Johnny Skeptic

I look forward to reading replies from readers.

PoodleLovinPessimist

Anyone who might have been an eyewitness to the alleged resurrection of the alleged Jesus would now be long dead; if any were alive today to be eyewitnesses, that in itself would be quite interesting evidence of something.

Chili

None, just the report that Magdalene was left in the dark is sufficient evidence that the story is true. It is unique and original (to me anyway). It means that Lucifer was gone and that equals resurrection.

Johnny Skeptic

What I meant was how many eyewitnesses should it have taken back then? Surely a lot more than for an ordinary secular historical event. How many eyewitnesses would it take to convince most Christians that Jesus had returned to earth, assuming that he did not appear to everyone at the same time?

Amaleq13

I think who the alleged eyewitnesses were was more critical to subsequent acceptance than how many. An individual with an established reputation tends to be considered more credible by those who know him than a crowd of strangers.

PoodleLovinPessimist

WTF? You seem to have a very strange idea of evidence.

In general you need at least two independent eyewitnesses to exclude poor perception, faulty memory, hallucination and prevarication. Given the generally poor quality of eyewitness testimony, it usually takes more than two to make firm conclusions.

You also have to ask, eyewitnesses to what? How carefully did they determine he was really dead? How carefully did they subsequently identify him? How well do their details match up? How independent are they really?

pharoah

Looking at this, there are several things to note:

The lone guard that Pilate assigned to the tomb suddenly became guards after the resurrection.

What was the women's cover story? How were they going to explain their presence to the guard(s)? Wouldn't two Jewish women alone be "fair game" for the guard(s)?

None of the "eyewitnesses" in any of the gospels actually witnessed the resurrection itself. The only person or people who may have witnessed this event would have been the guard(s), but curiously enough there's no corroboration from them. No Roman records exist to indicate that any unusual shennanigans occurred at the tomb on Sunday although they almost certainly would have investigated such an unusual occurence.

Johnny Skeptic

Pilate would have made an excellent eyewitness, but the Gospel writers knew better than to make such a claim. They conveniently did not mention any eyewitnesses with disparate world views. One Gospel says that both sides acknowledged that Jesus had supernatural powers, but both sides did not acknowlege the Resurrection. Why not? Possibly because too many skeptic eyewitnesses spoil the broth of deception?

Chili

The resurrection was foreshadowed in Matt. 27:64 ". . . his disciples will steal the body and say he's been raised from the dead."

Johnny Skeptic

Matthew was not written until about 65 A.D., so the book could not possibly have foreshadowed anything. In addition, why should anyone pay any attention to Matthew 27:64? There is no evidence that it was not a complete fabrication. Do you rubber stamp everything in the entire Bible?