Steven Carr

Jesus appeared to over 500 Christians at once.

Let me see. The Romans crucify a Messianic candidate, presumably believing a Jewish Messiah was somebody supposed to instigate a violent revolt.

Presuambly any Roman governor worth his salt would have had somebody infiltrate such a movement, or 'persuade' one of them to become an informer, or find some way of keeping tracks on them.

And then over 500 of these followers of a crucified rebel meet at one place and time.

Surely a mass gathering of over 500 followers of a recently crucified Messianic candidate would have been attacked by the Roman soldiers in Palestine.

What else were these soldiers there for except to put down mass gatherings of followers of rebels?

This story just can't be historical.

Darklighter

Sure it can! After all it's your word against 500 eyewitnesses. EYEWITNESSES. So it must be true.

(Since text doesn't convey sarcasm very well, I'm being sarcastic. But I actually heard this argument presented seriously in in church once. No kidding.)

Ben C Smith

I am curious as to what you are basing this presumption on.

Ben.

Steven Carr

On the grounds that if you execute somebody and write on his cross that he claimed to be the King of the Jews, you might wonder if his followers might be upset and do something.

Ben C Smith

So... you do not actually have any live incidents in mind from, say, Josephus or the Roman historians. You are just using your own common sense. Is that correct?

Ben.

Jeffrey Gibson

Me too, especially since there's no evidence that any Roman governor of Judea infiltrated the potentially or actually violent anti Roman "messianic"/"kingdom of God" movements initiated by John the Baptizer, Theudas, the Egyptian, Bar Kochbah, Judas the Gamalian and Sadock the Pharisee, Athronges, Judas, son of Hezekiah, Simon of Peraea, the Samaritan prophet, Menahem, John of Gischala, or for that matter Herod Agrippa who made plans to proclaim himself a Messiah king, is there?

If there is, I'd be very glad to see it.

Jeffrey

Lugubert

You´re not mentioning the zombies that rose from their graves. There must be archaeological evidence there to prove the gospels.

Transient

The problem is that, for a christian who has accepted that Jesus Christ is/was the son of god, it is no issue at all.
They can say that god led those 500 to meet together in a spot well away from roman guards and that the meeting took place.
This is the problem with this religion and almost any other religion - they can cover almost everything - a very nice business to get tinto it if you are fine with deceipt and deception - very profitable thanks to western lax tax laws and charitable people.

aa5874

If the story was historical, then there would have been Judas who had infiltrated the inner core. It would be likely that he may have had a lot of details about the disciples and other followers to give to the high priest, or local authorities.

But, in any event, if the story of the 500 was written over or not less 150 years after the supposed time of resurrection, then it only needs to be believed to be true, just as it is today. If you believe Jesus can resurrect, then if 500 people saw him, then some may think it must have been true.

Steven Carr

I think that the Romans may well have noticed a gathering of 500+ followers of a recently crucified rebel.

As for the idea that the authorities might have tried to infiltrate such a movement or paid an informer, I see no reason why it is totally implausible.

Admittedly the rest of the Christians would not take kindly to having such a Judas in their midst, but perhaps a follower on the fringes might divulge information about the movement in return for money. We might never hear of such a person, of course.

But this does not alter the main point that a Messianic movement that could gather 500+ of its followers together at one time, is a Messianic movement that would have been under pressure by the Romans.