Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Please make a post in my thread at http://www.freeratio.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=257437 at the General Religous Discussions Forum. The title is "Does the Bible teach that the flood was global?" Your utterly absurd theory is that the flood was regional. Thanks for the humor. You are well aware that a global flood did not occur, but unfortunately for you, the Bible indicates that a global flood did occur.

Anyone who has just a modest amount of common sense knows that there is no way that a regional flood could have risen to the tops of hills over a period of forty days without draining into the nearby Black Sea.

Diogenes the Cynic

This doesn't even demonstrate that Paul believed in a physical resurrection, much less the Jerusalem cult. The key word is PHYSICAL. As Uncle Menno pointed out, Paul himself seemed to dismiss the idea of physical resurrection as ridiculous, and called people idiots for believing it (1 Cor. 15:35-52).

Diogenes the Cynic

Again, this does not address the question of whether Paul believed Christ's resurrection was PHYSICAL -- a notion which he appears to reject later in this same chapter.

skepticdude

Nope, yer wrong, the bible says

"And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law;"
(Acts 21:20)

The greek word for "thousands" is murias, for myriad or ten-thousand, so the Acts author was saying that James and the elders said there were "tens of thousands" of Jews who converted to Christianity.

How many Jews were residents of Jerusalem in the first century?

:devil1:

arnoldo

Actually, Paul is scornfully dismissing the idea of those who claim there was no resurrection of the dead. Here is some of the language he uses.
FYI, you may want to look at the account of Lazarus who was resurrected bodily (as you stated "biological processes that had ceased resume again") yet experienced another physical death and contrast that resurrection with Yeshua's.

skepticdude

A better counter-example for first-century miracle reports is the miracle reports from Benny Hinn and others on TBN. Their followers swallow those reports eschewing any kind of verification process. Hank Hanegraaff already taunted Hinn years ago to produce just three verified miracles, and all three Hinn provided turned out false.

Unfortunately, the first-century people around Palestine were no better at identifying and excising false information than most Christians today.

In Acts 21, James and the elders tell Paul that a rumor about him (his cavelier attitude toward the Law) has broken out amongst their congregation.

Any Christian will tell you that this was a false rumor, because Paul did not tell other Jews to forsake the Law (that could be disputed, but let the Christian have their presupposition, they'll be hanging themselves with it shortly). However, they don't know what to say when you ask them to confirm their position that false beliefs about apostles were able to persuade the minds of "tens of thousands" of Christians under the leadership of James, right there in first-century Jerusalem.

Acts 21 is your biblical rebuttal to the Josh McDowellians running around who think "eyewitness testimony" is the answer to everything.

skepticdude

I find the ignorance of the disciples in the gospels, concerning the resurrection, somewhat puzzling.

If they had seen so many miracles that they immediately converted, how could they still maintain sufficient unbelief to worry, be depressed, and laugh at the resurrection story of the women (Mark 16)?

The gospel answer to their ignorance is simply that they didn't "yet" realize the full truth.

A more biblical answer would be that the messianic passages from the Old Testament do not discuss a messiah whose kingdom is not of this world. They speak of a messiah whose kingdom IS of this world.

Notice, the disciples expect Jesus, even as a resurrected savior, to "restore the kingdom to Israel":

So the disciples, after three years of teaching from Jesus, having seen all the miracles, having learned Jesus' own explanation of the messianic passages in the Old Testament, and now in the very presence of their resurrected savior, STILL expect him to fulfill the military goal of the messiah as predicted in the Old Testatment: remove Israel from foreign occupation.

What's more likely?

1 - The disciples were extremely stupid even after three years of learning in a a manner that was more conducive to their learning than we have today: learning directly from God on earth.

2 - The disciples learned correctly from Jesus: Yes, he DID claim to be the long-awaited messiah that would give Israel political and military success.

I should think #2 is more likely.

Unfortunately, the more likely explanation now means that Jesus made a real promise to give Israel an earthly physical victory. Other arguments can be made to show that Jesus intended such promise to be fulfilled in the lifetimes of his own disciples (see Matthew 16:27-28).

The point is that the resurrection story seems to be fabricated to help alleviate the obvious defeat of Jesus, who intended to be known as the long-awaited messiah who would give first-century Israel both political and military victory (which is the obvious meaning of the messianic passages in the Old Testament). A resurrected savior could take care of that problem, and resurrected saviors appeared in many first-century religions, so that particular audience would find this explanation more convincing than us today.

Remember also, Paul's gentile audience were often very far away from Jerusalem. They would not give up family and work to spend much money and time merely to go to Jerusalem to confirm Paul's message. Therefore those who believed his message, did so in blind faith; another proof that the original Christians, specifically in Paul's churches, were gullible.

skepticdude

Another fact that seems to escape even some skeptics is that there is a possibility that the ancient author put forth a confused idea and did not do a good job of tying up the loose ends.

There's stuff in 1st Corinthians 15 to imply Paul believed in a standard physical resurrection, and there is stuff in there to show that he beleived in a non-physical resurrection.

My hypothesis is that Paul himself was confused on the concept, and did nothing more than put forth a confused doctrine. Yet both Christians and skeptics attempt to make all of Paul's statements harmonize with a spiritual or physical resurrection.

Does anybody have a criteria for determining when an ancient author probably doesn't have his doctrine fully figured out? How about the fact that his writing does nothing but cause division and confusion in all who profess to "follow" him?

My hypothesis seems to be proven given the existence of disagreements among conservatives and evangelicals themselves on the nature of the resurrection. Read "The battle for the resurreciton", where Norman Geisler and others argue about the nature of Jesus' resurrection body, and admit that the "spiritual" interpretation of 1st Corinthians 15 is becoming more popular in conservative seminaries. See especially chapter 6, "Denials of the physical resurrection within the church".

If 1st Corinthians 15 "obviously" taught physical resurrection, we would not expect evangelicals to disagree. So again, Paul seems to have put forth a confused doctrine that contains enough contrary information to keep both sides of a dispute on his meaning going for centuries. There is no reason whatsoever to try to make all his statements cohere. Paul could have easily used more plain language to undeniably show that he believed the flesh that died would live again. Instead, he uses a much less clear analogy that has left generations of his followers scratching their heads and calling each other "heretic".

Probably because god's word is so "clear", that it leaves unbelievers without excuse...

skepticdude

Did Lazarus die again?

After all, Jesus was teaching about the resurrection with the example of Lazarus, was he not?

And for Paul, a resurrected body cannot die anymore:

If Lazarus died after his resurrection, then Paul is wrong to attribute immortality to resurrected bodies.

Interestingly, there is no reason whatsoever for a bible-believer to assume that Lazarus died again. They'd actually have to assume he did NOT die again, in order to make Jesus' lesson there on resurrection harmonize with Paul's belief that resurrection creates immortality.

You should ask a fundie: "How could Lazarus have died again? Didn't Paul teach that resurrected people can't die?"

Diogenes the Cynic

You misunderstand this passage. Paul is disparaging the idea of physical resurrection, not those who deny resurrection altogether. He wasn't talking to Sadducees. Do you understand that these passages are about the raising of the dead on judgement day? They're not about Jesus, per se, but they tell us something about how Paul perceived the whole notion of resurrection (that he thought it was spiritual, not physical).
What does the Lazarus story have to do with Paul's beliefs or with the beliefs of the Jeusalem cult? They never read the Gospel of John.