Orthodox_Freethinker

I checked out the debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan at the library today.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ternetinfidels

This debate is rather dissapointing considering how lopsided it is. One would expect that the chairman of the Jesus Seminar and poster boy of the Biblical revisionism movement would at lest attempt to provide evidence in support of his assumptions and negative evidence against the historicity of the Gospels.
Instead, he claims that the resurrection of Christ was not of the flesh but merely metaphorical but without ever giving even a hint of justification for such an assertion.

Craig, on the other hand, presents four facts, not unjustified presuppositions, that Crossan does not even bother to refute.

The facts are as follows -

1. The body of Christ was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish temple court. Given that the Gospels name this man, and his tomb was in a known location, someone would have produced the body of Christ had He not resurrected. If this tomb never existed, someone within the Sanhedrin would have contested the story, given their hostility toward Christ. Furthermore, there is no competing account of where Christ's body was placed after His crucifixion.

2. On the Sunday after the resurrection, the tomb was found empty by a group of Jesus' female followers. Given how much low esteem was given to women in first-century Palestine, it is highly unlikely that this story would have been contrived. The story of the empty tomb is supported by early, reliable testimony. Furthermore, the early Jewish allegation that the Apostles stole the body presupposes the empty tomb.

3. On several different occasions and locations, different individuals and groups of people witnessed the risen Christ, including but not limited to the appearances to Peter and the Apostles, the five hundred brethren and James.
The Gospels and 1 Corinthians 15 provide multiple, independent attestations of these appearances. Furthermore, "Researchers have noticed signs of historical credibility in specific appearances - for example, the unexpected activity of the disciples' fishing prior to Jesus' appearance by the Lake of Tiberias, and the otherwise inexplicable conversion of James, Jesus' younger brother."

4. The Apostles believed that Jesus had conquered death despite having every reason not to. The Jews had no prior belief of a dying, much less crucified Messiah. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that they would believed Him to be the Messiah without personally witnessing the risen Jesus.
For the Jews, resurrection meant of the literal flesh and blood. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the Apostles would die for the belief that Christ had risen from the dead and therefore was God incarnate had they never personally witnessed it. Had the body of Christ not risen, they would not have died for a corpse.


Personally, I don't particularly care too much for the ancient theological debate between evidentialism and fideism. But I also find "the Jesus of history, the Christ of faith" to be a false dichotomy.
Nonetheless, it is obvious that in this particular debate, Craig won hands down.
Craig came with a healthy knowledge of Crossan's books and was able to quote and refute them. Crossan didn't even seem to have bothered to prepare. Craig provided facts that are capable of being substantiated while Crossan provided presuppositions, such as that God does not intervene in human history, without even bothering to justify or defend them.
One would expect Crossan, as an "expert" on New Testament scholarship, to be able to refute Craig's historical claims if such refutation was possible.
Crossan does not even bother to refute or defend anything, showing that the true colors of the Jesus Seminar are of sophist tomfoolery.


Crossan makes the mistake of assuming that since we aren't able to prove the literal resurrection of Christ with absolute certainty, it must therefore be only a metaphor. However, by such reasoning, we might as well conclude that existence itself is metaphorical given that we will never be able to prove anything with absolute certainty. Furthermore, the Apostles were in the unique position to know whether or not Jesus had literally risen from the dead and died for their testimony that He did literally rise - not that His resurrection was somehow "metaphorical".

One point that neither Craig or Crossan bring up is that if the resurrection of Christ is a historical fact, that does not by default make the event hostorically provable.
The possibility that both fail to consider is that it is a hyper-historical event, incapable of being either proven or disproven. Therefore, the most history would show on the matter is what's most likely to be true by eliminating alternative explanations. In this case, the literal resurrection of Christ would still be the most reasonable conclusion.

Non-believers can scoff at Christians all they want but when the experts from both sides formally debate and the only side with hard evidence in its favor is the traditional believer instead of the historical revisionist, that truly means something important.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

I don't even particularly like William Lane Craig, especially not his advocacy of the Intelligent Design movement. What I like about his final conclusion, however, is how he explains that this is not really a debate between fideism and evidentialism. Rather, the resurrection and deity of Christ is a properly basic belief meaning that it is the most reasonable conclusion given the available evidence. The point is not that Christianity is irrational in the absence of evidence but that it would be irrational if negative evidence were present.

Peace.

Evilicious

Here's your negative evidence: Jesus wasn't crucified. He went to Japan.

Repeat after me: Christianity is irrational.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Yes, and Elvis is an alien. Do you have any corroborating evidence from before 1935?

Peace.

freigeister

Yeah, the Jesus Seminar is a joke in terms of providing any serious obstacles to traditional doctrines like Christ's divinity and his physical resurrection. You have to remember that these guys are really just clergymen flirting with "the dark side". If you want the full meal deal, you are going to have to read this. Quotations here.

Orthodox_Freethinker

"Brunner and Christianity

For Brunner, Jesus represents the greatest representative of what he calls "die Geistigen". The English translation of this term is hotly debated among Brunnerians. In Our Christ it is given as "the spiritual elite." This spiritual elite is contrasted with what Brunner calls "das Volk", who constitute the vast majority of mankind. Brunner's doctrine of the spiritual elite is essentially a doctrine of genius. Thus he argues that Jesus is the greatest of geniuses. Brunner relies heavily on Spinoza in all matters, including Christology.

Brunner argues that Jesus' conception of what he calls "the Father" corresponds to what Brunner calls "das Denkende". The translation of this term is also debated. In Our Christ it is rendered as "the Cogitant". It corresponds to the formless, imageless essence of being which we attain to through mystical apperception. The spiritual elite are those who have a clear apperception of this essence. Most people have little or no ability or desire to work toward this clarity, adhering instead to a view of the absolute based on their sense impressions. For Brunner, Judaism is an anti-religion, a protest against religion with its absolutizing of the relative. Jesus is the purest example of this protest, living as he did completely within the clarity of his mystical apperception.

Brunner contextualizes Jesus' execution in his doctrine of genius by showing how the leaders of the people have consistently acted throughout history to silence geniuses. Brunner expresses the hope that his doctrine, by making explicit the distinction between geniuses and common people, will at last end the war between them. Geniuses will stop trying to turn common people into geniuses, and common people will stop trying to turn geniuses into common people.

This doctrine of the spiritual elite and the people is radically at odds with contemporary egalitarianism. It is a matter of ongoing debate among Brunnerians how to deal with this. It is clear that Brunner put it forward as a "constructive fiction" which would underlie the human sciences just as the constructive fiction of an indivisible particle underlies physics and chemistry. Brunner's doctrine of the spiritual elite and the people does assist to explain some previously inexplicable social and psychological phenomena, Jesus not least.

As for Christianity, Brunner sees it as a process of distortion by which Jesus becomes de-Judaized and divinized through the massive influx of Gentiles. Finally, he calls for Jews to reclaim Jesus as their own highest exemplar, stating that "Christ was the embodiment of Judaism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Brunner


How are this man's conclusions any better evidenced than that of the Jesus Seminar?

Peace.

Steven Carr

Paul wrote 'The first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit'.

This is really very clear. So clear that leading apologists such as NT Wright can write 700 plus page books and never find space to quote it in full.

Did the Corinthians really hear the stories of Jesus eating, being touched , and having wounds? Then why did they doubt the resurrection of the dead?

More importantly, what were they being foolish about (in Paul's view) about a resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15 'But some will say, How are the dead raised up? and
with what body do they come? You fools, that which thou sowest is not
quickened, except it die...'

In the earliest text about the resurrection of Jesus, Paul calls his fellow Christians fools for not understanding what a resurrection involves.

He calls them idiots for not realising that what is sown in the ground dies.

Why were they fools for not realising that bodies would die, or that only dead bodies are buried? Why call someone a fool for thinking that when somebody dies , you bury them in the ground? That makes no sense.

Did they foolishly think their bodies would be raised from the dead, when Paul knew that their earthly bodies would die and stay dead? Why else would Paul emphasise 'death' when talking about the resurrection of the dead, except to emphasise that what is put into the ground becomes finally and utterly dead?


The passage makes no sense otherwise. It can only mean that they were fools for not realising that what is dead is dead, and what is sown in the ground is a dead body.

Paul certainly preached a bodily resurrection, even if he said that
Jesus became a life-giving spirit.


A spiritual body is still a body.

But his conception of a spiritual body was entirely different to the Gospels conception of a flesh and blood body which could eat food and still had wounds.


The Corinthians were querying the resurrection of the dead, although
they accepted the resurrection of Jesus. Paul calls them idiots.


This could not be because they believed instead in the immortality of the soul.


Or else Paul would have corrected that wrong belief. But when he says
they were idiots, he does not attack them for believing that the body died, but the soul lived on.

So what did he attack them for believing or for wondering about?

Dead bodies rot or are burned or eaten and vanish. They could hardly
have been 'idiots' for wondering how God could transform a body that had vanished into a spiritual body. They realised God can transform water into wine, but you are by no means an 'idiot' for wondering how God can transform water into wine , when there is no water.


If the Corinthians were fools for doubting the resurrection of the dead, then they must have completely missed the point by wondering how God could transformed a decayed, rotting corpse into a living thing.


Such questions must have been utterly irrelevant (which explains why
Paul never addresses them, and indeed emphasises that a dead body is really dead)

He calls them idiots for thinking the body died, and so could not be resurrected, when they did not realise that there were two bodies. If you believe in two bodies (as Paul did) then it is a very simple point which only an idiot could miss - if one body dies, then the other body is still alive.

2 Corinthians 5 'For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.'


Of course the fleshly body dies, says Paul, but there is also a
spiritual body. There is a body given to us by God to replace the flesh
and blood body which perishes and can be destroyed.


Paul regards us being composed of 'spirit' (pneuma) , 'life' (psyche) and body 'soma'. As many have pointed out, there is no idea of a soul in Paul's thought. God breathed life (psyche) into a ody (as he did with Adam) and this body is then alive. Before then it was dust. After death, when it has lost its life or 'psyche', it will return to dust.


Paul's belief about the resurrection can be explained as follows.

A natural body will lose its life (because of sin). When you die, your body no longer has 'psyche' - no longer has life.


People who rely on the 'psyche' - life -, have a psyhicon, or natural body, and that will perish. There is no hope in a natural body.

Such people are not in Christ and have no pneuma - spirit.


However , those with spirit (pneuma), also have a spiritual (pneumatic)
body, and this will be given to us at the resurrection (2 Cor. 5 explains that it is already prepared for us in Heaven). This is what Paul has hope in. Not in the visible body , which will perish, but in the invisible, which is eternal. (I leave it as an exercise to readers to find that Bible reference)

Our visible bodies are dominated by 'psyche' - life, and life will be lost.

But there is also 'pneuma', and this cannot be lost , as it is already in Christ.


Just as 'psyche' cannot exist by itself, and needs a body, 'spirit' cannot exist by itself and needs a body. Paul says again and again that a spiritual body is a body.


Hence all of Paul's talk of 2 bodies - a natural and a spiritual
body, and his berating the Corinthians for not realising that there was
no problem in the decay and rotting of natural bodies, as that was to be expected.

But the Gospels claim that there was only one body, and that it was not
spirit.

The Bible contradicts itself, as Paul claims there were two bodies and
the resurrected Jesus was a spirit.

Steven Carr

Just out of curiosity, why do you think the Jews had no prior belief of a dying Messiah, despite having written the very scriptures which clearly prophesy exactly that?

And why did Jesus not teach the disciples what a Messiah really was? Are there any other parts of the message of Jesus that you feel the disciples got totally wrong? How can we trust the Gospels if they are based on the recollections of people who had no idea what Jesus was teaching?

I wonder why the enemies of Jesus thought that the apostles might very well start preaching that the Messiah had been killed and had risen again, and that some people might believe it on the basis of no evidence whatsoever?

Matthew 27:The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead.

The Bible claims that the Jews might well have believed a story of a crucified and risen Messiah, based on no more than deceit. Who are we to doubt the Bible?

pharoah

First of all, I don't see anywhere in the bible a statement that says that Joseph was a member of the Jewish temple court. Do you or Craig have a source for this? For that matter, do you or Craig have any extra-biblical source establishing the historicity of Joseph?

As has been pointed out many times here, the Christians were a very minor religious sect, one of many, in the Roman Empire in the 1st century. Who would have cared enough to go to the trouble of refuting their claims? By the time that they wrote their stories down, most of the people that were contemporaries of Jesus were dead. Most of the rest were old, poor and illiterate and would have no means of refuting the upstart sect, even if they felt motivated to do so. Remember also that the Church had over 1000 years to alter or destroy any negative evidence that existed.

But back to Joseph. This part of the story contains yet another of the contradictions that plague the resurrection story. John claims that Joseph and Nicodemus anointed the body, Luke says that the women did it.

This whole "empty tomb" tale is completely absurd. All four gospels contradict each other on who went to the tomb, who they saw at the tomb, and what they did afterwards. Why should anyone else believe them when they can't get their own stories straight? The author of Matthews is the only to claim that there were guards at the tomb. However, he contradicts himself because he first claims that Pilate placed a single guard at the tomb.

I'm at a loss to understand how the low esteem for women in 1st century Palestine proves anything. The most that can be said for them is that they were additional witnesses to the 500+ male witnesses that Paul and the gospels claimed either saw Jesus or the empty tomb. Since their testimony was supposedly buttressed by so many male witnesses this bit of "evidence" of Craig's can be dismissed outright.

Your source for the claim that the Jews alleged that the apostles stole the body is probably Matthew, the most dubious of all of the gospels. This is a gospel that routinely mangles OT verses to come up with incredible tales like the Virgin Birth, the slaughter of the infants, Jesus riding two donkeys, the potter's field, etc. This gospel makes the incredible claim that all the saints were resurrected, which is not attested to anywhere else in the NT. So unless you have a better source than Matthew no skeptic will take this claim seriously.

No one but believers saw Jesus after his "resurrection".
No one but believers recorded an earthquake around that time.
No one but believers noticed the darkness at noon.
No one but believers took notice of zombies walking around.
No one but believers saw Jesus rise up into the air.

Truly amazing, wasn't it? It took a miracle from God to hide all of that activity from nonbelievers.

Most of them were supposedly fishermen, so what's so "unexpected" about the author having them fish?

PETER: How would you like join our new religion James?
JAMES: What's in it for me?
PETER: You'll be the head guy, with all expenses paid. You'll never have to work for a living again. Right now you're a nobody loser.
JAMES: Where do I sign up?

So you and/or Craig admit that there is no basis in the OT for the concept of a crucified Messiah, much less a resurrected Messiah.

Since there is nowhere in the OT thay says that the Messiah would live forever or be resurrected, you and/or Craig are conceding that the disciples had no basis for believing Jesus was the Messiah prior to his alleged resurrection.

Religious fanatics die for mistaken beliefs all the time. Witness just in our time the Islamic suicide bombers, the Jim Jones cult, the Heaven's Gate cult, David Koresh and Waco,Charles Manson,AUM Shinrikyo, etc.

So what? If Craig won with those crappy arguments, it just shows how bad a debater Crossan was.

Craig can't substantiate a single claim that he makes concerning the resurrection.
Complete rubbish. How does Craig's winning a debate against one person show the "true colors" of the Jesus Seminar? If Crosson had won, would you be prepared to say that Christianity is "sophist tomfoolery"?

Frankly I don't care whether Craig or Crosson won the debate. To me, they're just two Christians engaged in a turf battle. They are both holding untenable beliefs. There was no resurrection in any sense of the word, period.

What do you mean by "both" sides? As I stated, this was just two Christians engaged in a turf battle. Yawn.

Johnny Skeptic

Hard evidence? Well now, what hard evidence do you have that Jesus healed people, and that God helps people in tangible ways today? Even if Jesus did rise from the the dead, there is no logical correlation that can be made between the ability to rise from the dead and goodness. What hard evidence do you have that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin, never sinned, and that his shed blood and death actually remitted the sins of believers?