JEST2ASK

That is an issue of importance to me as there is some thought that Paul did not believe in a bodily resurrection ...

I largely agree with you that Paul had a very dramatic personal experience that led to his believing in Jesus as the Messiah what I disagree with (based on his writtings) is that it had anything to do with the "Pillars of Jerusalem", it seems to be a point of great pride to him that the inner circle had little or nothing to do with his knowledge, or authority to preach.

Julian

That is correct. He specifically says that the gospel he preaches did not come from another person but from the lord. He also points out that it was years before he finally went to see the pillars.

Julian

ynquirer

JEST2ASK,

Bodily resurrection and Paul’s related belief. An important issue, to be sure, but also theological stuff of the utmost intricacy. I think that first things ought to be dealt with first. And the first thing as regard the empty tomb is whether there was ever a tomb; if not, everything else is idle. Yet if there was a tomb, even Paul’s alleged belief in a purely spiritual resurrection would not answer all the questions: what happened to that tomb, and so forth.

And forgive me, the point I raise is not semantics. I myself am interested in establishing the historicity of both Jesus and his burial. The opposite view unwarrantedly dismisses the role of Paul in early Christianity and late Second Temple Judaism. His authenticity is beyond a doubt for serious historians and his role could not have been that of an orphic-like rite-monger that dreamed either of a mythical Jesus or of his no less mythical burial. He was a former Pharisee and in all likelihood an outstanding one. He notoriously betrayed his Jewish faith, and such betrayal could not have passed by unnoticed to his coreligionists. Not in a man of his capabilities. To imply that his coreligionists either ignored or played down his testimony is equivalent to saying that just one Catholic priest or monk has ever played down Luther’s challenge to the Roman Church. Every Pharisee would have been only too happy to make scorn of Paul’s dreams of an inexistent tomb. No one has ever done, though.

When coming to discuss the issue of the empty tomb, a few decades afterward, the Pharisees’ stance was to accept that there was an empty tomb while argue that the Christians had stolen the body. Not one of them dared to contradict Paul by saying that there was either no body or no tomb, which would have been much easier since everyone knew, better than we do, what the Roman custom as regard crucified corpses was. They had moral scruples that two thousand years, with unavoidable loss of information, have now relaxed.

Diogenes the Cynic

Psalm 22 doesn't say anything about dying and being buried and rising after three days, and calling it Paul's "personal interpretation" is begging the question.
I asked about circularity because you referred to Paul's own words when I questioned what he meant by "according to scripture."
That is what he claims, yes.
He makes this claim himself. He came to these conclusions before he ever met the Pillars.
If I seemed to be conceding anything, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. I am making two claims, 1.) that Paul claims to have gotten his information about appearances to Cephas et al from his own personal revelations and 2.) he does not make any distinction between how he viewed the "appearances"to the others and to himself. This would be at least a prima facie suggestion that, however he learned of them (and it bears repeating that he claims to have learned about these appearances before he met the Pillars) he regarded the other appearances as being just as revelatory as his own. There is certainly is nothing which can be pointed to as a hard claim for a physical appearance.
See above. Paul claims he got all his info from personal revelation and that he believed these things before he ever met the others.
What phrases indicate that he did not receive his information from revelation? How could the Pharisees have "belied" him?
There is no evidence that there was any empty tomb tradition until Mark's Gospel, at least 40 years later. Jerusalem had been destroyed and Mark was writing for a gentile audience outside Palestine. There is no evidence that the Pharisees tried to claim the disciples stole the body. They had no such "stance."

ynquirer

Psalm 22 contains a general account that might be deemed more or less akin to Jesus’ martyrdom, so that his dying might be thought to have been predicted in there, “for our sins� being Paul’s personal revelation about that. Jesus' staying three days among the dead and then being raised might have been predicted in Jonah 1:17.

See above: personal revelation is the way Paul links scriptures to a particular fact he knew by other means. Nowhere does he say he knew of such facts through revelation alone: this is your claim, I repeat, not Paul’s. But I may be wrong and you can point at the exact verse were he says that.

Confirmation of the Pharisees’ contention as regard the theft of Jesus’ body is in Matthew 28:15; the writer of Matthew, admittedly an anti-Jewish one, here is reacting against a Jewish stance. On the other hand, it is true that there is no Jewish document that says the disciples stole the body; this, however, is argument from silence. It could be turned the other way around: no Jewish document says that Jesus never existed nor that the Christians were such liars as to invent the theory that there was a tomb actually inexistent.

Half-Life

I'm sorry I haven't posted.

But here are the facts that we know are 100% true.

We know that the apostles and people died for the fact that he was resurrected.

Now, the bible claims 500 eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection. You simply dismiss this by saying "you can't use the Bible t prove itself."

Now, can we not use other books to prove itself? Can we not use a history book to prove who ruled Egypt between said year and said year? Would you dismiss this and say we can't use a hsitory book to prove history?

So we have people in the early first century dying for the belief that Jesus resurrected. They were threatened with death and still accepted it. Now, is this proof that Jesus did resurrect? Of course not. We have tons of people dying today for beliefs today that are not true. But, why should we believe the resurrection was a myth? Small cults die for thier beliefs. They don't have 2 billion followers worldwide, which is what Christianity is. They don't have miracle claims like Christianity does.

Toto

We don't know how the apostles died and we can't be at all sure that they died because Jesus was resurrected.

One contested verse in one of Paul's letters says that there were 500 eyewitnesses - but doesn't name them or indicate where they could be found. This verse contradicts Acts, which says that there were only 120 believers in the earliest days. Can you use the Bible to disprove itself?

A history book cannot prove history. You have to know what sources the book uses. We don't know the source for the claim that there were 500 eyewitnesses to the Resurrection.

You just undid your argument.

Christianity did not have 2 billion followers worldwide in the first century.

Other religious definitely do have miracle claims.

Islam has billions of followers wordwide, miracle claims, and people willing to die for their beliefs. Are you arguing that it is true?

Diogenes the Cynic

Psalm 22 is not a Messianic prophecy. Jonah's three days in the whale is not a Messianic prophecy. There are no Hebrew scriptures that predict the death and rebirth of a Messiah after three days (or any days). Paul's assertion that Jesus did these things "according to scripture" is not accurate. Claiming that these are Paul's own interpretations, "revealed" or otherwise, is begging the question.
Where does he say he knew anything by any other means than revelation? But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught [it], but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11,12)
Matthew 28:15 is not "confirmation" of the claim, it IS the claim. The historicity of claims made in the gospels are exactly what you're trying to prove, You can't assert that Matthew is confirmation of Matthew.
This is only an argument from silence on your part. You are the one who asserting a historical claim. You are the one who has to prove it.

Johnny Skeptic

No it isn't. In Lee Strobel's 'The Case For Christ', William Lane Craig says that since only Matthew mentions the guards, and since the guards story is so disputed, he never uses it. Even if there were guards at the tomb, the texts say that they didn't get there until the day after J of A got the body from Pilate. That left a one night window of opportunity for the body to be stolen or moved, and resealed. Maybe the guards didn't check the tomb when they arrived there, that is, if they ever arrived there at all.

Would you care to try again?

ynquirer

Paul believed both texts were Messianic prophecy – remember? it was revealed to him by God. Whether or not his assertions thereupon were accurate is wholly immaterial in a discussion about history, such as I supposed this to be.

There are many facts of which he got knowledge by means other than revelation, according to common sense. Just, for instance, in 2 Cor 11:24

24: Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.

Or else – do you think that Paul got knowledge of these corporal punishments by means of revelation during one of his hallucinatory experiences?

As expected you aren’t able to provide proof that he knew everything from revelation other than his utterance about the gospel. Yet his definition of the gospel is rather restrictive in Rom 1:1-2:

1: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God
2: which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures,

Therefore, what Paul calls the gospel of God is the alleged fulfillment of prophesies as allegedly contained in the scriptures – the accuracy or inaccuracy of the related midrash being stuff for religion – and nothing else. You unwarrantedly expand the extension of the notion so as include everything he claimed to know, so rendering him a type of fool that did not know what his dreams were as distinguished from reality.

No, it isn’t. The claim is mine (and perhaps others’) and primarily based on the Jewish silence as regards the apostasy of a former coreligionist, – Paul, – and as such a promising one according to Gal 1:14,

14:and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

(Although I grant this perception could also be a by-product of his hallucinatory experiences, right?)

Such silence is particularly striking since the Jews took the pains to deliver thirty-nine lashes, five times, to him on account of his doctrine. Now, Matthew is confirmation of the conjecture – everything we, who have not a direct communication channel from God, can do is to propose conjectures – that a main Jewish argument against the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus was neither that Jesus was a myth, nor that his tomb was a myth, but rather that there was a natural explanation for the emptiness of the tomb. Which is tantamount to admitting, at least, that there was an empty tomb. And the conjecture that the Jews proposed a natural explanation for the empty tomb by itself explains both the Jews’ silence as regards Paul’s claim of burial and Matthew.