Benjamin Franklin

Sorry Peter Kirby, I have read the article but I am not well read in New Testament Studies sufficiently to write an substantial response to the article.

BF

Koyaanisqatsi

I know this is a minor point, but a sore spot with me, so I hope no one minds...

The tomb was not empty!

If any of you will recall from Mark (the one the Archbishop is no doubt pointing to as the sole creater of the myth):

Note quite clearly that the man is described as "young," and can therefore not be confused with an Angel, as is the apologetic spin (not to mention the fact that the author of Mark uses the word "angel" five other times and is therefore clearly delineating that the person sitting there waiting is not an angel).

In fact, read with any kind of intellect at all, the author of Mark is giving everyone a very clear clue as to what actually happened as opposed to what mythology could be extricated from it; like a computer programmer laying in a "back door" to the program.

Tomb not empty. Young man sitting there who implants the myth into hysterical, grieved and easily manipulated women (and I'm of course referring to the mentality conditioned into women at that age and in that part of the country); mythology spread through emotions and not intellect.

End of alleged original story; augmenting of cult basis.

Now, with that post x-mas rant out of my system, to the point of "witnesses" all corroborating enough of the story to make it seem as if there are certain basics that can be culled as fact (or even alleged fact), as others pointed out, this is bogus reasoning (above and beyond the obvious mythology), but for another reason no one has addressed.

Marduck touched on it inadvertantly by reiterating an oft-cited misnomer regarding the scholarly practices of "ancient writers," as if the fact that their writings rarely convey literal history is an easily dismissable flaw not to be considered.

Again, as others have already addressed, it is exceedingly difficult to cull a fact out of fiction, which is precisely why there are three versions of the story, but that only serves to negate the whole.

The fact that they do not agree and the fact that none of the authors claims to have been an eye-witness (indeed they all go to great lengths to state women were at the tomb; a much ballyhooed point by apologists, but for the obvious wrong reasons) proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the story did not happen and was instead pure fiction (setting aside the obvious conclusions and clues culled from Mark) and, what's even more damning, that the subsequent authors who embellished Mark's myth knew this to be true.

Indeed, it is their "literary license" that proves my contention, since what they did could only have been justified by an author who was knowingly engaging in mythology; a Paul Bunyan storyteller, regardless of what is in retrospect called a "style" by our current-day historians.

We can look back and note all of the blatant embellishments in "ancient writers'" works, but that doesn't excuse or exonerate in any fashion whatsoever; in fact it only (ultimately) damns the whole to myth (if not downright fiction) in the exact same way that Stephen King is consigned to fiction.

Two thousand years from now, if historians were to read Stephen King (and Dean Koontz, etc., etc.) and say, "Well, these fantastical imaginings regarding spirits and ghouls aside, we can still consider his details regarding Maine to be historically accurate and therefore Mr. King was a writer of historically accurate works of non-fiction," all of our bones would be spinning in their graves.

But, worse, we're not even talking about insignificant events around a camp fire late at night to scare the kiddies into going to sleep. Well, we are ultimately, of course, but on point, we're talking about the alleged factual events and history of the one true God's life, death and resurrection on Earth an event that, if true, is the single most extraordinary and important event in all of universal history (with the possible exception of creation)!

Yet, both theists and atheists alike see no problem in fallaciously dismissing evidence of outright fiction for a "literary style." Well, forgive me, but that "style" you're referring to is called "mythology" at best and by no means "historicity," no matter how many authors were engaged in it at the time or for how long they were doing it and it means ipso facto that no claims of miraculous events can be taken as literal fact at all by anyone so labeled.

Stephen King is a fiction writer because of the supernatural events he depicted and not a non-fictional eye-witness to history in spite of the supernatural events he depicted!

That's patently absurd, yet the very same fallacy is being applied to the synoptics, even though the fact that the subsequent authors embellish the original myth with further mythology (the young man in the already opened tomb becomes an angel sitting on the rock calling upon God to move it; seeing what is thought to be Jesus, but not sure at first by one or two of his followers becomes 500 eyewitnesses to a bodily ascension--erroneously into the sky no less--etc., etc.) proves a foreknowledge of mythology, which in turn, should tell the followers that it's nothing more than mythology, too.

It doesn't, of course, because of this misnomer that Marduck brought up that it just wasn't the style back then to be historically accurate. "Not historically accurate" regarding where a town was located is one thing; "not historically accurate" about a miraculous claim of theism, however, is, by simple default if nothing else, pure fiction.

Having another author embellish that fiction with further fiction simply hammers the nail securely in the mythology coffin, which is, of course, why this particular shade of black is so strenuously inculcated as white in the cult.

So sayeth the thrillkill cult of Koy. (still retired, just bored senseless at my second to last day at work)

Amos

The "young man" dressed in white was "the child" now matured into the fullness of God. Compare this with the "children of Isreal" who failed to mature and therefore died it becomes clear that this one won't die because he did grow up.

Koyaanisqatsi

....um....yeah....ok....we'll get right on that Amos....nice Amos....pretty Amos...put down the gun...

Amos

Be reminded here that Mark gives the pagan perspective whom did not expect a messiah and were not looking with curious eyes for Jesus, etc.

This means that the resurrected new man looks just like a young man dressed in white to signify the effect of the Alice in Wonderland experience.

Benjamin Franklin

But as bd-from-kg, pointed out before, this gives apologists room to quibble as disbelief in the resurrection is just a collary of miracles are not possible.

In his post, for bd-kg, disbelief in the resurrection rested mainly on negative evidence (evidence not good enough) such as annyomous hearsay accounts and given that belief in the resurrection has such high stakes, this kind of evidence in not good enough.

For me personally, the contradictions, in combination with the heavy dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark and the silence of Mark on post resurrection appearances points heavily to the resurrection appearances in Matthew and Luke being fabricated. For me this is positive reason to doubt the veracity of the resurrection accounts.


BF

doc58

As a former strict literalist, inerrantist I can say that the discrepancies in the easter accounts were devastating.
I think the simplest part to look at is the the location of the angel/ young man. Standing/ sitting/ inside/outside, etc.
I was shocked when I read it looking for that. I had read it all many times before but had never seen it.