braces_for_impact

Keeping in mind that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, how about we prove a crucifixion before we go on about bringing dead people back to life ok?

Benjamin Franklin

You are assuming that the Gospels accounts of the empty tomb and the stone being moved are historical in the first place. If those accounts are historical, this debate is pointless since according to the Gospels Jesus did resurrect from the dead.


BF

malookiemaloo

I don't think that the disciples would fake a resurrection ie basically tell a lie.

On any reading of the relevant NT sections, one thing is clear. The followers GENUINELY believed that Jesus rose. Not that genuine belief in the resurrection proves it but it shows that they were not lying.

How can we believe that someone can come back from the dead?

Unless you believe that the Bible is a complete myth, then the Biblical evidence is quite compelling.

But allow me to turn to the concept of 'background probability' which I first came across in a fine thesis written by Jeffrey Jay Lowder.

If God does not exist, then the background probability of anyone rising from the dead is nil. However, if God does exist, then the BP is exceedingly high. After all, if God exists we should EXPECT unusual events to occur like the Red Sea opening, an axe head floating or someone rising from the dead.

Sorry, I've begun to ramble. Better stop.


malookiemaloo

malookiemaloo

Are you suggesting that Jesus was not crucified?


Malookiemaloo

malookiemaloo

Yes, I agree.

(I think I have just been set up)


malookiemaloo

braces_for_impact

Exactly my point. Biblical evidence has been proven wrong time and time again. As such, biblical evidence is not satisfactory. Please provide secular proof this Jesus existed, much less was crucified.

Once we have established that, then maybe we can get to the magical guy that comes back to life.

Kosh

You "don't think"? Speculation is now a valid argument? To quote Kent Hamm.... "Where you there?".

Once again, were you there? Do you know what the followers believed? If so, please enlighten us, because in case you didn't realize it, the Gospels were not written by eyewitness accounts. This information is all available in the SecWeb lib.

- Gospels written a minimum of 40 years after the alleged ressurections (Markan priority, anonymously authored 70 ad). This is the scholarly concensus.

- All "eyewitness" accounts are in reality just hearsay. Not recorded first hand.

- None, zero, ZILCH extra-biblical records of Jesus or the crucifiction. No roman records at all!

- The Gospel stories don't even agree on the details.
However,these events never seem to occur, except in the 2000 year old, unverifiable mythology of Ignorant Bronze Age Goat Herders (tm)

jmborr

So what's wrong with the herders in the Bronze Age ? I bet you they knew their sheeps by name. What do you know about the guts of your PC ?

jmborr

Why do people have to select the crucifixion and rise episode to reject christianity ? Right from the beginning Jesus is performing a series of miracles that non-christian can't swallow either.
So that makes all of the four gospels and implanted huge memory, and their authors really really dumb, right ?
Then you can resort to the option of the lie, that all is a lie. This again makes the gospel authors seem dumb, because they died poor and as criminals out of their lies.
Or you can believe everything, from the beginning to the end. This I guarantee will make you look dumb
through the eyes of non-christian people.

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1Co. 1:18)

malookiemaloo

The reason I labour the point that the disciples and followers of Jesus GENUINLY believed the resurrection is to counter the argument that the Gospels are in some way a fabrication cobbled together by the disciples from impure motives.

It is always a puzzle to some why there are so few extra-biblical references to Jesus. (Pliny makes a few references as does Josephus, although Josephesus's accounts are questioned by some. Interestingly, not only does Tacitus mention Jesus, but he refers to the fact that his followers believed that He had risen.)

However, the fact is that although we know something about life in Palestine at the time, we don't really know all that much. Furthermore, due to misplaced zeal, the Christian church destroyed Jewish and pagan records around 300 AD which MAY have contained references to Jesus. But, I accept, they may not.

Also, Palestine was the ultimate backwater and was always awash with rumours of miracle workers etc. To historians of the the time, if they mentioned Palestine at all, they would consider Jesus as just another messiah type figure hardly worthy of a passing comment.

No. It is no surprise that there are so few extra biblical references to Jesus.

Finally, can you tell me one historical fact that the Bible has got wrong?


malookiemaloo