shadowfox

If the NT stories are based on some event, and the translations are correct in saying "risen," perhaps this Jesus wasn't really dead but sleeping or in a coma and then just plain got up, arose from the place he was lying.

Could be that the ones who "buried" him, knew he was not really dead and they were the ones who later moved the stone to let him get out. Hard to say when we have no other sources of "evidence."

Resurrection from the dead does convey a far different meaning than risen.

sotto voce

The most important thing a chef does is taste. Because the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And people become Christians, today, as they always have done, because it's to their 'taste' to do so. They like what happens to their drunken spouses, their fractious teenage children, their unreliable employees- their accountants, their shop workers, their postmen, their financial advisors- when they become Christians, or at least claim to be Christians.

James Brown

Faith is an unreliable method of obtaining information. What you believe in might be true, but the only way to be sure is to apply more faith.

aa5874

Paul was indeed childish. He never did away with the supposed resurrection.

But, again, once we introduce the Gospels as evidence for Jesus [resurrected or not] it is IMPERATIVE that we first describe the nature of Jesus in the sources that are used as evidence.

In the Gospels Jesus was the Son of a Ghost, the Word that was God, the Creator of heaven and earth that walked on sea water and transfigured.

It is just a complete waste of time trying to argue that the Son of a Ghost did or did NOT resurrect.

Mdahalishi Mjumbe

The OP is my attempt at homogenising Mary Magdalene's involvement in the discovery of the empty tomb. I used every verse as mentioned in the OP (Matthew 28:1-10, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-9, John 20:1-18) and what I came up with is an account of an event that could not possibly happen in reality. It occurred on a morning after the rising of the sun, yet was still dark. It involves a tomb that was sealed, yet unsealed. It concerns a woman who was both alone and with one or more other women. It involves a woman who thought somebody had moved the corpse of a person she had spoken to on her way to tell that person's followers that he had risen from the dead, yet she had not told them; instead, she showed two of them his body was missing.

How can the existence of the resurrection be got from such an account? How can a person seriously work up enough faith to believe such a tale is an account describing an actual, real, historical event?

How does a reader decide if the morning was light or dark? If the tomb was open or sealed? If Mary Magdalene was alone or with one or more other women? If Mary Magdalene first met the risen Jesus on her way to tell his followers he had risen or after showing two of his followers an empty tomb?

Thank you everyone for your replies so far. They are all enlightening in their way. :thumbs:

Adam

I'm not an inerrantist (Fundamentalist), so I massaged the Resurrection texts here:
http://megasociety.org/noesis/181.htm#Resurrection

Basically I took the continuation of the the source for the Passion Narrative in John 18 and 19 into John 20 in what I call there "Petrine Ur-Marcus" as the basic text from John Mark. The other part, the Twelve-Source, I had to revise somewhat to explain away the confusion with Galilee. See also my Post #74 in my thread here, Gospel Eyewitness.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=306983&page=3

(Yet I'm not so sure any more it's really from the Twelve Source, but may instead be from the Qumraner I discuss in my Post #230 there, not so reliable as an eyewitness. Maybe he went back to Galilee before he heard anything about the Resurrection appearances.)

Sheshbazzar

What happens to their drunken spouses, their fractious teenage children, their unreliable employees- their accountants, their shop workers, their postmen, their financial advisors- when they become Christians? :huh:

Sheshbazzar

I enjoyed your exercise. Really kind of hilarious just how little integrity these tales have. Actually I feel sorry for those who are so gullible, as to be so easily taken in and fleeced by their uncritical acceptance of this inane tripe.

Chili

But walking on water is easy if all it means is going by intuition, and born of a ghost is just equal to reborn, and he was not the creator of heaven and earth earth, and tranfigured just happened to him. He does not do that.

Chili

Resurrection must be easy if only the ego dies. It is not that hard to figure out that if there is 'two of us' we both must die sooner or later, and here the ego dies first. The secret then is not to have a zombie left and so the faculty of reason must be raised.