show_no_mercy

Someone posted this on another message board. My knowledge of the bible is nowhere near the level that some people have on this board, so I'd like to see some great analysis and deconstruction of this argument

Family Man

I think all of those are strawman. What I think happened is that a small group of followers came to believe that Jesus was resurrected -- probably through dreams and visions and/or self-deception -- and the movement grew from there. There are surely enough examples of such things happening in modern times (Mormonism, Scientology, Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidians) that the possibility can't be discounted easily.

mirage

You could start by calling out this utter pile of bollocks. Five contemporary firsthand accounts? Come on! Is this person even worth a debate with?

Diogenes the Cynic

Everything is really dead in the water with this first paragraph. There are no first hand accounts of Jesus. Nothing in the NT was written by anyone who ever saw Jesus. There is no actual proof that anyone ever claimed to have seen a physical resurrection. Since the rest of the arguments in this thesis rest on a totally false assumption, everything that follows it is just so much masturbation.

Amaleq13

It is an entirely inaccurate summary but that has been covered in the posts above.

The earliest evidence (ie Paul) fails to mention it and, at best, implies an empty grave. There is no "historical documentation" of a tomb let alone an empty one.

There is "historical documentation" of Christians being persecuted for refusing to worship the Emperor and there is a very old (2nd century) Christian tradition that Paul & Peter were martyred. Neither of these is actually relevant to the claims being made.

Within the context of assuming Jesus existed and was crucified, I wonder what he would make of:

7. The disciples went into hiding so as to avoid sharing the fate of Jesus and his unclaimed body was thrown into the common grave along with all the other crucifixion victims. The leader of the disciples, Cephas, wracked with guilt and confusion, searches Scripture for an understanding. After a long time studying, deprived of sleep and food, he suddenly realizes there is a hidden message of a resurrected Savior in the text and, soon thereafter, the risen Christ appears to him. He explains it to the others and, soon thereafter, the risen Christ appears to them as well.

Tharmas

Ignoring critical theory, history, and everything else, the Bible itself does not make the claims made in the post. Of the four Gospels, only one makes the direct claim of being from an eye witness, and that only in one place (I'm thinking of the "beloved disciple" remark at the end of John).

For example, Luke claims to be a historian of the early church and to have researched his history well (in other words, by claiming he talked to people who knew the truth of the matter he is explicitly stating he is NOT an eye witness).

None of the Gospels identify who their authors are. None of them are written in the first person ("I did this...I heard this").

So the claim that the accounts are first person accounts written by contemporary witnesses is an unsupported assumption. The texts themselves do not make those claims and in some cases (Luke, Acts) explicitly contradict them.

Sparrow

Suppose the first historical personage of Christianity is Paul. He has a hallucinogenic vision of a spiritual ‘Son of God’ and begins spreading a belief system based on his interpretation of that vision. Later church fathers realize that having a historical basis makes the religion more palatable to followers. Gradually the stories are developed and over time become more detailed.

I’ll freely admit to being a poor biblical scholar, but I’m at least alert enough to know the assumptions of the OP are patently false. I’m particularly astounded that anyone who has ever read fiction could say:

Ebonmuse

If you'll notice, all of the options given by the Christian assume that the Gospel stories are basically historical, and then ask the question - a perfectly fair question, in my mind - of how Christianity could have gotten started if something unusual hadn't happened after the crucifixion and death of its founder.

But there is a very different option which that above list completely overlooks. What if early Christianity had no concept of a historical, human founder at all? In other words, what if, instead of the resurrection story being tacked onto the biography of a historical man, belief in the resurrection came first, and the biography was the later addition?

This is precisely the theory of Earl Doherty, whose work I'm very favorably impressed with. Doherty's proposal is that the first Christians - including Paul, who never mentions any specific biographical details of Jesus' life in his letters other than those predetermined by Old Testament prophecy - believed in a spiritual Jesus whose sacrificial death and resurrection had taken place in a Platonic higher world, and that the Gospel story was a later add-on. If you're interested in reading more, Doherty's website is here:

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/home.htm

external solipsism

I'd say the whole thing is question begging.

Sparrow

Paul was crucified? First I've heard of it.