Vinnie

I asked you for specific citations which showed data that paralleled my four pieces. None has been provided.

Paul provides primary-source data which shows this creed pre-dates his use in Corinthians and his conversion. This is plain historical data. You can choose to dismiss it through hand-waiving but that is not how sober historical reconstruction should be done. And since I only cited the pre-Pauline creed as a basis for the antiquity of the Rez belief what contradictions are you talking about?

No I am not saying no one engaged in deliberate fraud in that era. But because some people have engaged in deliberate fraud does not mean Jesus followers did. They could have engaged in it byt you are ignoring my cited reasons for why deliberate fraud is not an option: "I do not regard deliberate fraud as a worthwhile explanation. Many of the people in these lists were to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming that they had seen the risen Lord, and several of them would die for that cause. Moreover, a calculated deception should have produced greater unanimity. Instead, there seem to have been competitors: ‘I saw him first!” ‘No! I did.’ " Rather than suggesting that because some people engaged in fraud they could have to, feel free to address the arguments put forth by Sanders.

This "religious epiphany" most likely occured over a period of time to a number of different people. Though I agree you can explain my 4 cited reasons other than an actual Rez. But if I were to add more pieces from the Gospels I think wiggle room would run out.


Actually, I am told that Jews thought anyone who hung on a tree was cursed. Its not a silly argument. Its a part of history.

Gerald o' Collins, Christology, p. 79

I think the case only grows stronger when elements from the gospels are added.

Vinnie

Clutch

Since you've repeated this claim, I will ask again: What evidence, biblical or extra-biblical, but plausibly of first-hand provenance, supports these two specific claims, and for which people in particular? (This would be evidence of claiming, and being in particular executed on account of claiming, to have personally witnessed a resurrected Christ.)

Notice moreover that even if these claims are correct, they do not address Gurdur's point. Your personal assessment of the improbability that people would martyr themselves for a belief adopted through self-deception carries no weight in comparison to the many, many cases we know in which people have done exactly that.

Family Man

After Caesar's defeat of Pompeii several miracles were attributed to him and he was proclaimed a divine being. No one takes that seriously. In fact, there are no miraculous claims from ancient times that historians take seriously. They are always dismissed out of hand. So why should we take claims of a Resurrection seriously?


And no one would have believed that a comet was really a spaceship that would take away the members of the Heaven's Gate cult if they killed themselves either. People come to believe crazy things all the time. There's no reason to believe that people in the first century wouldn't either.

I disagree. Those "reasons" are basically arguments from incredulity that carries extremely little weight in my opinion. I also note that E.P. Sanders in his book said that while he believed that they had resurrection experiences he was unwilling to say what those experiences were. In other words, it doesn't follow from the "fact" that they had resurrection experiences that they experienced a real resurrection.

Given that historians do not deem the purported miracles of ancient times to be historical in any sense of the term, I see no reason why anyone would deem the Resurrection to be historical. There are an infinite numbers of explanations for the Resurrection experiences -- from mistaken identity to misinterpreted dreams and visions -- that explain the purported experiences far better than the notion that miracles actually occur.

Family Man

Since Vinnie brings up E.P. Sanders, I think it worthwhile to note that Sanders believes that none of the true miracles of the NT really happened. He described the birth narratives as being fiction and stated quite plainly that the walking on water incident never happened. Even on the resurrection, he stopped clearly short of declaring it a real event -- he waffled around that question.

So here's the politically incorrect question: if the gospel writers were clearly making miraculous stuff up to make the story of Jesus more powerful, why shouldn't we conclude that the resurrection stories hadn't been puffed up themselves? Given the poor track record of the Gospel writers, I find it bizarre that anyone would put much credence into the claims they make.

Vinnie

I said they died for that cause which was grounded in Christ crucified and raised (martyrs for this). This is not dispouted. The gospels show half that claim. Read them. Then open 1 Clement and type in "Peter" then read the references.

Self-deception is not the same thing as deliberate fraud.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Again, please show me how that parallels my claim.

Historians take miracles seriously but their bankrupts presuppositions only allow then to accept pyschosomatic ones even when the evidence strongly favors a miracle (e.g. the Rez).

"People believe crazy things that aren't true. What the first christians believed was crazy. Therefore, it isn't true." That is condensed version of the fallacious argument you are promotoing. Please show how the HG cult compares to what I cited.

I never said it did follow as a fact. Have you read anything I worte?! If I added more pieces (e.g. burial story) and pressed certain issues (e.g. belief in bodily Rez) you would have less and less wiggle room.

None of those would explain anything if aspects of the burial story are historial. Your dreams, visions and mistaken identity theories would all seemingly be ruled out! As I said, the 4 pieces of data are not conclusive themeselves but if added to your wiggle room runs out.

And, the historians dismissal of miracles is a bankrupt philosphical predjudice which sometimes, can impedes a fair assessment of the data. Though yeah, I reject most claims of anitquity like you, unfotunately, this one cannot be dismissed as easily

Vinnie

At the very least, much of the infancy narratives are fiction. They agree on litte: birth in Bethlehem and that Jesus was a Nazarene, virginity of Mary. They used contradictory means to get Jesus in Bethlehem (where he SHOULD have been born). Though I tend to see the VB more as a confesional statement rather than a biological one some Christians will argue a VB minus the other details from the narrattives. Its usually accepted by "faith" and on the basis of church dogma.

You are not reading what I am writing. This creed (not taken from one of the Gospels!) goes back to the thirties.

Since we are speaking of E.P. Sanders and the evangelist's creating stuff up, I refer you to his repeated comments that Christian creativity was at a minimum in the gospels! If you read his work you would have known that.

I never said the Rez stories were not puffed up. And I refer you to read Sander's chapter on miracles in light of this comment: "statement that "if the gospel writers were clearly making miraculous stuff up to make the story of Jesus more powerful"

Vinnie

Benjamin Franklin

Do you accept any miraculous claims at all outside the Bible ?


BF

Clutch

Ah, well this looks like a much more careful claim. If you do not in fact mean to claim that the "first-handers" died rather than disown the belief that Jesus was literally resurrected, then I agree. But this re-introduces the very problems that the reference to martyrdom was supposed to address.

First, that they were martyrs for the cause has exactly zero implications for the historicity of a resurrection -- no more than the protestants martyred for "the cause" during the Reformation are evidence of the resurrection.

And second, even your quote above is unwarranted by evidence you've introduced. Please give biblical or extra-biblical sources, plausibly of first-hand provenance, showing who was martyred specifically for believing that Jesus had been literally resurrected. Isn' t it an obvious anachronism, to project the resurrection view -- ie, the eventual winner among various contemporary competing interpretations of Jesus' nature and death -- backwards onto a list of martyrs whose very specific beliefs on the matter are not documented firsthand? Is "the cause" as they individually saw it known in the detail required for their deaths to have any bearing on the historicity of the resurrection?

And if you have arguments, make them. Don't tell me just to read the gospels. I might with greater cause tell you to find and read a critical thinking text; but that would be no more conducive to civil exchange.

copernicus

Vinnie, I'm having a hard time figuring out what it is that you are trying to say. As others have pointed out--and you have yet to acknowledge--sober historians do not accept miraculous claims at face value. It is not hand-waving to dismiss such claims out-of-hand. The burden of proof is on those who accept extraordinary claims as plausible. (And please remember that we are only talking about plausibility here.) Otherwise, we would have to take every goofy claim that comes down the pike as serious. I'm sure that you don't. What interests me is why you think Paul's goofy claim should be taken seriously.

Freke and Gandy speculated that Paul invented a Jewish version of a Greek mystery cult. They presented a lot of evidence to support their speculation. I consider it at least as plausible as your acceptance of the literal version of Paul's gospel. What I find attractive about their view, as opposed to yours, is that one doesn't have to accept a supernatural explanation of the "resurrection experience" in order to buy their theory. They maintained that mystery religions were always based on parables. The whole point was not to take them literally. You seem to be stuck somewhere between a literal and non-literal interpretation of Paul's gospel.

I'll accept the "wiggling" part of your claim, but not the "out" part.

Now, if that were true, then why would it be implausible for Paul to invent a Jewish version of the mystery cult that involved a cross rather than a tree? It seems to me that you have come up with a reason for Paul to alter the traditional pagan mythology.