Johnny Skeptic

How many firsthand eyewitness claims are you aware of that the Gospel writers made regarding specific events?

Biblo

For example, Polycarp knew John and Clement of Rome knew Peter.

Biblo

They truly believed they saw Jesus resurrected physically just as they knew Him before when they spent 3 years with Him on a daily basis. I am not sure how you can get around this.

lpetrich

It's still possible to have hallucinations of real people, so that objection does not count.

There are a couple of reputable or halfway-reputable ones who have questioned whether there is a historical Jesus Christ.

But while strict Jesus mythicism is rare, some mainstream ones get suspiciously close, as Edmund Standing does in Against Mythicism: A Case for the Plausibility of a Historical Jesus. He argues that Jesus Christ could have been someone like Haile Selassie, a real person whose adoring followers created so much mythology about him that it is difficult to tell fact from fiction.

Biblo, would it make you happy to believe that the historical Jesus Christ was some obscure prophet who was 100% human with 100% human parentage and who had worked exactly 0 miracles?

Because that's a common mainstream view of the historical JC, as far as I've been able to gather.

Horseshit.

There are numerous well-known people in antiquity who are better-documented, like Julius Caesar.

Biblo

Group hallucinations are impossible. Many people can see something off in the distance because there is a real objective reference, but they can't all see the same hallucination.

Jesus actually has more documentation than Caesar has. He claimed He was God and proved it by His resurrection with multiple attestation. I for one don't know how to overturn this fact. You still have to account for their eyewitness claims.

show_no_mercy

The "church fathers" report their martyrdom? How do you know they were telling the truth? There was a huge war between the Jews and the Romans from 66 - 72, they could have just been killed in that war.

bacht

Biblo, which one of these describes resurrection properly?

As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them.
But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit.
And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts?
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have."
And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"
They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

Lk 24.36-43

But some one will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?"
You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

1 Cor 15.35-44

How does Paul's "spiritual body" require or even ingest earthly food?

Biblo

The precedence for martyrdom is established with James being martyred and Stephen, Paul in 65 AD under Neronian persecution and the church fathers personally knew some of the Apostles which were martyred. I go with the strong evidence.

Biblo

Jesus ate food in His resurrected body.

fta

Uhh, but you just told us that you don't believe in the miracles supposedly witnessed by thousands of people at Fatima. So by your own admission group hallucinations are possible.

Nonsense: we have writings of Julius Caesar, we have contemporary statues and coins with his image, and we have Caesar being mentioned by contemporary writers and historians. No contemporary historian mentioned Jesus.