simongc

The biggest albatross must be the one that was sitting on top of Mount Sinai when Moses went up there half pissed for a leak and came tumbling down with a rambling story of voices in the clouds ordering him around . Now we all have to believe that he was rational sane and truthful or else the whole system falls apart before it began .

Just imagine if you could employ him as a defence attorney at your next court case to explain the VOICES ..

LeoM

I know Gary Habermas who disagree with you he is a scholor and a historian. Here is a clip on youtube where he argues with the late Anthony Flew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c47Zd2AyeCg

Dr. Gary Hambermas sees these as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus according to Paul

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. The disciples had experiences which they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus.
3. The disciples were transformed.
4. Paul came to Christ.

According to him also

Hallucinations don't explain the data

Hallucinations are rare, they only occur under the following conditions:

1. Bodily deprivation
2. Someone taking drugs

These facts do not fit the description of the disciples.

He goes on and says group hallucination theory does not work because a group of people don't have hallunications.

Paul says he saw Jesus alive!

1 Corinthians 9:1
1 Corinthians 15:8
Galatians 1

Facts against Paul having a conversion disorder

1. Conversion Disorder does not involve hallucination.
2. Simulataneously he would also need auditory hallucination.
3. Visual hallucination .
4. ''Messiah Complex [ Paul believed God spoke to him a message for the world.
5. But no evidence that Paul wanted to change.

spamandham

Interestingly, the stronger the case that the texts "prove" a historical resurrection, the stronger the case that the texts are abjectly fraudulent, rather than mythical or legendary.

Toto

Anthony Flew is not "late" - although some think he has lost his faculties, or at least his focus. He is still alive.

Toto

Pointless and unproductive exchange between Jeffrey Gibson and spamandham split and locked.

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure whether 'hell' in this work is a heavenly realm although it is clearly an extra-terrestrial one.

The passage seems quite likely to be an allusion to 1 Corinthians 15:38 There are other examples of early Christian speculation about corporeality after death eg http://www.hypotyposeis.org/papers/theodotus.htm Section 14.

In any case this passage, (in which the narrator, apparently surprised at the corporeality of things in Hell, is informed that by the miraculous power of God the souls in Hell are given bodies to enable them to suffer the penalties God has ordained), seems to have little to do with Middle Platonic ideas about the nature and state of daemonic beings.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Is it not correct that some demons do not like getting their feet wet?

Ok, might the story of Jesus walking on water be a story saying explicitly that he is a spirit?

And baptism therefore that he is a special sort of spirit that can get wet? That is a strange story at the beginning of Mark!

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3136158


http://www.raizap.com/sdamned/info/demons.htm

http://encarta.msn.com/column_sickly...be_Sickly.html

Toto

Middle Platonism discussion split off here

Mod request - this thread is going off in six different directions at once. I will entertain requests for further splits (PM me if I missed some posts.) Or start a new thread.

Didymus

And that makes it "hardly an earthly event"? Are we to assume that any event mentioned in ancient literature should be considered unearthly if it isn't dated, placed, and connected to other persons and events? Is the default location of events described in ancient literature somewhere other than earth, unless the author specifies an earthly time and date?

We have literary evidence of thousands of crucifixions in the Roman Empire. Surely you aren't claiming that they all took place in a sublunar realm! So what specifically makes the crucifixion mentioned in Paul's epistles unique with regard to location?

Paul does not state that it took place in an unearthly realm. If that's what he meant, why didn't he say so? On what basis can we assume that that's what he meant?

Ddms

Solo

I watched closely Habermas' lecture: the 'evidence' for an actual historical of resurrection would collapse instantly if it were shown that Paul simply interprets internal psychic events - associated with a well known and fairly common neurological/psychological disorder. I believe this can be shown fairly easily, on balance of probabilities.

I agree with that. Technically, what Paul (and other 'mystics' who accepted Paul's interpretation) was (were) experiencing were not hallucinatory 'appearances' of a person or a ghost - rather in the Pauline rendering the 'risen Lord" was a description of certain known physiological effects of peak nervous excitement or complex seizures - i.e. the sensation that the body fills with light (obtainable btw with low dose of sodium pentathol) or sensations of being outside of a body, again in a prominent luminescense.

The passage of 1 Cr 15:3-11 on which Habermas builds his evidence is a transparent interpolation of Paul's text by the later church.

Not true. It is fairly easy to induce hallucinations even without drugs. One of the commonest methods known around the world is to break up the sleeping rhythm of the person and subject him/her to sensory deprivation. Hallucinatory psychosis usually obtains within 48 hours.

1 Cr 9:1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?

The key verb is 'horao' which often implies 'experience of the supernatural'. It is clear Paul means it in that sense (see how that 'seeing' works e.g. in Jn 3:11 & Jn 8:38)

1 Cr 15:8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

As I said above, I follow those who take this passage not to be genuine Paul. But still, the text says literally Jesus was seen by me also - form of the same verb as in 1 Cr 9:1.

Gal 1:16 [It pleased God] to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles

By this formula, Paul receives his revelation of Jesus from God - and he means to say the revelation was 'in his body' (cf. Gal 6:17).

So there is no question that Paul saw a person of Jesus after his death. This is an allegorical rendering. Luke captures cleverly the "appearance of a stranger" to Cleopas (who does not figure among the cast of characters during Jesus ministry) who only "recognizes" (or associates an internal event with) the risen Lord later.

Jiri


Paul's profile fits with an onset of late acute bi-polarity. No hallucinations need to be present during high euphoric mania (2 Cr 12:1-5). Paul of course had a highly paranoid personality which his experience set on an apostolic career. Paul speaks of himself as a "prisoner" of Christ, which I read as Paul accepting gladly his fate of a commissioned revealer - but he really could not change even if he wanted to.

Jiri