friends; any number of other people. No-one would have interpreted the lack of a body as meaningful. Resurrection of one individual wasn’t expected, and no-one would have read the vanishing of a body as having the significance it subsequently had. No-one would have made the link to the inauguration of God’s kingdom, or a radically redefined understanding of resurrection, or had a drive to spread a very different form of Judaism.


From a historical point of view an empty tomb by itself won’t do. Life would have gone on as usual, the disciples gone back to their homes, and they would simply have wondered where the body had gone.


The empty tomb is a necessary condition to explain Christianity’s rise, but it is not a sufficient one. For that, you need appearances of such a character that caused Jesus followers to redefine their beliefs on resurrection, be prepared to stand up to the totally powerful institutions of their day, and to spread a clear, consistent and unexpected belief about a bodily resurrection.

Jane H

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.


from: Telephone Poles and Other Poems (or via: amazon.co.uk) by John Updike.

notapadawan

In the Gospel's the Roman Government sealed the tomb, stationed troops, and such to guard it from being tampered with. Just an empty tomb alone would suffice that something happened. A similar thing would occur if someone opened Ft. Knox and showed it was empty.

His appearances just confirmed that the Roman Government, the Jewish religious authorities, et al. didn't steal his body.

Based on the already established data of history, yes.

What would he consider "A"?

BALDUCCI

Jesus death and resurrection are supposed to be the trigger for salvation. By going around presenting himself, what did he add to the act of salvation ? What difference would it have made if he had just vanished into heaven ? Seems much more likely that he was trying to convince people that he had managed to escape and that the movement was still intact.

stuart shepherd

I would like to point out that you can only get extraordinary evidence from exceptional witnesses.

For example, consider the following Scripture.
Matthew 4:8-9(King James Version)
8Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Now I have been to the tops of some very high mountains and I have never been able to see "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; "
I am 100% sure that such a mountain with such a fantabulous view does not and has never existed.
So what does this tell me about the anonymous person who wrote the Gospel according to Matthew? Certainly he is a liar who makes fabulous untrue claims.

Now when Matthew makes the extraordinary claim that Jesus rose from the dead, should I believe him? It only takes one lie to make a liar and I can see no reason to believe Matthew when he says Jesus rose from the dead after knowing that he lied about a mountain from which one can see all the kingdoms of the world.

stuart shepherd

notapadawan

amazing... simply amazing.

Jane H

Thank you, Toto for the additions.

Balducci- an interesting thought. Historically and theologically it does run into certain problems, however.

We have information that people did survive crucifixion. ISTM likely that had this happened in Jesus case, Christianity would have evolved in an unrecognisable way. There would have been no declaration of Jesus as Messiah, no redefinition of C1 Jewish kingdom theology, and above all no radical change in the understanding of resurrection. The movement simply wouldn’t have got off the ground. It was the radical mutation from C1 Judaism that was Christianity, with its redefinition of the nature of God’s kingdom, of the OT prophecies, and of the resurrection body, that upset C1 Judaism. A nearly dead Jesus who quickly does a runner, simply doesn’t inspire that sort of massively changed theology, or inspire a large enough movement to risk painful deaths.

Theologically, the defeat of evil/sin had been accomplished, but there was unfinished business. The disciples had to understand the meaning of Jesus death and the nature of the new “transphysical” resurrection body, amongst many other important things.

Stuart- I’ve always read “showing him all the kingdoms of the world” not in a physical viewing sense, but as in Jesus realising, and being tempted, by what He could get by ‘switching sides’.