Johnny Skeptic

All leading Christian apologists place great emphasis upon the 500 eyewitnesses, Gary Habermas and J. P. Moreland being among the most noteworthy. It is suspicious that the Gospels do not mention the 500 eyewitnesses, even though they frequently mention things of much less importance. The Gospel writers were trying to convince people that Jesus rose from the dead as best they could. All four Gospels mention Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, the women at the tomb and Jesus’ appearances to the disciples, so any rational minded person knows that if there actually were 500 eyewitnesses, which if true is a very impressive and quite useful claim, the Gospel writers would definitely have heard a good deal of their testimonies first hand, or at the very least they would have learned about the presence of a large number of eyewitnesses through the resulting hearsay testimonies other people and would have written about it.

Second Corinthians 13:1 says “This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.� Well, where are the two or three witnesses regarding the claim of the 500 eyewitnesses?

How can we best solve this issue? I think that a good way is to ask two questions? First of all, what would we expect to find in external historical records if there were 500 eyewitnesses? Probably evidence of second hand interviews of a substantial number of eyewitnesses that would be favorable to the Christian position. I am not aware that any such evidence exists.

Second of all, what would we expect to find in external historical records if there were not 500 eyewitnesses? Probably few or no records of second interviews that indicate a substantial number of eyewitnesses. As far as I know, that is the case.

It is important to note that Paul conveniently said that Jesus appeared to 500 of the "brothers" in an unspecified location, not to a disparate group of people in a specific location. If the point of Jesus' appearances was to prove that he rose from the dead, thereby greatly diminishing the need for faith, wouldn't an appearance to a disparate group of eyewitnesses in a specific location have been much better proof than an appearance to 500 "brothers" in an unspecified location? Well of course it would have been much better proof.

The book of Acts says that the disciples went about confirming the word with signs and wonders. I find that to be quite strange since 1) there were supposedly 500 eyewitnesses, 2) Jesus had supposedly healed many people, and 3) the Holy Spirit had supposedly come to the Church on the day of Pentecost. If anything, people back then would have had "much better reasons" for becoming Christians than people today. There aren't any surviving eyewitnesses around today who supposedly saw Jesus after he rose from the dead. In addition, there aren't any surviving eyewitnesses around today who supposedly saw Jesus heal a lot of people.

The further removed one gets from supposed events, the more difficult it becomes to reliably evaluate historical claims. Today, in court trials it is often difficult to reliably evaluate what happened just weeks before, sometimes even with the testimonies of supposed eyewitnesses, let alone reliably evaluate what happened thousands of years ago.

Today, if 500 Christians claimed that Jesus had returned to earth, would most Christians believe the claim? I doubt it.
I believe that most Christians would prefer to check out the claim for themselves.


As if the apostles weren't making things hard enough for themselves by making extraordinary and testable claims in a social environment where it was difficult to keep secrets, they increased the odds significantly by actively encouraging people to check out their claims. Encouraging people to verify claims and seek proof is a guaranteed way of ensuring that your fledgling cult is a flop - unless, of course, those claims hold up under the scrutiny that your encouragement will undoubtedly generate.

In James Holding's TIF, Factor #17 is titled "Encouraging people to check out the facts for themselves." Holding says "As if the apostles weren't making things hard enough for themselves by making extraordinary and testable claims in a social environment where it was difficult to keep secrets, they increased the odds significantly by actively encouraging people to check out their claims. Encouraging people to verify claims and seek proof is a guaranteed way of ensuring that your fledgling cult is a flop - unless, of course, those claims hold up under the scrutiny that your encouragement will undoubtedly generate."

Holding's problem is that there is no evidence at all that the claims were not a flop during the first twenty-five years following the supposed resurrection of Jesus. At the Theology web I debated the size of the first century Christian Church with Holding et al for over a year. Holding said that Rodney Stark picked his numbers out of a hat (7,530 Christians in 100 A.D.) and that Stark massaged the numbers. He also said that his "model" indicates from 100,000 - 250,000 Christians by 70 A.D., and that there had to be that many Christians in order to get the Romans' attention. Although I repeatedly asked him to give proof that Christians got the Romans' attention in a significant way, he refused to provide any evidence at all. He admitted that there is no evidence that Nero persecuted over a few hundred Christians. When I asked him to prove that Christians got Titus' attention, he became evasive because he knew that isn't any proof at all that Titus persecuted Christians to any substantial degree.

The proof that I demolished Holding is after contesting Rodney Stark by tooth and claw for well over a year he basically said "So what if I agree with Stark? It doesn't affect my position one bit." Now readers, that is after Holding said in Factor #17 in TIF "the thousands at Pentecost and the 500 eyewitnesses, making it harder not to believe that to believe." More proof of Holding's embarrassing defeat is that when he wrote a chapter by chapter rebuttal of Richard Carrier's rebuttal of ITF, regarding the issue of the size of the 1st century Christian Church, instead of writing a rebuttal he told readers to visit the Theology Web and read the debates there, many of which he did not participate in, and without giving and pertinent links and post numbers. Such shabby "scholarship" is unheard of among competent debators. Holding would immediately criticize Richard Carrier if Richard were to do something like that.

I hereby offer James Holding $1,000 to debate the Tyre prophecy with me in a formal debate at this forum. I am sure that someone will tell him about my offer, and I am also sure that he will decline my offer because I have already embarrassed him on that topic at the Theology Web.

James Holding wouldn't be caught dead at this forum. He wouldn't be able to call anyone any names, he would have less help from his buddies from the Theology Web, and most of all there are a good number of scholarly skeptics here who he is afraid of.

I used to think that Holding was a tough debater. Now I know that that assessment was incorrect.

Boro Nut

Isn't it suspicious that the first time the eyewitnesses are metioned there just happens to be a nice round number of them? 500 seems a highly suspicious number to me. I doubt there were more than 497 of them.

Boro Nut

Sparrow

No, there were exactly 500. Although it was not recorded in the gospels, God froze time so that they could go around and get an accurate count. Sort of like when he gave Joshua the extra time to kill all his enemies by making the sun stand still. [/silly-conjecture]

Todays, groups always seem to inflate the numbers in large crowds. Why is it impossible to believe that was true 2000 yers ago? As for me, whether the text claim 50, 500 or 5000, I think it's totally fiction.

Johnny Skeptic

In my first post I inadvertently duplicated a paragraph, so following is my corrected version:

All leading Christian apologists place great emphasis upon the 500 eyewitnesses, Gary Habermas and J. P. Moreland being among the most noteworthy. It is suspicious that the Gospels do not mention the 500 eyewitnesses, even though they frequently mention things of much less importance. The Gospel writers were trying to convince people that Jesus rose from the dead as best they could. All four Gospels mention Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, the women at the tomb and Jesus’ appearances to the disciples, so any rational minded person knows that if there actually were 500 eyewitnesses, which if true is a very impressive and quite useful claim, the Gospel writers would definitely have heard a good deal of their testimonies first hand, or at the very least they would have learned about the presence of a large number of eyewitnesses through the resulting hearsay testimonies other people and would have written about it.

Second Corinthians 13:1 says “This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.� Well, where are the two or three witnesses regarding the claim of the 500 eyewitnesses?

How can we best solve this issue? I think that a good way is to ask two questions? First of all, what would we expect to find in external historical records if there were 500 eyewitnesses? Probably evidence of second hand interviews of a substantial number of eyewitnesses that would be favorable to the Christian position. I am not aware that any such evidence exists.

Second of all, what would we expect to find in external historical records if there were not 500 eyewitnesses? Probably few or no records of second interviews that indicate a substantial number of eyewitnesses. As far as I know, that is the case.

It is important to note that Paul conveniently said that Jesus appeared to 500 of the "brothers" in an unspecified location, not to a disparate group of people in a specific location. If the point of Jesus' appearances was to prove that he rose from the dead, thereby greatly diminishing the need for faith, wouldn't an appearance to a disparate group of eyewitnesses in a specific location have been much better proof than an appearance to 500 "brothers" in an unspecified location? Well of course it would have been much better proof.

The book of Acts says that the disciples went about confirming the word with signs and wonders. I find that to be quite strange since 1) there were supposedly 500 eyewitnesses, 2) Jesus had supposedly healed many people, and 3) the Holy Spirit had supposedly come to the Church on the day of Pentecost. If anything, people back then would have had "much better reasons" for becoming Christians than people today. There aren't any surviving eyewitnesses around today who supposedly saw Jesus after he rose from the dead. In addition, there aren't any surviving eyewitnesses around today who supposedly saw Jesus heal a lot of people.

The further removed one gets from supposed events, the more difficult it becomes to reliably evaluate historical claims. Today, in court trials it is often difficult to reliably evaluate what happened just weeks before, sometimes even with the testimonies of supposed eyewitnesses, let alone reliably evaluate what happened thousands of years ago.

Today, if 500 Christians claimed that Jesus had returned to earth, would most Christians believe the claim? I doubt it. I believe that most Christians would prefer to check out the claim for themselves.

In James Holding's TIF, Factor #17 is titled "Encouraging people to check out the facts for themselves." Holding says "As if the apostles weren't making things hard enough for themselves by making extraordinary and testable claims in a social environment where it was difficult to keep secrets, they increased the odds significantly by actively encouraging people to check out their claims. Encouraging people to verify claims and seek proof is a guaranteed way of ensuring that your fledgling cult is a flop - unless, of course, those claims hold up under the scrutiny that your encouragement will undoubtedly generate."

Holding's problem is that there is no evidence at all that the claims were not a flop during the first twenty-five years following the supposed resurrection of Jesus. At the Theology web I debated the size of the first century Christian Church with Holding et al for over a year. Holding said that Rodney Stark picked his numbers out of a hat (7,530 Christians in 100 A.D.) and that Stark massaged the numbers. He also said that his "model" indicates from 100,000 - 250,000 Christians by 70 A.D., and that there had to be that many Christians in order to get the Romans' attention. Although I repeatedly asked him to give proof that Christians got the Romans' attention in a significant way, he refused to provide any evidence at all. He admitted that there is no evidence that Nero persecuted over a few hundred Christians. When I asked him to prove that Christians got Titus' attention, he became evasive because he knew that isn't any proof at all that Titus persecuted Christians to any substantial degree.

The proof that I demolished Holding is after contesting Rodney Stark by tooth and claw for well over a year he basically said "So what if I agree with Stark? It doesn't affect my position one bit." Now readers, that is after Holding said in Factor #17 in TIF "the thousands at Pentecost and the 500 eyewitnesses, making it harder not to believe that to believe." More proof of Holding's embarrassing defeat is that when he wrote a chapter by chapter rebuttal of Richard Carrier's rebuttal of ITF, regarding the issue of the size of the 1st century Christian Church, instead of writing a rebuttal he told readers to visit the Theology Web and read the debates there, many of which he did not participate in, and without giving and pertinent links and post numbers. Such shabby "scholarship" is unheard of among competent debators. Holding would immediately criticize Richard Carrier if Richard were to do something like that.

I hereby offer James Holding $1,000 to debate the Tyre prophecy with me in a formal debate at this forum. I am sure that someone will tell him about my offer, and I am also sure that he will decline my offer because I have already embarrassed him on that topic at the Theology Web.

James Holding wouldn't be caught dead at this forum. He wouldn't be able to call anyone any names, he would have less help from his buddies from the Theology Web, and most of all there are a good number of scholarly skeptics here who he is afraid of.

I used to think that Holding was a tough debater. Now I know that that assessment was incorrect.

Diogenes the Cynic

His problem is larger than that. He has no proof that any apostles ever made such claims in the first place. His assertion that any direct followers of Jesus made extraordinary claims about a resurrection and challenged people to verify them is completely without foundation. There isn't a shred of evidence that any apostle ever said any such thing or even that they ever existed at all. The gospels claim that apostles made these claims but the gospels were written by people who never met Jesus and never met an apostle. Holding (and others like him) would have us take the appearance stories in the gospels at face value, but to do that would be to assume their own conclusions. The reliability of the gospel claims is precisely what is under discussion. There is no reason whatever to accept the appearance narratives as anything but fiction. There is no evidence of an empty tomb tradition in Christianity before Mark and no evidence of a physical resurrection tradition before Matthew.

Before we even start discussing the successfulness or failure of alleged apostolic testimony, Holding has to prove that any such testimony was ever made. I have yet to see a single bit of credible evidence that a single person ever actually claimed to have seen a physically resurrected Jesus.

Killer Mike

What about the thousands of witnesses who have seen Superman do all those amazing things in Superman stories. Superman must be real :Cheeky:

Aspirin99

Bravo, Johnny Skeptic. Keep up the good work. In addition to the time from event point, I also like the point about the distance of the people from Corinth being able to check out the claims of folks that are so far away (1500 miles by boat trek).

Johnny Skeptic

That is, assuming that the claim of the 500 eyewitnesses was made in the 1st century, which is something that I do not assume.

Johnny Skeptic

Well-said, Diogenes. I will start a new thread inviting Andrew Criddle, Roger Pearse, Gakusei Don, Lee Merrill and other Christians to reply to your post.

Aspirin99

A couple of other points. To the fact that people were not buying the resurrection story, Celsus basically says that if he really did raise from the dead and appear to people, then, to make it believable, he should have "appeared to those who had ill-treated him, and to him who had condemned him, and to all men universally".

See: http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...origen162.html

You know people were not buying the story. They were asking things like, "If he was raised, why didn't the guards report it? So, they had to invent the story of the bribes. Thus the point- if angels appeared in front of you, you would not take a bribe to keep quite about it.

The Gospel of Peter (c.150) also tried to provide excuses to address this question people were asking. Hard questions were being asked about the resurrected Jesus and plausible answers were not being offered.