Shingen

I have some family members who've seen the Passion, and being sort of the black sheep of the family, they've insisted that at least I should read the accompanying brochure, "The Passion - True or False", that evidently is being handed out everywhere by the PassionOutreach group.

On page 7, it lists 4 arguments as constituting "good evidence" purporting to prove that Jesus rose from the dead:

• Jesus Predicted it. The resurrection wasn't a myth made up after His death. Jesus predicted He would rise from the dead. (Matthew 16:21, 17:22-23; 20:18-19; 26:32)
• Eyewitnesses saw it. Jesus was seen alive over a 40-day period after His crucifixion by men, women, skeptics, believers, and individuals and simulatenously by a group of over 500 people. (1 Corthinians 15:3-8)
• History Supports It. Within a generation of Jesus's life, documents were written about His death and resurerrection. If threated without prejudice, the historical records are as plentiful and as reliable as any ancient event we know of.
• Other Theories are Feeble. Not only is the evidence for the resurrection strong, the evidence for alternative explanations (e.g. someone else was cruficified; they forgot where His tomb was; He simply surivived the crucifixion) are flimsy. They are weak attempts to avoid the facts.

I'm new to this site, and I have been perusing the articles and forums for a while and realize that these same arguments have been covered in-depth many, many times; but just the same, I'd appreciate some quick comments on these.

Thanks.

Spaz

Those are the shittiest arguments ever. The first two are part of the fucking story, c'mon, you could say that for any story in the entire world. The third is referring to Josephus or Tacitus perhaps? Or the gospels themselves? I don't know much about Josephus or Tacitus, but from what I've read here, Josephus was forged and Tacitus also wrote about other people healing people, etc. And of course if they're referring to the gospels then that's just dumb again. The fourth argument assumes that everything is true. Whoever made this brochure must be at least borderline retarded.

Edit: Man everytime I read this thing I find something else I typed wrong...

Doctor X

Shingen:

Welcome to the Forums! Mind the hounds. . . .

How far do you want to go with this? If it is for personal interest because:

1. Your Girlfriend is [CENSORED--Ed.] the New England Patriots Defensive Line.
2. Infomercials are still showing on the Scifi Channel
3. You just want to know if the Laws of Physics still work in the Universe

then, yes, it is all a load of crap expelled by a parasite blasted cocker spaniel after eating your gym shoe.

However, if you are interested because your interested in biblical criticism and/or want to aquaint your relatives with the similarities between their brochure and Scraps latest achievement, then you have a lot of reading to do . . . which is fun because none of us have girlfriends/boyfriends/whatever-desperate either. However, I doubt you will convince your relatives unless they have open minds. Remember, some people insist the world is only 10,000 years old.

Check out the Passion threads here and some of their references.

Now, here is some specific rebuttals to what you posted. Hope it helps:

First thing to know is that NONE . . . repeat . . . NONE of the NT texts were written by eyewitnesses. Paul witnessed nothing. The earliest gospel is Mark (Mk) and he dates after the Romans squished Jerusalem in 70 CE. He is the source of the Passion Narrative--though some wonder if he had hypothetical "earlier sources." Both Luke (Lk) and Matthew (Mt) rewrite Mk, using him as a source. Jn kind of goes his own way but he is also around 100 CE dating wise. The names of the authors are unknown--names were assigned long after they were written; scholars use the names for convenience.

Also, Lk freely admits he is not a witness.

The Passion narratives contradict one another. They contradict what we know about Roman execution. A writer can claim "eyewitnesses" like I can claim a passionate and potentially illegal relationship with Uma Thurmon--just claim, no substance.

NO ONE recorded the "incidents" in the different Passion Narratives--like our personal favorite, the dead walking the Earth and talking to people!

Finally, prophecy is always accurate if you write it after the event!

Oh yes, NT scholars reject the ressurection.

Nice fallacy there. Unfortunately the documents were, as above, far longer than "a generation." Mt links Junior's birth to Herod--dead by 4 BCE while Lk links it to a wrongly described census of Quirinius--6 CE. There are many theories about the JFK assassination, but most of them agree on the date!

No extrabiblical documents mention him. Josephus' are additions from scribes who wanted him there. Tacitus is late--about 100s CE and seems to be refering to something else. Jewish texts were written in response to the anti-semitism of the Gospels and Christianity in general a few hundred years later--just incase someone tries to tell you that "the Jews wrote about him!"

If the absolute lack of evidence for the resurrection constitutes "strong" then I should be having a far more strenuous weekend. This forgets the simplest--it was made up! Mk lacks a resurrection--you have an empty tomb with some wierd guy in it. The "ending" of Mk is an addition and not original to the text.

Again, this may not convince anyone. You can have fun with this one: ask where the nails went. Most say the hands. Mk and the derivative Lk and Mt do not mention nails at all. Neither does Jn until you get to the "doubting Thomas" story. Junior refers to the wounds in his hands.

Problem: you cannot crucify someone with nails through the hands--they will pull through under the weight of the body.

Another favorite: how did Judas die? Mk does not mention him dying at all, which suggests he is a made-up character. Mt has him hang himself which is the "popular" version because . . . I am not making this up . . . Lk--in Acts--by the same author--has him EXPLODE. Yes. He is happily walking in the field he bought with his money, falls forward, and his intestines burst out!!

Now, you may here the "different witnesses see different things" apology, but "hanging" versus "explosion" is rather hard to confuse!

Hope this helps.

--J.D.

EGGO

Who the HELL ever used those as their arguments?

Too bad I came here after Doctor X, I could've said something I learned.

Shingen

Doctor X: Thanks for the welcome and the detailed reply. I'm beginning to be badgered about this film, seemingly everywhere I go, and getting tired of it. I'm very aware that these arguments are, to say the least, lame, and filled with logical fallacies. I just needed a nudge, a sanity check, so to speak, to be able to refute the assertions.

Spaz: The sad thing is that these brochures are begin actively used as part of an indoctrination effort targeted at 13/14 year old kids and probably are going to be effective for the most part.

Sarpedon

I was recently given a pamphlet by a muslim that said that jesus was not crucified "He escaped from their clutches at the last minute." It unfortunately, does not provide any details into this exciting caper.

Spaz

He obviously used his superhero powers to turn all the water in the people's bodies around him into wine, then as they all just fell over dead he ran away!

Or maybe it was a really humid day and he used his walking on water powers to just run right up into the sky!

There are infinite possibilities!

Ender the Xenocide

oh man, that is absolutely hilarious. once again, another fine example of the stupid shit that doesnt make sense in the bible

:notworthy haha this is kinda random but i jsut had a Waynes World flashback: "i am not worthy! i am not worthy"

The Evil One

In my RE lessons at school, arguments along just these lines were presented as "the atheist's side of the story". I pointed this out to the teacher who said, "well yes, there's clearly a christian bias here." (So why the bloody hell was she using them as teaching material?) My homework that week pointed out my mistrust of the source material, saying that in my opinion nothing in the NT could be be believed unless it was confirmed by extra-biblical sources (being 14 I didn't use the actual phrase "extra-biblical", you understand). I got it back with the following comment in red ink: "Very sceptical. Can you PROVE the resurrection didn't happen?"

Grrrrrrrr.

Anyway, my point is that it is a common apologetic tactic to present such arguments to the faithful as "the best atheists can do". Then, when they are knocked down (rightly, because they're poor) the Christians believe they've been open-minded and listened to the case against the resurrection and found it wanting. They will then say to atheists "Yes, I've heard your arguments, they don't stand up."

Yet more proof that the goal of apologetics is to keep the faithful from straying, not to convince unbelievers.

Toto

This is really circular. The texts that have Jesus prediction his death and resurrection (and the destruction of the Temple) were written well after his death.

This is confusing two different parts of the NT. In 1 Corinthians, Paul claims that Jesus "appeared" to a list of people, including the alleged "500 brothers" - all men (no women). The word used, "opthe" in Greek, does not unambiguously mean that these men actually saw Jesus in the flesh - the word can refer to spiritual visions, since Paul uses the word to refer to his own vision of the risen Christ, and we know that Paul never met Jesus.

The gospel of Luke reports that Jesus hung around for 40 days after his resurrection (the other gospels have him rising to heaven without that delay.) Luke undoubtedly made this story up to provide a firmer basis for church tradition and to bash his opponents who had different ideas about church authority.

This is a common apologetic argument. But it is wrong. There are more reliable historic records for lots of events that have left archeological or disinterested historical records.

There was a trend at one point to try to find a naturalistic reason to explain the miraculous gospel events - Jesus might have engaged in faith healing, might have walked on stones just under the water, etc. Most of these explanations are in fact not very good. But they are still better explanations of events that a supernatural explanation. The best explanation, of course, is that these are stories that people made up, and they are not real history. If we look at current events, we see people making up fantastic stories of the supernatural for various reasons, we see fake faith healing, we see magic tricks and fraud. But we have never seen anyone rise from the dead

From the earliest days of Christianity, there have been alternative explanations of the crucifixion. Some heretics thought that Jesus was a shadow who could not actually be crucified. The idea that he survived the crucifixion is widespread, since it usually took several days to crucify someone, but Jesus was only on the cross for three hours. You can read more about that in the current fictional thriller, The DaVinci Code