Toto

Hi ZX: I do not believe that the resurrection was a historical event. I believe that it was a moral story written well after when it was supposed to have occurred, full of mysticism and symbolism, but not actual history.

And the "minimal facts" are not such that any real conclusions can be drawn, even if one agrees:

Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.

Everyone will agree with this, because lots of people died by Roman crucifixion. It doesn't mean much by itself.

The disciples had experiences that they thought were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.

Even assuming that Jesus existed and had disciples - we don't have any descriptions from the disciples of their experiences. We don't know if they thought that the experience was spiritual only, or on some other plane of existence.

The disciples were thoroughly transformed, even being willing to die for this belief.

This is part of the later story. We don't actually have evidence. And it seems that their willingness to die has been greatly exaggerated.

The apostolic proclamation of the resurrection began very early, when the church was in its infancy.

Richard Carrier has written a detailed arguement that the early church believed in a spiritual, or at least a non-bodily resurrection. See his section in The Empty Tomb - Jesus Beyond the Grave

James, the brother of Jesus and a former skeptic, became a Christian due to an experience that he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.

There is precious little real evidence for this. We have a letter of Paul that references James as the head of the Jerusalem Church, calling him "The Brother of the Lord." We have the gospels, written much later, which refer to a brother of Jesus who thinks that he is possessed by a demon. Later Church story-tellers conflated the two, and decided that James must have been a skeptic at first, and then converted by a visitation from his dead brother. It's remotely possible, but I don't think this story deserves to be called an agreed upon fact.

Saul (Paul), the church persecutor, became a Christian due to an experience that he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus

Saul/Paul is no evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He did no know Jesus when he was alive, and he did not see his resurrected body before he rose into heaven. Paul's letters indicate that he had a spiritual experience, but that's as far as you can go.

Toto

Where are you getting this date? 1 Corinthians is usually dated to about 54, much more that a couple of years if you believe the usual date of the crucifixion. And the passage where Paul discusses the appearances may be a later interpolation.

Toto

What is your source for this? I know of nothing that indicates that James was a hardened skeptic. Are you confusing him with Saul?

These details about the person of Jesus and the resurrection may only have taken shape after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. At that point it is hard to say how these details could have been easily rebutted by the antagonists of Christianity, assuming that any of them took it seriously enough to rebut it.

As for your claim that those who oppose the ressurection story are driven by emotion rather than reason, I think you are projecting your own motives onto others. Many reasonable people have looked at the story of the resurrection, and very few see any rational reason to believe that it was history, including many Christians.

Mageth

Note that you're appealing to elements of the myth to support the myth of the resurrection. E.g., "he wasn't just an ordinary man", "he didn't die an ordinary death", and "the measures taken to make sure that he stayed in the tomb were not normal."

Because "Jesus" and the "Gospel" is the myth, and you are simply appealing to elements of the myth to support another aspect of the myth (the resurrection).

Go to the EoG forum or to the SecWeb library for plenty of arguments that show that the "arguments for the existence of God" aren't particulary good.

Wow. From "a god may not exist, but there are arguments for the existence of God" to "if God exists, it's possible he resurrected a dead guy 2000 years ago" to, I suppose, "Therefore, Christianity is true" in one giant leap.

ZX432

That's depends on the rest of the circumstances in your story. For if you were standing on the moon, that I would probably have to say "Yes." The point is, one must examine the evidence before rendering any kind of verdict.

Again, it depends on all of the details of your story, and not just some of them.

First, I agree. Dead bodies do not currently come back to life, but does that necessarily mean that that applies to the person of Jesus, when all of the details are examined? I don't think so. Second, to answer your question, the reason why it was reported in Jesus' case was because there were those present at the time that it happened, and hence thought it was of importance to be reported. To the believer, who was not present, it gives hope for a future that is otherwise hopeless. And as far as it not being reported today, if the Bible is true, timing is the issue. In other words, just because people are not being bodily resurrected today does not mean that it will not happen in the future, as is predicted. Moreover, when one takes into account that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, which given the evidence did occur, I'm not so sure it is a foregone conclusion that it cannot happen again.

So, eyewitness accounts of the resurrected Jesus are not credible evidence? May I ask, just what would constitute that which is "credible" in a case like this?

Well, after studying Mormonism for approximately 25 years, I can rest assure you that Joseph Smith and his "golden bible" pales by comparison when it comes to the credibility of the resurrection. Yet, I will agree with you, the Mormon story is "made up."

Actually, may I encourage you to re-check the actual dates, because even most liberal scholars agree that the resurrection creed that he repeated in 1 Cor. 15:3-4 was written within a couple of years of the resurrection itself. That would mean that the creed itself was in existence at or around 33-35 A.D. Plus, if one takes into account that Paul checked and re-checked his source information with the other apostles, just to make sure his story was straight, then all of the opportunity that you mention for the story to be corrupted evaporates.

Given the intensity of the situation, and the adamancy of those who wanted Jesus to just "go away," I think that possibility of "shenanigans" was nil. Otherwise, why has anyone, Jew or Roman alike, been able to produce Jesus' body to squelch that which was spoken of earlier, and would later be included in Paul's letter to the Corinthians?

Mageth

I have no reason to believe that the resurrection took place. I find the arguments in support of the resurrection to be weak at best. (As I noted above, such arguments tend to simply appeal to elements of the myth itself in an attempt to support the myth).

So I would not say that I "reject" the myth; I simply don't accept it. Or simply recognize it or categorize it as myth, and see no reason to consider it anything but myth.

Mageth

Umm, the bowling ball would smack you on the foot on the moon. Just without as much force, as the gravity of the moon is 1/6 that of the earth.

Umm, when all the details are accepted. Again, the details you speak of are themselves elements of the myth. If one accepts notions of the myth such as "Jesus was God" and so on, then within your mythos it becomes possible that Jesus was resurrected. But again, you are appealing to the myth to support the myth of resurrection.

Can you provide support for the notion of the resurrection without appealing to the myth?

Iasion

Greetings ZX432,

What?
Should normalcy apply to Osiris?
Mithras?
Odysseus?

Who exactly do you believe normalcy should apply to?
Who should it NOT apply to?
Why?


There is no evidence for that. Which is what this thread is about - EVIDENCE for the crucifixion.


Just later legends.


What on earth?
Do you have ANY evidence he DID rise?


No, there are not.


So,
IF your beliefs are true, your beliefs are true?
Not convincing at all.


Not so. There is no hard historical evidence for this.



Paul seems to have experience a vision of Jesus. The rest are legends written by people who did NOT meet any historical Jesus.


According to the LEGENDS only. There is no historical evidence it happened. Anyway, perple die for beliefs all the time, that does not make them true (e.g. Heaven's Gate.)


Legends written long afterwards by anonymous persons who never met any historical Jesus.


Only according to the legends. We have no actual writings from James.

Paul had a vision of Christ - so what? People have visions of beings to this day.


They are not minimal facts. They are Christian legends and faithful beliefs.


Iasion

Toto

It is not the case that "even the most liberal scholars agree...". There is no general agreement on when that part of Paul's letter was written. If you are going to assert this, please provide some reference.

One of the most liberal scholars is Robert Price, who has written an article on that section, Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 As a Post-Pauline Interpolation. He thinks that the section is a later interpolation, not an earlier creed.

This is pure imagination on your part. Paul met the other apostles a few times, but he himself claimed that he got his information from no man, but from a direct revelation from Jesus. He doesn't tell us that he checked any historical information with anyone else. He did check to be sure that his gospel was okay with the Jerusalem church, but we only have his word that it was, and we don't know exactly what he considered his gospel - but it didn't include the biographical details that the gospel of Mark included.

Iasion

Greetings,

More like TWENTY years after Jesus ALLEGED death, you mean.


There is no evidence of this. Paul mentions NO sources at all. All he says is that OTHERS had a vision of Jesus before him - so what?

No.
Eye-witnesses are extremely UNRELIABLE.

Anyway - there is no eye-witness testimony there. All we have is a passage where Paul says he received a tradition that others had a vision just like he did.

Furthermore the list of appearances does NOT match the Gospel stories.

Iasion