Prof

Thanks guys.

I continue to be astonished at the flimsiness of arguments for the resurrection.
I keep having to remind myself when listening to Christians like W.L. Craig "it's the 21st Century, it's the 21st Century...."

Prof.

Fundamentally Flawed

I reviewed this article and couldn't help but note the author says Stephen was lynched. When I was little and in Sunday School, I remember being told that Stephen was stoned while the Saul (later Paul the Apostle) watch the coats of his executioners.

My point is that the story of Stephen's death is well known among evangelicals and they will immediately catch the error.

The author makes some good points, but seems to be lacking basic knowledge.

Toto

"Lynch" is defined as kill without legal sanction. In the US, it implicitly refers to hanging by an extra-legal mob, but that is not a necessary part of lynching.

This appears to be an accurate description of Stephen's death - Acts 6-7 says that Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin in what appears to be a legal process, but he was stoned by an angry mob reacting to his speech, not by order of the Chief Priest.

hatsoff

The Gospel of Peter is not a Gnostic work, and it does not portray Jesus' resurrection as non-physical.

James Brown

Whoops. You are correct. I meant the Acts of Peter. My apologies, and thanks for the correction.

Doug Shaver

None that's worth anything.

wiccan windwalker

amazing hat trick of transcendentalists to dominate Western Civilization and much of the world with nothing more than a 2,000 year old resurrection myth!!!

RAFH

Well, some sort of hat trick was going to emerge. xianity happened to win out. There were lots of reasons, most of which had little to do with whether or not Jesus lived or was resurrected, whether or not the apostles lived or were martyred. The single greatest boost was Constantine. Had any of many events turned against him, the world would be a different place. Probably the biggest contributory events to Constantine were his mother was xian and for both he and his peer in the East, Licinius, the deathbed acclimation of the eastern Emperor, Galerius, who fell ill and became convinced it was the curse of the xian god. They legitimized xianity.

But just like evolution, something had to win out. But just like evolution, it wasn't divinely assisted.

neilgodfrey

Maybe the question could be decided by a head-count. How many Jews and Moslems and miscellaneous pagans have died over the centuries for BELIEVING Jesus was NOT resurrected compared with the numbers who have died for believing he was.

aa5874

I don't know if people are aware of the practice in 'soap operas' of 'killing characters'. That is , if you want to remove a character from a particular role, during one of the episodes, you show a scene where that particular character 'dies'. That character or actor is, in general, not seen in subsequent episodes.

Now, when I read and study the NT,, it appears to me that the characters (apostles) ,or should I say actors, were 'killed' so that they could no longer appear in any further episodes.

It is clear that the Jesus story has not been able to be verified, and the apostles are virtually unknown, it was therefore prudent for the authors to have them 'killed' as soon as possible, lest by making them appear to live long, their fraud be discovered.