Johnny Skeptic

1 Corinthians 15:6 says "After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep." Now readers, if 500 eyewitnesses with similar world views was convincing, wouldn't 10,000 eyewitnesses with varying world views have been much more convincing? If some Christians ask "why not 10,000,000 eyewitnesses," I will reply "why not everyone in the world?"

My fellow skeptics, would 10,000,000 supposed eyewitnesses with varying world views have been enough for you? Not for me.

Ecrasez L'infame

Nor me. God, being God, could have appeared simultaneously to everyone in the world, floating three inches before their nose - everyone would have been convinced and converted instantly and there would have been no need to go through all these wars and persecutions and suffering. In fact, for that matter, if we're supposed to believe in Him, why not hardwire it into us from Creation? It's the way a proper engineer would have done it.

Ecrasez L'infame

I've heard an interesting theory about the 500, from my usual source of ingeniously unlikely ideas about BC&H, the Georgian poet Robert Graves. The argument depends on knowledge of Greek, and if anyone is interested I'll reproduce the fine details, fonts and all. Basically, the argument depends on a series of three editor-copyists of 1 Cor - I call them the Chauvinist, the Cautious and the Incautious copyists - making their own errors or changes.

The assumption is that Paul wrote his list of who saw the resurrected Jesus in broad agreement with the Gospels - that is, because both are based on a real tradition (we're in the HJ model, of course). Generations later, the Chauvinist takes this list and deletes the name Mary - can't have women being among the first to see the risen Jesus. But this leaves a sentence that reads "then he was seen then he was seen again", a redundancy. Still later, the Cautious editor, puzzled by the syntax and not realising what the Chauvinist has done, adds a marginal note in abbreviated Greek:

af: ep au wf = delete 'then he was seen again'

(I haven't sussed out fonts on IIDB yet - in the above, "f" is phi, "w" is omega, and the rest are the usual correspondences). Of course the letters are all joined together, and the upsilon looks like a nu, and after yet another few years the Incautious editor misreads the note as

af: epanw f = 'by above 500' has been deleted

(the Greek numeral for 500 is phi). He can't see any reason why that's been changed, and puts it back in. Voila - you have the received text.

My feeling is that this is just incredible enough to be what actually happened.

Killer Mike

What about all the eyewitnesses who have seen Superman do all those amazing things in Superman stories?

FreezBee

:rolling: Typical Robert Graves - and yes, it's possible, though I'm not really sure about that "Chauvinist" thing, it's it a much overused explanation, does "malechauvinism" really exist outside the minds of some deluded 19th-21th century humans?

And it would also require more editing - try to read 1 Corinthians 15:6 with "above 500 brothers" replaced with "Mary"


- FreezBee

Codec

Not to mention the arisen Elvis!

Codec

They would have helped the case I think, but only if we could get statements from them. The trouble with Corinthians quote is it is not evidence.

If I said I 500 people had seen Elvis perform live on stage a week ago, you might be impressed. You might be willing to look into this further. Surely you are an open-minded sort of person.

However if I can't give you any of their names, its now an unsubstantiated claim. The evidence trail stops there, nothing further you can do with it.

Futhermore you might start to wonder about their credentials. Assuming there really were 500 witness, how would these 500 know it was Elvis, and not an Elvis impersonator. Had any of them met Elvis before, and so could judge if the person they saw was Elvis.

Johnny Skeptic

The texts do not mention how close Jesus got to the 500 people, that he spoke to them, or that they recognized him. Even if the people recognized Jesus, and he spoke to them, he might have been an alien imposter, or an evil God who was maquerading as Jesus.

Codec

Given the time and the place, and we have someone quoteing of people that have seen him, its all rather hazy. As Paul doesn't directly say he met Jesus (I believe) he did not witness the 500 witnessing the event.

Its probably unlikely there were drawings of Jesus around, so it would rely on the 500 having actually seen him directly before to be able to validate the speaker. Otherwise its as likely that 1 out of the 500 could have said "Oh yes, thats definitely Jesus" and the crowd go along.

Its just not evidence you can use to support anything really.

FreezBee

The thingy though is, what it means to have seen Jesus. For Paul the resurrection of Jesus is evidence that the death-penalty caused by the original sin is no more, that is, it is evidence of the general resurrection. The Greek word "pistis", usually translated "faith", rather means "evidence". We have not faith, but evidence in the resurrection, is what Paul says. But does this imply physically seeing Jesus or what?


- FreezBee