Board index ‹ Resurrection of Christ

[jimwalton]

> it's far stronger than what we have for most ancient documents.

I have pointed out, many times, that for an extraordinary claim like this one, we require more than we do for a mundane claim. Its a question you can't even bring yourself to answer, you just dodge it all day.
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> And if Matthew and Luke copied from Mark, as many claim, why would they copy from a nobody? None of it makes sense. And this is just a few brief things.

Because he wrote it first. But also, the issues you're bringing up are not strong enough to hold up a resurrection claim. But that's a subject you simply do not want to talk about.

It makes more sense that they picked this author for some reason that we don't understand, than that a resurrection actually happened.
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> Of course it takes more to believe it, but it doesn't take extraordinary evidence. What evidence is all about is the same in both cases.

okay, then do you see why saying "well the evidence is really good compared to evidence for other claims that we believe" makes no sense? Those other claims are not extraordinary. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare them.
Is this clear to you?
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> Yes, as long as the evidence was reliable and from a reliable source.

Given what I presented, would you conclude the evidence is reliable and from a reliable source? That's what you have. Is that reliable enough for you?

By saying "as long as the evidence was reliable and from a reliable source", you are changing what I'm asking. You don't know if its reliable or not. All you have is the evidence I presented. Given that evidence, its up to you to decide if its reliable and from a reliable source. But that's all you have.

Don't change the question, answer it as is.
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The other issue is that we need to determine if this stuff is reliable and from a reliable source, enough to justify a resurrection claim. We can't even be super duper sure who wrote these things. But you say something like "well why would they assign authorship to that guy? that makes no sense". Lets say you're right.

The problem is, its still more likely that they assigned it to this guy for some reason that we don't know, than that a guy was resurrected from the dead. That's the problem. You don't weigh your explanations against the claim we're talking about.

It'd be like if I said "of course bigfoot is real, it would be insane for a person to put on a suit and walk around! That makes no sense at all, I can't think of a reason why that would happen. Clearly, its not a guy in a suit". Okay, but maybe it is. Even if we can't explain why the heck he'd do that. Maybe the better explanation, better than that bigfoot is real, is that its a guy in a suit, even if we can't explain it.
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> One of the greatest things about science is that it continues to learn more, upending previous theories and creating new paradigms.

And yet science would reject the claim in the scenario I proposed.
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> We have the original eyewitness testimony as recorded by the Gospel writers, John in particular.

Most scholars disagree with you, we do not have that. No.
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> You need to let go of the idea that because the earliest scrap we have is from 125 that it discredits the account. You know that the earliest copy of Tacitus we have is from the 11th century, but we regard his writings as of impeccable credibility. The earliest copy of Homer's Iliad (written in c. 750 BC) is AD 150, but we don't throw it out. The earliest copy of "Gallic Wars," about Julius Caesar (52 BC), is AD 850. Your "100 years!" mantra is meaningless.

Did Tacitus say a resurrection occurred? Was he an eye witness? What is the value of what he said?

again, again, again, it makes no sense to compare the resurrection claim to the claim of a thing we know happens. You keep making this error.
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> The birth of the Church and its rapid growth in Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, within a month and a half of the resurrection. Christianity was not spread by military violence, as was Islam, but by the credibility of the evidence.

I don't know how you know that. We see other religions grow, you don't believe those. So false religions grow. Momonism didn't grow through war, right? Why did they believe that guy? How about scientology? That one seems to grow and its nonsense.

I don't think most people who heard the stories were even literate, they weren't able to read the text themselves. I doubt they had time to actually pack their stuff up, go to the original town, and investigate the claim themselves.

And we see false religions all over the place. That a religion grows doesn't really mean anything.
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> Of course it's dodging the question. You're asking me a question like, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" If I answer yes, that means I was; if I answer no, it means I haven't stopped. I'm not going to step into your question designed to take us to a misleading place.

Its not misleading. That's the problem. If it is, explain exactly what's misleading about it. I'm simply asking you if you'd require more evidence for one claim than another. That's all. Explain how that's misleading.
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> I've already answered. Here is exactly what I wrote to you:

yeah, it doesn't answer the question. The question is if some claims require more evidence than others. You fail to answer that.
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> Nor does it imply, as you did, that it's automatically incorrect

that's not what I'm saying. It hasn't been what I'm saying.

I'm saying we don't have enough to conclude this is true. I am NOT, I repeat, again, NOT, saying that this shows its false.

Please stop doing this.
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> It's a fallacy to lump them all together under "religion," as if, "If some religious people are wackos, then all religious people are wackos."

phew, thank god I didn't do that.

[jimwalton]

> I have pointed out, many times, that for an extraordinary claim like this one, we require more than we do for a mundane claim. Its a question you can't even bring yourself to answer, you just dodge it all day.

I haven't dodged it at all, but answered it several times. For the 3rd time, evidence is grounded in the reliability of the source, not in the mundanity or extraordinariness of the claim. Extraordinary claims don't need extraordinary evidence, they just need a reliable source like mundane claims.

> Because he wrote it first. But also, the issues you're bringing up are not strong enough to hold up a resurrection claim. But that's a subject you simply do not want to talk about.

The main issue with this part of the conversation was not to uphold a resurrection claim but to uphold that that Gospel authors are reliable sources.

> It makes more sense that they picked this author for some reason that we don't understand, than that a resurrection actually happened.

You're jumping too far. There are many steps between reliable authors and the evidences for the resurrection. I don't assume, "Oh, it was Mark, therefore the resurrection must be true!" That's nonsense. But you keep asserting that we can't trust the Gospel authors, and I am repeatedly showing you step #1: The Gospel authors were most likely Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn. The discussion has to go from there, then, through numerous steps before we get to the credibility of the resurrection accounts.

> then do you see why saying "well the evidence is really good compared to evidence for other claims that we believe" makes no sense?

Then thank God I didn't say that! That comment was about identifying the Gospel authors and the very beginning of examining their credibility. I didn't even begin to jump from "Mark wrote Mark, and the Gospels stand up well compared to other ancient documents, therefore the resurrection happened." I didn't even get close to that. There are many steps between "Mark wrote Mark" to "the Gospels stand up well" to "evidences for the resurrection."

But it certainly makes sense to compare the Gospel accounts with each other and with other ancient documents. That's how we determine accuracy, reliability, and eventually credibility. Is this clear to you?

> All you have is the evidence I presented.

"Given what you presented" is skewing the case. That's why you're pushing so hard for me to answer your set-up question, but I won't fall into your trap. I won't answer it as is.

> The problem is, its still more likely that they assigned it to this guy for some reason that we don't know, than that a guy was resurrected from the dead. That's the problem. You don't weigh your explanations against the claim we're talking about.

See above. There are many steps between "Mark wrote Mark" and "Jesus rose from the dead.

> And yet science would reject the claim in the scenario I proposed.

As I've said several times, there are many truths outside of science's field. Because science rejects a claim doesn't necessarily say anything about its untruth. Now, if it's a claim of natural phenomena, then possibility science rejecting the claim has weight (though through the centuries science has rejected many claims that turned out later to be true). But if it's a supernatural phenomenon, the best science can say is "No comment."

> Most scholars disagree with you, we do not have that. No.

"Most" is pretty tricky. How many? What percentage? You don't know. There is a large contingent of scholars who agree with me. We have to weigh the evidence, not the number of scholars. Most scholars used to think the Earth was flat, the Earth was the center of the universe, and that washing hands from patient to patient was unnecessary. Your appeal to the alleged majority may be a fallacy of authority.

> Did Tacitus say a resurrection occurred? Was he an eye witness? What is the value of what he said?

Tacitus was not an eyewitness of anything he wrote about, yet the value of what he said is rated very highly. And, no, he didn't say a resurrection occurred. He mentioned Jesus's death. It's just one piece of many. I'm not trying to jump from "Tacitus mentioned Jesus's crucifixion" to "Therefore Jesus rose from the dead." There are many steps of evidence and logic along this road.

> it makes no sense to compare the resurrection claim to the claim of a thing we know happens. You keep making this error.

I'm not making this error. We have barely begun this discussion. You seem to think that because I mentioned the first step that I'm claiming it verifies the last step. It doesn't. There are many steps, many evidences, much history, and logical considerations to get from Point 1 to the conclusion of resurrection.

> I don't know how you know that.

The records of history.

> So false religions grow.

Yes, agreed: False religions grow, sometimes to very large populations. That doesn't mean they're true. We have to use appropriate measures, not just growth, to determine truth. My explanation about the growth of the church was one step of many that speak to us of the truth of the resurrection. Its growth was sudden, unexpected, in an unexpected and hostile environment, without military force or cultural acceptance. It warrants looking at.

> I don't think most people who heard the stories were even literate, they weren't able to read the text themselves.

1st-century Palestine was more a non-literate culture than an illiterate one. Actually Palestine was probably one of the most literate environments on the planet at the time because of the emphasis of Jews to teach their sons how to read the Torah. They learned to read, to memorize, to think critically, and to teach. Now, that doesn't mean they could read Greek, but they could most likely read. There are many evidences to support this perspective:

• The letter from Babatha, and many common documents of normal business
• Minted coins with messages on them
• Many personal inscriptions on various and sundry articles
• Ossuary inscriptions
• Potsherds with school exercises on them
• Luke sought out reliable sources for his Gospel, so they must have existed.
• Letters of Paul prove writing was current in the early decades of the church
• Zechariah wrote on a wax tablet (Lk. 1)
• The Pharisees, chief priests, and scribes were literate (Mt. 12.3, 5)
• Recent studies of graffiti in locations like Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Smyrna establish the literacy of the poorly-educated lower classes.
• Brian J. Wright’s historical research (Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus) shows that communal reading was widely practiced in the first century. Communal reading events were widespread socially and geographically. They happened in both formal and informal venues. All sorts of people were reading and reciting literary works. Public reading was a trend of the day as smartphones are now. There are accounts of teachers in the 1st century complaining about students trying to fast track their schooling so they could participate in the reading culture. People were even quick to correct a speaker who was making a mistake (Jn. 12.32-34). There are other 1st-c. accounts where someone in the audience would stand up and object to some detail being shared in a communal reading event because it differed from what they had been hearing elsewhere. There are countless examples after the 1st century of somebody standing up to read, and there’s an uproar in the congregation over one word that had changed because of a new translation. But this is also true in the 2nd and 1st centuries.
• Martial, 1st-c. writer, speaks of how annoying it was when people were reading everywhere to everyone, even while he was in a public bathroom.

> I'm saying we don't have enough to conclude this is true. I am NOT, I repeat, again, NOT, saying that this shows its false.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

[Not Clever Enough]

> In the Bible, God almost always uses miracles to confirm that what He is saying is true.

Yes, back to miracles . However, let’s not go back down that rabbit hole and end up back where we are right now in a weeks time, as you and I already know each other’s views on the credibility of miracles.

> The evidences for the resurrection confirm Jesus's self-identification.

The Resurrection is an ‘iffy’ topic, as there are many arguments on it being physical or spiritual (the same with how we will supposedly be resurrected). The thing about the Bible is that I could write a book, with many different authors helping and with loosely based real-life events, and stick in a few supposed miracles and wait 2,000 years and have people still call me the Son of God. The Bibles authority is loose “in my opinion”, and is simply just a story (either a timeline of sorts or a fantasy novel). That’s my view, however.

> Jesus's teaching is sublime.

With all of the ideas and beliefs in Christianity that I don’t believe / agree with, this is the one statement that I do agree with. Even if it was just a collection of authors and not actually Jesus Christ himself, or if Jesus was just a lunatic, his teachings are still very lovely. I honestly believe that if every person on Earth just followed “Love thy neighbour” itself, then there would be world peace.

> Jesus's personality (love, forgiveness, compassion, wisdom, etc.) all speak to someone who is not a normal human.

The Buddha was a man who had those same characteristics, does this make him the Son of God?

> The experiences of billions of people of Jesus's infilling of them and changing them.

I’ve felt the same kind of experience through literature, music and art. This doesn’t make any of them divine.

But yes, let’s keep talking

[jimwalton]

> The thing about the Bible is that I could write a book, with many different authors helping and with loosely based real-life events, and stick in a few supposed miracles and wait 2,000 years and have people still call me the Son of God.

See, I don't think ya could. As you study the Bible deeper and deeper—especially given that it was 40 different authors from all walks of life on 3 separate continents over a period of 1300 years—it is an AMAAAAAZING book. And Jesus, even after 2000 years, is unassailable as a person: kind, wise, forgiving, firm, moral. It's why other religions want a piece of him. In Islam he is a prophet; Hinduism sees him as enlightened. My opinion? You couldn't fabricate someone like him—that would stand the test of time and the most intense scrutiny of the greatest minds of humanity.

> his teachings are still very lovely

His parables are incredible. Ones like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son— brilliant stuff. I've tried to write parables. They get verbose; they miss the point; they get glommed up with...oh, I just can't do it. Jesus tells them with such economy and precision. I don't believe some pseudonymous author peeled them off. There's too much quality there.

But then you add his teachings about love, forgiveness, compassion for the poor ... I find it impossible to believe somebody made it up. The quality's too high. The amount of content is too great.

> The Buddha was a man who had those same characteristics, does this make him the Son of God?

Of course not. Jesus's goodness doesn't make Him the Son of God. It's everything put together: prophecy, miracles, teachings, personality, knowledge, power, and resurrection, and then the continuing realities of people's lives changed. Buddha has some of the package, but he doesn't hold a candle to Jesus.

> I’ve felt the same kind of experience through literature, music and art. This doesn’t make any of them divine.

Me, too, but no, inspiring experiences don't mean it's divine experiences. It's the whole package. Buddha had this piece, music has this piece, others here and there, but putting it all together is why I consider Jesus divine. For instance, the prophetic. Jesus fulfilled hundreds of ancient prophecies. There's no way that could be orchestrated (a la "The Passover Plot"). And prophecy is something virtually absent from other religions, but is prominent in the Bible. It's the sum total of the evidences that motivate me to regard Jesus as divine, not just one of them.