Diogenes the Cynic

What "area" and what "time" are you talking about? There is no evidence the Romans ever noticed Christianity until several decades after the alleged crucifixion.
This is a ridiculous straw man. The Romans had no reason to care about or to try to refute Christianity for at least the first 50 years or so, and they would have had no ability to produce the remains of a crucified criminal from a half century earlier anyway. The carcass simply didn't exist anymore. It had either rotted on the cross or been dumped in a shallow criminals' grave or lime pit. Even if they had some reason to try to refute the resurrection (and there's no evidence the Romans in the 1st Century gave a fat rat's ass about what Christians believed) by producing a few bones (which would have been extremely unlikely to exist anymore, and which the Romans would have had no means to locate anyway), how exactly were they supposed to prove those bones belonged to Jesus? Hmmm? Why do you think a skeleton, however displayed, would be accepted by religious fanatics as the remains of their savior? Are you starting to see how absurd this argument is?
It's not proof because you're assuming facts not in evidence and then drawing conclusions that would be fallacious even IF those facts were in evidence (which they aren't remotely).

Prove there was a tomb.
Prove there were guards.
Prove that any direct follower of Jesus ever claimed that Jesus
had come back from the dead or that they had ever seen a physically resurrected Jesus.

Bear in mind while you're attempting to prove these things that the Bible doesn't count as evidence. The historical truth of the Gospel accounts is precisely what you're attempting to prove. When you cite details like Matthew's guards, you are assuming your own conclusion. You can't use the Bible to prove itself. That would be a nonsensical approach, as I'm sure you can understand.


Until you can prove these things you haven't even got the beginnings of a case.

Killer Mike

The fundamental problem is in taking the Gospels as some sort of historical evidence. But scholars know the Gospels are largely myth and legend. It would be like making a legal case for the existence of Santa Clause because of all the "eyewitnesses" who have seen him in written stories about him. Yes, all the eyewitnesses who have seen Santa would require 1000's of hours of testimony :Cheeky:

Steven Avery

Your contention is that the Dead Sea Scrolls would be allowed as evidence, the actual scrolls, but not any reconstructions or translations of the scrolls ?

Do you have any evidence for this rule of evidence ?

Did they follow those rules in the Elisha Qimron vs BAR case ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

ddd3dturner

Nicely said, Diogenes the Cynic.

Are we even sure "Dr. Greenleaf, the Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University," is non-fictional?

I googled him and came up with nothing but Christian faith pages.

I also googled "A Treatise on the Law of Evidence," and came up with one by Francis Wharton and another by John Henry Wigmore.

Ah, here is the evidence for "one of the greatest legal minds that ever lived":

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0821756.html
and here:
http://www.bartleby.com/65/gr/Greenlea.html

1783–1853; those were sure different times.

"...elected to a term in the legislature and was appointed reporter of the Maine supreme court."

Must have been hard times when your legislators are also court reporters.

Then he went from court reporter/legislator to professor of law at Harvard, which he then helped found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimo...the_Evangelist

from "Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf"

"There should be a readiness, on our part, to investigate with candor to follow the truth wherever it may lead us, and to submit, without reserve or objection, to all the teachings of this religion, if it be found to be of divine origin."
...
"It should be pursued as in the presence of God, and under the solemn sanctions created by a lively sense of his omniscience, and of our accountability to him for the right use of the faculties which he has bestowed."
...
"How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah..."

Methinks I see a little bias in his opening comments and I'm also a little curious regarding his ability to think rationally.

Or as I believe Homer Simpson said: "Pure hilarity."

Steven Carr

It could be evidence in a different sort of case, for example, where one person was trying to establish that he wrote the modern reconstruction or was trying to prove he had the copyright of a modern reconstruction.

In which case, those documents would be relevant.

Similarly, a translation of a document would be allowed into court, as a help for the judge and jury, provided the original was also present, and expert witness verified that it was an accurate translation.


Only Greenleaf's article where he referred to the practice of allowing ancient documents into court, and then gave examples of original ancient documents being allowed into court (such as the Domesday book) (Or verified copies of the originals, checked against the actual original)


No idea. Never heard of it.

Does this mean that Siniaticus and Vaticanus and p75 would be allowed as evidence in court of what happened centuries before they written?

Steven Avery

It sounds like you extrapolated a bit.

Doug Shaver

Even if that is so (which I do not concede), it is irrelevant until we see proof that anybody who actually knew Jesus actually affirmed that he had risen from the dead.

No extant account of the resurrection was written by anybody who was alive when it allegedly occurred.

ddd3dturner

This is incomplete, and obviously false as quoted. The usual Christian hubris.

I've often wondered how many sentences, on average, a Christian can speak, before uttering a logical fallacy. Strobel, in his Case for Christ couldn't make it through the first paragraph of his book.

I guess all this laziness could explain why there are any Christians at all.

FatherMithras

Well, it's not prof because the statements your making are either lies or hilariously uneducated assertions based on a lack of knowledge on your part. Christianity was NOT spreading rapidly. Unsupported false statement on your part. The Romans did not hate it, due to the fact 1. It wasn't spreading fast, and 2. They didn't give a rat's ass about ridiculous little offshoots of a foreigner religion. Why would they? It's not a threat, and there isn't a mention of it being a threat in the Roman sources we have. Thus another false statement. The Romans thus wouldn't have NEEDED to produce a body or have had any reason to. IF they had, the reason they'd be unable to find it is because the bodies of crucified men weren't buried in tombs. They were left to rot in big stinky piles and then animals came to feast on the bounty of flesh. So we have ANOTHER false statement, and this one shows the error of the Bible. Jesus would NOT have been given a tomb, OR guards to protect it.

THUS, it's not some kind of proof. You believe the story in the Bible that he was crucified and had guards to be literal truth. It ain't. It's not verifed by any ind of sources and is in direct contradiction to the facts we know about. Jesus may have never existed at all. There arten't indipendent ources at the time or for decades afterwords confirming his existence even in literature that SHOULD describe him. Please educate yourself on the issue before dissminating more false information. Not to be rude, but it's sort of rude to come on here and post false, unverifed info. I'm guessing it was a careless mistake, and hopefully you'll read up and come back with better stuff for the forum.

Charioteer

If I were to begin an investigation like this one, and like Greenleaf, I begin with the premise that the Gospel accounts and Acts were historically reliable and non-contradictory, then I would have produced the same results.

He found the conclusion he wanted to find. He wanted to believe therefore he did. If he truly wanted to expose a myth, he would have. Exposing the myth is a lot easier that apologetically defending it.