Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/...les/josh2.html

Comments please.

Deus Ex

Paul believed in some form of resurrection circa 50 CE. I don't know if he believed in a bodily resurrection or just a spiritual one?

Johnny Skeptic

Yes, if Paul actually wrote about the resurrection.

Toto

http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/...les/josh2.html

McDowell does not footnote this claim. (He probably wants you to buy his book...) He is probably alluding to Paul's recitation of the credal statement in 1 Corinthians 15, which cannot be firmly located in the first century (per Robert Price.)

But of course, we have no record of the Resurrection, or of anyone making a claim of the Resurrection, before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, at which point the eyewitnesses would have been killed or scattered.

This has been discussed many times here. Mainstream Biblical scholarship does not accept that the gospels contain any eyewitness testimony.

Again, no citation. It is not clear that FF Bruce intended this comment to apply to the Resurrection in particular, as opposed to other more verifiable elements of the Bible Story.

Sheshbazzar

How does any modern Urban Legend circulate? Ideas and stories that appeal to the popular imagination get repeated and expanded on over and over, and even the best efforts to disprove and discredit them, do not succeed.
Many Urban Legends that were being circulated thirty, forty or even fifty years ago, are still being repeated, believed, and presented as being fully factual with details of location, names, dates, and "eyewitness" accounts. Snopes might be effective in debunking these stories for the few that question them, but the greater majority will just merrily go along with believing whatever it is that they want to believe, and repeating whatever is popular, or in the case of religion and preachers in particular, whatever story will grab and retain the largest audience, and thus turn the largest buck.
There wasn't no "Snopes" in the ancient world, and all government attempts to curtail these Urban Legends failed miserably.
When the church got strong enough to affect policy, one of its very first moves was to eliminate both its critics and all of their writings.
The stories supporting the party line finally being enforced to the extent that anyone even simply asking the wrong questions, or presuming to question the teachings, motives, or the integrity of the wrong person, would warrant a death penalty for heresy and sedition.

gstafleu

Didn't accounts of Joe Smith's con-man activities (golden tablets hidden by a cone of silence, err, I mean a blanket, e.g.) circulate during his lifetime? That doesn't seem to have helped either.

This matches well with Rodney Stark's theory (The Rise of Christianity) that for the spread of a religion the actual theology is at best secondary, what matters is the social network. Theology is only claimed after the fact as being important for someone's conversion. And once one is converted, there is a clear disincentive for looking for evidence that disproves the theology.

So all in all, even if what McDowell says is true (which it probably isn't) than that still would not matter.

Gerard Stafleu

chrisengland

Hello

I don't know if the argument that there were winesses around at the time who could verify the resurrection is a used by scholars or just apologetists.
Even if they are right that there were people alive who could verify what happened' doesn't meen the Gospel writers would listen to them.
I don't think people always think like that.
Sometimes if people believe something they don't listen to what over people say.
Someone I once worked with believed that the texas chainsaw massacre was a true story.
He thought that at the end where it shows him in a police vidio was actual footage.
I told him it wasn't and I had looked it up on the internet and he said you can't trust the internet or something like that.
Now maybe he has a point but people back then could have said you can't trust them.
I'm not entirely shore if he was just joking but if he wasn't it shows that people don't give up beliefs so easily.
If there were people saying that the resurrection did not happen doesn't meen people will listen to them.
Chris

aa5874

What source external of apologia verifies that there was a person called "Paul" around 50 CE?

None.

"Paul" may have been manufactured in the 4th century.

Deus Ex

Are you saying that the Pauline epistles may have been written in the fourth century?

Amaleq13

According to Acts, the resurrection of Jesus was not publicly proclaimed until over a month afterward.

Identification of the remains after that much time would have been impossible.

McDowell's claim is spurious.