wavy_wonder1

a basic outline of pro/con arguments (as i see them):


PRO-RESURRECTION


1) empty tomb

• it is accepted by most scholars that jesus (first of all, existed) died, was buried, and that his tomb was found empty by his followers. the fact that a member of the sanhedrin, joseph of arimathea, buried jesus in his own tomb attests to the story's authenticity. no one would have fabricated a story where a member of the body portrayed as the enemies of and conspirators against jesus played any part.
  
  
• women were the first to discover the empty tomb. this attests to the story's authenticity. no one would have fabricated a story about women being witnesses to the foundation of the christian faith in a society dominated by male chauvinism. their testimony would have been of little/no worth.
  
  
• if jesus had not risen from the dead, christianity's opponents could have simply produced the body and the faith would have been crushed. the body was never found.

2) independent accounts of the resurrection/post-mortem appearances

• the four gospels: matthew/mark/luke/john. these are based on eyewitness testimony handed down through earlier traditions much closer to the end of jesus' life. all of them record that jesus appeared to his disciples. the slightly varying 'peripheral' details confirm the authenticity of the post-mortem appearances. exactly detailed accounts would indicate collaboration or collusion.
  
  
• the apostle paul (1cor xv.1-8). paul records not only himself and the other prominent apostles and disciples of jesus as seeing jesus post-mortem, but over 500 witnesses, many of which he states were still living. he does this in the context of the doubt of the corinthian church concerning the possibility of any resurrection. in other words, he was saying: 'these guys are still alive. you can verify it by asking them'. paul wrote this in the early 50'sa.d., and quotes a hymn that was passed down to him which must have been composed and circulated even earlier--too close to the end of jesus' life a mere twenty years earlier for a myth to develope via circulated hymns. there is also the complete 180 degree turn-around of paul from hating the christian faith to being its most famous proponent and distributor to this day as a result of his encounter with jesus.

3) reaction of jesus' contemporary followers

• jesus disciples went from despondent, frightened men/women to outspoken and intrepid proclaimers of jesus' resurrection. there is no historically valid reason for this other than to accept that they had seen jesus alive and were filled with new vigorous confidence to promulgate his message.
  
  
• no one ever admitted to conspiracy. after being tortured, persecuted, and ultimately put to death in many cases, there is not a single case in the historical record that some one admitted to lying or having invented the story. from a psychological perspective, this is inexplicable unless they believed what they were saying was true: that jesus was killed, and yet, somehow was revived and appeared again to his followers.

summary/conclusion of pro-resurrection argument:

in short, all these historically plausible facts lead towards one conclusion: the resurrection did happen. no other naturalistic alternative can account for all these facts (i.e., empty tomb, sincere belief in post-mortem appearances, psychology and reaction of the followers), which most scholars and historians accept, and still come up with a more felicitous historical situation of what exactly transpired (the swoon, vision/hallucination, and stolen body hypotheses being refuted). the christian faith is rationally and historically sound.


CON-RESURRECTION


1) unreliable accounts

• the four gospels. none of the gospels are eyewitness testimony themselves. they are all anonymous and were written 40-80 years after the time of the alleged events. they're second-/third-hand (or more) sources. the gospel accounts are slanted and reflect the theological views of a later church interpreting their faith in light of the hebrew scriptures.
  
  
• the apostle paul. paul is a second-/third-hand source that cannot be accepted as valid testimony, even though he is a bit earlier than the gospels. his account of who heard and who saw what could have easily been passed on to him after being garbled through tradition. it's doubtful that he personally interrogated over 500 witnesses, and he seems to be at odds with the jerusalem/jewish based believers. he stresses his independence and records conflict with peter himself. his account of jesus' appearance to him would not be uncommon in that world, as far as mythical visions and revelations are concerned.
  
  
• the resurrection accounts in general are contradictory. where did jesus appear first and to whom? what were the details surrounding the empty tomb's discovery? why did 'the women' not tell anyone in the markan account? the accounts cannot possibly be reconciled, and the conflict between them show an agenda in propogating to gain new converts, not any authenticity. in the time frame from when the tradition first started to when the gospels were written, it's not unthinkable for the revolutionary or novel idea to become embellished over time as it became increasingly popular; and that's what happened in the case of the gospels, and probably in the case of paul who picked up the earliest embellishments of the tradition.

2) non-christian myth

• the earliest followers of jesus may have looked to other myths to make sense of their faith after their defeated messiah deceased. the gospel accounts contain admittingly loose parallels to other miraculous tales, but they are enough for the christian claim to be fundamentally no different from them. this would not be far-fetched with a small community of lower class jews subject to paganism on all fronts. even though jews as a people were stubborn against assimilating (even though many did), this doesn't preclude hellenistic or pagan ideas from creeping in, especially when justification can vaguely be found in jewish holy texts. the virgin birth would be an example--the resurrection would be another.

3) no attestation outside the christian tradition

• there are no external contemporary text references that would confirm the christian tradition. they all come many decades and/or even centuries after in the form of reactions or simple comments in passing to the spread of the christian message and increase of christian converts. so many alleged witnesses to such a miraculous event should have preserved indisputable first-hand documents.

summary/conclusion of con-resurrection argument:

extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. no such evidence has been presented to confirm the resurrection historically. in fact, the resurrection cannot be validated historically and must be accepted soley on faith. there could be many unknown explanations for what happened from a historical perspective. this is a culture and era where most people are illiterate and intelligence is at a low level. they're far more susceptible to superstition and legend and myth than would be the case today. the popularity with which christianity spread is a classic example.


~END OUTLINE~


so what do you guys think? critique is welcome.here (michael horner vs. dan barker, 1995) and here (william craig vs. bart ehrman, 2006) are a couple examples of debates that can be found online about it.


kind regards,
~eric

neilgodfrey

I think people don't rise from the dead. Except in stories. Anyone who attempts to counter "arguments for a resurrection" with counterarguments such as you list seems to me to be missing the obvious and wasting a lot of time.

schilling.klaus

The resurrection is to be understood allegorically, not historically as deceivwers such as Holding do.

Already the ancient Orphics expressed correctly that the human soul is imprisoned in the body of flesh as a cadaver is trapped in the tomb.

The resurrection is the desinvolvement of the human soul from the evil passions of the flesh, such as sexuality, and its rededication to the spiritual.

Klaus Schilling

WVIncagold

I just cant wait to see a middle eastern flying zombie.

adren@line

the argument for resurrection is this:

People who are dead do not rise from the dead.

period.


End of argument.

spin

How do you know Holding is a deceiver?

And how do you know that resurrection is to be understood allegorically?

How do you know the Orphics were correct

what's this "human soul" thing you refer to?

And where exactly is it, ie how does one find it objectively if one looks for it?

And just how would you know?

This seems to be another schilling.klaus litany of unsupported claims, putting you into an epistemological nightmare. We do try to deal with evidence and supporting our positions here. Why don't you help us out when making claims? Let us know you aren't simply making unfounded claims.


spin

spin

That is your belief. The agnostic says, until the religionist can support the claim of resurrection, there is no substance to the claim and as is is a waste of time contemplating.


spin

spin

Oh, and as to the thread topic, there ain't no reasonable argument for resurrection, so why think of one against? That would be useless work.

Why don't we try something simpler than resurrection? Has there ever been a documented case in which Lourdes or any other source of godness has given back a limb once the believer had lost one?


spin

patcleaver

eric,

This looks like an outline of Holding v Holding's favorite straw man.

Most atheists support the Jesus Myth position. Either you ignored the Jesus Myth position or you don't understand it.

see http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ospel_mark.htm

This is my take on it, but there are other views:

-Mark was fiction and so are the other gospels.

-There was no Joshua of Nazareth and there were no apostles.

-Either Paul never existed and/or all his letters are forgeries and/or Paul was a Gnostic or a pagan who never heard of Joshua of Nazareth and worshiped some other Gnostic or pagan God named Jesus Christ.

-There were no followers of the mythical Joshua of Nazareth until after the middle of the 2nd century - perhaps not until the 4th century depending on how much forgery has occurred.

- References to Christians are not to followers of Joshua of Nazareth unless they are specific; and references to Jesus and/or Christ are not references to Joshua of Nazareth unless they are specific; and such references are likely to be forgeries anyway.

Steven Carr

John 4:39
Many believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

But the Opening Post says women's testimony was of little worth.

Therefore the Gospellers had no qualms about writing things which were obviously false.

Of course, in the earliest Gospel, it is a young man who tells the reader that Jesus has been resurrected. The women tell nobody.

If we turn from anonymous documents that never say anything about sources, and turn to primary documents, we know from Paul that people converted to Jesus-worship and scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse.

Paul reminds them that Jesus became a spirit, using typology which suggests he believed all Christians would become spirits.

Converts believe what they converted to. People were not converted by stories of corpses rising, or else they would not have scoffed at the idea of God choosing to raise a corpse.