Half-Life

http://www.geocities.com/metacrock20...es_submen.html

Now, of course this is not 100% cold hard proof that Jesus ACTUALLY rose form the tomb, but a strong case could be made for it.

I know people hate going to links as they want the poster to summarize the points, but this site is just too good to be ignored. One major point:
Skeptics claim: The disciples stole the body.
Theist claim: There were guards there, how would the disciples get past the guards?

This is a HUGE point.

Diogenes the Cynic

I read your page but I didn't see anything we haven't seen a thousand times before. Where is the part that proves there was ever a tomb at all? I must have missed it.
No they don't.

Vorkosigan

It's.....METACROCK! So you know what that means....someone ought to tell him that his link to DOXA is broken:

Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. You may also want to try http://geocities.yahoo.com/Metagetics, and update your bookmarks accordingly. If you're still having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! home page (www.yahoo.com), or look through a list of Yahoo!'s online services. Also, you may find what you're looking for if you try searching below.

Say hi! to us one of these days, Meta. You don't have to argue, ya know.

Vorkosigan
Vorkosigan

hallq

This is old stuff. Rather than respond to all of it, I'll make some general observations, and then respond to the one point you repeated in your post.

The Gospel of Mark was probably written after the start of the Jewish revolt in 66 AD. The Gospel of Matthew, source of the guard claim, probably built off Mark, meaning it had to be written later. Both gospels almost certainly were not first- or even second-hand testimony, but based in oral traditions that had passed through who knows how many hands.

Result: maybe the empty tomb was a myth, and even if it wasn't, the details of the story may not be right.

It amazes me how many people ignore this point. The site you link to at times tries to argue the truth of one part of the Bible by assuming the accuracy of another part. For example:This ignores the fact that the early Christians may not have even been claiming an empty tomb until much later.

As for the guards: this is a story I've always found rather odd. Supposedly, they're a good protection against theft and such because Roman soldiers were so disciplined. But these guys don't have the backbone to refuse a bribe, according to Matthew. If so, they may have lacked the discipline to stay awake, or may have decided to steal the body themselves as a random act of malice.

If the resurrection was not proclaimed publicly until 50 days afterwards, it would have been too rotted to be worth producing.

(Appoligies if this is double-posted. There seems to be something wrong with the "quick reply," but maybe it's just being slow.)

Toto

I'm getting just a little tired of people showing up and posting links to Metacrock's pages, when Metacrock himself gave up on trying to push his own points here.

Half-Life

Why would the disciples choose to die for something they obviously know is not the truth? I'm saying if they knew there was no bodily resurrection, why would they want to die? If this whole thing is a lie, they wouldn't die. You can't use the logic of "Well many cults today die for their beliefs but it doesn't mean it's true." This is different because the people are duped by the leaders into being brainwashed. If these disciples, who were with Jesus all their life, saw no PROOF of a resurrection, no empty tomb, still saw his body sitting there, they wouldn't want to die for it.

Lord Emsworth

Do you, or Metacrock, have an example of anybody claiming this?

Half-Life

Metacrock has nothing to do with this. I'm merely using his site to show you his proofs.

Family Man

Do you have any idea how many times this board has seen these tired old apologetics? The problems with it include:

1) We don't know if the disciples indeed died for their beliefs. It is church tradition, not historical fact.

2) History is replete with examples of people dying for lies, including: Joseph Smith of the Mormon Church, Jim Jones in Guyana, and David Koresh in Waco.

3) You're assuming that people always come to beliefs in rationally. People can sincerely and strongly believe things that they did not personally witness. In short, it is not only possible, but likely, that early Christians came to their beliefs not through rational experience, but through irrational interpretations of dreams and visions (Paul's vision being a fine example).

You'll convert no one with apologetics that assumes that early Christians were perfect beings that would never adopt an irrational belief, in spite of the fact that people adopt irrational beliefs all the time.

Doug Shaver

I am aware of no good evidence that anybody ever died for believing that Jesus rose from the dead. If you think you have some, let's see it.