Switch89

I have been looking into the arguments concerning Jesus' resurrection and would like to know if there is anything online that covers most or all of the arguments for it.

I am particularly interested in rebuttals to the following:

1) Why was it recorded that the women were the ones to discover the empty tomb, while the men hid in fear of the Romans?

2) How do we explain the Apostles thinking that the tomb was empty, that Jesus appeared to them, etc.? Why were they so willing to spread the word?

Toto

There is a lot of material in the Infidels Library. You could start with Jeff Lowder's essays on the Resurrection.

You ask: It seems unlikely that this was recorded. What we assume were the earliest Christian writings, Paul's letters, make no mention of an empty tomb or of women discovering it. This is more likely to be part of the story line.

There are many possible explanations that are more probable than the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. The whole story could be fictional; the apostles could have been overcome with emotion and felt the presence of the dead leader; or they could have convinced each other that the spirit of Jesus had come over them.

haitu

is it true that back then, people were constantly calling themselves prophets and messiahs? like it was a common occurrence?

Agenda07

Two thoughts:

Firstly, in the Gospels Jesus frequently hangs out with those who were looked down upon in Jewish society at the time (lepers, the insane, Romans, Samaritans, women etc.) so appearing to women first rather than an upstanding Jewish man could be considered the natural narrative progression.

Secondly, if the author of Mark was pro-Paul and anti-Peter et al. (as the textual evidence suggests they may have been) then what better way to undermine the authority of the apostles than to write them out of the most important part of the story (at least at first)?

Toto

There were a number of would-be prophets all throughout history. Messiah was a term that referred to a Jewish military leader who would deliver the Jews from Roman rule; the term was applied to Simon bar Kochba, the leader of the failed rebellion in the second century.

Steven Carr

Presumably that would have been what was meant by the Samaritan woman in John 4.

Her faith in Jesus as the Messiah would have been misplaced, in that case.