xeren

Hi, i was wondering if anyone could help me with this:

I am an atheist, have been for maybe 6 years now, but i still have Christian friends who think i am being irrational in my atheism in light of historical "proof" of Jesus's resurrection and so on.

Could anyone help me tackle a couple of common arguments my apologist friends bing to the table? Namely:

The time in between the writing of the gospels and the death of Jesus was too short for legends to arise.

He appeared to 500 people after his resurrection!

Why would the Apostles spread the word of the resurrection if it it was a lie? No one would die for something they knew was false

Thanks for any help. I'm sure these questions have been easily answered before on this forum, so if you have a link to another discussion, i would appreciate that too!

Princess of Peace

Good grief! Have these people never heard of Roswell or the JFK asassination? All it takes for a legend to arise is a limited number of witnesses, and a large rumor mill. Legends can and are created, sometimes even within days of the event, and a person can spend a lifetime trying to debunk the legend, without success.

Orestes

The gospels were written about 50-80 years after the events they pretend to tell about, right? Well, just how long was it after Elvis died and the legends started? How long after JFK was killed did those cults start popping up?

Where are the records they left behind of it? What were their names? Where did he ascend into heaven from? After he resurrected, where did he meet the apostles at? According to Matthew, it was in the mountains in Galilee. According to John, they were hidding from the Jews in a room when Jesus appeared. Luke says it was in a house in Jerusalem. The only person who claims 500 people saw Jesus after his resurrection is Paul, not a single gospel writer so much as hints at this.

I refer you to the Elvis and JFK examples. You could also ask why Mohammed would spread the word of Islam if it was a lie.

So the gods of the Pagans that the christians killed who didnt convert are real? Is Islam correct because of its martyrs? What about David Koresh, was he right? Plenty of people have died for something that was 'false', on the belief they held of its being true.

Orestes

BTW, I recommend reading <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/" target="_blank">The Age of Reason</a>. It deals with alot of this stuff, and alot of Old Testament works as well.

Toto

It sounds like your friends have read Josh McDowell or some of the other standard apologetic remarks. You might want to check out <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/index.shtml" target="_blank">The Jury Is In</a> and other articles in the Secular Web Library (just click on "Library" at the top of the page.)

CX

I agree with other forum members that this does sound like McDowell's stadard fare. I'm not sure arguing we people who subscribe to it is a worthwhile endeavor. Even so here's my off the cuff responses.

This dramatically underestimates people's ability to fabricate. Legends frequently popup very quickly around charismatic figures. Several have been mentioned already in this thread. Charles Manson's followers reported that levitated a bus not long after he was arrested.

Be that as it may, there are several facts about the Xian text legacy which call it into question as a valuable historical source.

A)The earliest gospel was written perhaps 40 years after the events it depicts.

B)GMt and GLk rely on GMk for much of their material

C)We have very little in the way of MSS evidence prior to the 4th century so it's difficult to be certain what the original texts said.

How do we know that? Because Paul says so? He is evangelising and thus his tesimony is suspect. But perhaps he believes it. How does he know?

How do we know what "the apostles" did? The only record we have is Acts and the Pauline epistles. Secondly perhaps they didn't know what they were spreading was false. Why would 19 people fly airplanes into buildings for something that was false?

Vinnie

That appears to be slightly off.

I'd drop it down some to 35-70. Though the 80 can be correct if you think GJohn was redacted someetime between 100 and 110 C.E.

Mark the earliest is usually dated around 70. John the latest in the 90s and redacted between 100-110 C.E.

I don't remember seeing Mark dated in the eighties and Jesus probably died anywhere from 26 to 36 C.E.

Radcliffe Emerson

The earliest Christian writings are the Gospel of Thomas and the Pauline letters, dated in the 50s.
None of the Gospel stories currently are dated earlier than 70ce, and no evidence of them exists for at least 100 years or so after that date.

godfry n. glad

"The time in between the writing of the gospels and the death of Jesus was too short for legends to arise."

I agree with CX on this one. Don't short-shrift human inventiveness. Urban legends often arise within hours of an event and needn't even be associated with a "charismatic individual". This also presumes that there was a Jesus to die and for legends to accrete around. There are those who have presented credible arguments that the Jesus figure may be either a composite of earlier legends or a mythological contruct in toto, neither one supporting the actual death of an actual person, charismatic or not.

"He appeared to 500 people after his resurrection!"

First, this presumes there was a resurrection. That's a big presumption that is totally unverifiable. Second, it assumes the source is credible and has been validated by relatively unprejudiced corroboration.

"Why would the Apostles spread the word of the resurrection if it it was a lie? No one would die for something they knew was false."

They didn't know it was false. They thought it was true. Such is the price of faith. History and the modern journalism are replete with sad stories of those who so fervently believed in some misguided dogma that they willingly gave their lives.

godfry n. glad

MortalWombat

That assumes there actually was a real man to whom legends could be attached to. Even if that were the case, there are cases where legends arise about people while they are still alive, like Charles Manson's supposed levitating of a bus over a broken bridge, and Rastafarian veneration of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as God Incarnate, which quite puzzled him when he visited the island. After his death, a Jamaican journalist matter of factly explained his belief that Selassie was still alive on a "Sixty Minutes" broadcast.

Well, Paul claimed Jesus appeared to 500 people. As far as anyone knows, not one of them wrote an independent account of their experience. Note that Paul, who never saw Jesus in the flesh, also used the same verb "ophthe" ("seen", "appeared") to describe the appearance of Jesus to himself as well as to the 500 (and to Cephas, the Twelve, James, and all the apostles). It is not clear if these people actually saw Jesus in the flesh, saw him in a vision, or if they just "experienced his presence."

I guess the Heaven's gate cult and the Branch Davidians were also correct in their beliefs as well. In addition, most martyr accounts of the apostles are later developments in Christianity. The only two martyrdoms that appear in the New Testament, both of which occur in the book of Acts, are of Stephen, who wasn't a witness to Jesus, but a later convert (and was stoned by a mob based on trumped up charges), and James the Apostle. But Acts doesn't tell us anything about why James was killed or whether recanting would have saved him. No other accounts of martyrdom appear until the 2nd century (Tacitus' Annals in 117 AD mentions the execution of Christians in 64 under Nero, but not for their beliefs: they were accused of arson).