Resurrecting The Problems Of The Resurrection Of Jesus

[RHEMtron]

Paul_S and HanSolo were discussing the problems of Jesus' Resurrection in this thread: http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?show...659&st=800#

 

Paul_S, you might be familiar with this challenge, and i want to see you, and other Christians, respond to it.

 

Leave No Stone Unturned

An Easter Challenge For Christians

 

I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.

 

Believers should eagerly take up this challenge, since without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." (I Corinthians 15:14-15)

 

The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.

 

Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture--it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted. Fair enough?

 

I have tried this challenge myself. I failed. An Assembly of God minister whom I was debating a couple of years ago on a Florida radio show loudly proclaimed over the air that he would send me the narrative in a few days. I am still waiting. After my debate at the University of Wisconsin, "Jesus of Nazareth: Messiah or Myth," a Lutheran graduate student told me he accepted the challenge and would be contacting me in about a week. I have never heard from him. Both of these people, and others, agreed that the request was reasonable and crucial. Maybe they are slow readers.

 

Many bible stories are given only once or twice, and are therefore hard to confirm. The author of Matthew, for example, was the only one to mention that at the crucifixion dead people emerged from the graves of Jerusalem, walking around showing themselves to everyone--an amazing event that could hardly escape the notice of the other Gospel writers, or any other historians of the period. But though the silence of others might weaken the likelihood of a story, it does not disprove it. Disconfirmation comes with contradictions.

 

Thomas Paine tackled this matter two hundred years ago in The Age of Reason, stumbling across dozens of New Testament discrepancies:

 

"I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted," he wrote, "first, that the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove that story to be true, because the parts may agree and the whole may be false; secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a story proves the whole cannot be true."

[Golden Meadows]

But please don't hold your breath waiting on the answer

[RHEMtron]

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd day one over. no reply.

 

reminder this challenge is for ALL Christians [non-christians too if y'all wanna try ]. Especially to the bible literalists like freeday.

[Checkmate]

I cry bullshit, Amy Marie. Whoever wrote this is playing fast and loose, hoping no one notices how he's changing the details and waxing poetic.

 

Your author says that the angel rolled away the stone, the guards fainted, the angel then leaves, the guards re-awaken and leave and then the women arrive. BULLSHIT! In Matthew 28 it clearly states that the guards were STILL unconscious when the women arrived AND that the angel was still present. It says nothing about the angel leaving for a potty break, allowing the guards to leave or any such nonsense.

 

Your author also states that the women "maybe" saw one angel, while other women "maybe" saw a different angel elsewhere, allegedly out of site of each other. Again, Matthew 28 CLEARLY says ONE ANGEL, not two. Your author is changing details to FORCE things to fit his/her conception of the story.

 

Your source is clearly full of crap and so are you. Check your sources before you cut and paste them.

 

Now...any REAL challengers to take the field?

[Golden Meadows]

I cry bullshit, Amy Marie. Whoever wrote this is playing fast and loose, hoping no one notices how he's changing the details and waxing poetic.

 

Your author says that the angel rolled away the stone, the guards fainted, the angel then leaves, the guards re-awaken and leave and then the women arrive. BULLSHIT! In Matthew 28 it clearly states that the guards were STILL unconscious when the women arrived AND that the angel was still present. It says nothing about the angel leaving for a potty break, allowing the guards to leave or any such nonsense.

 

Your author also states that the women "maybe" saw one angel, while other women "maybe" saw a different angel elsewhere, allegedly out of site of each other. Again, Matthew 28 CLEARLY says ONE ANGEL, not two. Your author is changing details to FORCE things to fit his/her conception of the story.

 

Your source is clearly full of crap and so are you. Check your sources before you cut and paste them.

 

Now...any REAL challengers to take the field?

 

You did better than me Mr Grinch I got stuck at the second sentence. I can understand how several people sitting in a packed super bowl in the heat of a big game my have trouble reconciling their accounts of an incident that happened in a distant corner of the stadium. What we are talking about here is small cave in which supernatural beings have supposedly appeared to a small group of people. We are supposed to be dealing with the very word of God describing something which is central the the xtian faith. Is it not reasonable to expect that an all powerfull deity could have arranged for a simple straightforward consistant account of what happened? Does he enjoy causing mental anguish to his followers who have to bend, twist, distort and stick their heads in the sand in order to reconcile whats never been reconciled before.

[mwc]

I wanted you to see another side of the argument. The important thing is they saw angels, the stone was rolled away and Jesus wasn't there. What happened to cause the disciples to preach the resurrection?

Is this all you can ever fucking say? Put up or shut up about this (and since we know for a fact you can't put up...)!

 

Maybe they went to church too god-damned much and got brainwashed like you did?

 

Now back on topic. The point being the link you gave failed to meet the requirements of the challenge. You see as Grinch pointed out Matthew 28 gives the sequence of events that must be included. The person you linked to failed the challenge. A quick glance at the rest of the text shows they did much the same throughout so there's no need to take them seriously. I can just go to church if I want this level of harmonization.

 

I'll make this clear for you: the IMPORTANT thing is that they FAILED the challenge.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

Here's another conundrum:

 

Jesus' body was not in the grave. So he was bodily resurrected.

 

How come in some of the stories the disciples didn't recognize him?

 

It can't be that he was shining or looked like an angel, because they mistook him for a human being, but not Jesus.

 

So what did he do? Shave his beard? Change clothes? Different hairdo? Or maybe, it wasn't Jesus but a poser... a perfect con.

 

X - "Look! I'm back!"

 

D - "Who are you?"

 

X - "Jesus!"

 

D - "Eeh? really? You don't look like him!"

 

X - "That's because I have my heavenly body now"

 

D - "But what happened then with your earthly body in the grave? Did you burn it up? And why do you look like Bob?"

[RHEMtron]

Yeeeeeup. It failed right away. To reiterate what everyone else already stated... so eloquently i might add , the author of that article omitted details and made unwarranted claims.

 

The author left out the fact that in Matthew 28, the boulder was rolled away after the women got there. Nowhere in any of the gospels does it say the angel came, left, then came back again.

 

The accounts of his first appearance does not add up either. I dont even know where to begin with this one. All ill say is the author claims the Great Commission to be in Jerusalem. It clearly states in Matthew that it was in Gallilee.

 

What was your thoughts on the whole thing when you read it Amy?

 

*edit*

it's funny how the author said

so-called contradictions are born of a willful misreading of the texts by those who do not want to believe.

[Ouroboros]

How do you know His body wasn't shining the same as it did when He was tansfigured before in the presense of His disciples Peter, John and James on mount Tabor. The gospel is honest and saying that He appeared in another form. I don't think the writers included this imformation to say that it wasn't Jesus who appeared. This would be foolishness to deliberately contradict themselves which causes me to believe even more, because they included this detail.

Several reasons. They would have recognized him to be a celestial being if he was giving of light. If you meet someone that is lit like a lightbulb, either you think this guy is a magician, an angel or worked too long at a nuclear plant. You wouldn't think it was a regular person or omitting that detail, or writing that you didn't recognize him while you actually did. So nah, it was another guy, just dressed up like Jesus and same haircut.

 

And the tomb stone was is rolled away when they came or not? Where there an angel on the stone telling them before they entered, or was the angel inside, or did the two angels pop up from thin air?

 

And how the heck did anyone get to know the story from the fleeing guards, and what was said in secrecy?

[RHEMtron]

How do you know His body wasn't shining the same as it did when He was tansfigured before in the presense of His disciples Peter, John and James on mount Tabor. The gospel is honest and saying that He appeared in another form.

Yeah, but part of the challenge was to reconstruct a timeline without omitting or adding details. Reconstruct for me his appearance and then we'll have a discussion about shining bodies and the "honesty" of the gospel of his appearance.

 

Keep in mind that if Jesus was able to appear to them in different forms, differenct locations, and different times of the day, i.e. in Galilee for the first appearance, to Jerusalem for an evening meal, and sometime in Emmaus in between for a stroll, they are all 60-150 miles away from each other.

 

If they saw one angel, two angels, one hundred angels it makes no difference. When did Jesus appera to the women or the disciples?

When did Jesus appear to the women or disciples? Youre supposed to tell us rhemember.

 

The point is that they saw something. Something unique happened. It's like you can't see the forest through the trees.

Again first answer when and where they first saw Jesus in order to have a discussion. As Dan Barker once pointed out:

 

Another analogy sometimes used by apologists is comparing the resurrection contradictions to differing accounts given by witnesses of an auto accident. If one witness said the vehicle was green and the other said it was blue, that could be accounted for by different angles, lighting, perception, or definitions of words. The important thing, they claim, is that they do agree on the basic story--there was an accident, there was a resurrection.

 

I am not a fundamentalist inerrantist. I'm not demanding that the evangelists must have been expert, infallible witnesses. (None of them claims to have been at the tomb itself, anyway.) But what if one person said the auto accident happened in Chicago and the other said it happened in Milwaukee? At least one of these witnesses has serious problems with the truth.

 

<snip>

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, none of these contradictions prove that the resurrection did not happen, but they do throw considerable doubt on the reliability of the supposed witnesses. Some of them were wrong. Maybe they were all wrong.

[mwc]

If they saw one angel, two angels, one hundred angels it makes no difference. When did Jesus appera to the women or the disciples? The point is that they saw something. Something unique happened. It's like you can't see the forest through the trees.

You know it does matter when it is PART OF THE CHALLENGE!

 

Are you one of those people that think that everyone should get a ribbon just for showing up? You're trying to tell me that this guy did his best and his effort deserves a ribbon. Well it doesn't. He failed. He deserves nothing. Your attempt likewise deserves nothing. If you'd like to try again I am all ears. You can make as many attempts as you'd like in this competition.

 

You want to try to sit there and act like I am blind to your truth but believe me I see it. I see the "unique" story you want me so desparately to see. I got it in all those other threads. I got it. I used to tell others about it myself. I just don't believe it anymore but even if I did it does not matter. The challenge is not about that.

 

Perhaps you should go read the rules over again?

 

mwc

[deepblue]

If the resurrection stories are true, they shouldn't require harmonizing. The fact that gospel "harmonies" are written just proves their unreliability.

[RHEMtron]

If the resurrection stories are true, they shouldn't require harmonizing. The fact that gospel "harmonies" are written just proves their unreliability.

Good point... the same can be said about Christianity and the need for Apologetics.

[Ouroboros]

And I still would like to know who was the eyewitness to this event:

 

Matt 28:11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

 

Notice these things:

 

First that "this story" is a reference to the 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep', and not to the "explanation story" that is given here. Who saw the guards flee, or talk to the cheif priests? And who saw and heard what the priests and the elders devised? This is a typical third party story telling, just like a book like Harry Potter. And how could anyone know that the guards met and reported at the same time as the women were on their way? Did they talk over a cellphone to synchronize their movement?

 

Secondly notice that the story "has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day" is significant to show that this story was written quite a while after the supposed event.

 

Thirdly, if you saw an angel that rolled away a 2 ton stone, and had an earthquake at the same time, and heard the angle speak etc etc... no money would stop me from telling my friends and family. No way. No chance. I wouldn't be able to keep quiet. Very suspicious story, because I don't think it fits with what someone would do or react in real life.

[mwc]

The whole exchange with the guards makes no sense at all really. First thing I'd like to know is why the guards? No one else mentions guards at all. Second. The guards all pass out when the angel comes to roll back the stones but later the guards are awake to go into the city to tell everything that happened. "Uhhh...there was a light and an earthquake...that only we felt, then we passed out. It was an angel we tell you. Give us money so we don't tell anyone."

 

I asked someone about this and they essentially said what you did Han, that the money wasn't enough and they eventually told Matthew so that's how we know the story. Too bad the gospels have just a few too many of these little stories. Especially like this guard story since, as I pointed out it has a few logically inconsistancies (or the problems of the story of jesus in the garden...when did he have time to pass that little gem along?).

 

mwc

[Checkmate]

................

If they saw one angel, two angels, one hundred angels it makes no difference. When did Jesus appera to the women or the disciples? The point is that they saw something. Something unique happened. It's like you can't see the forest through the trees.

"It makes no difference"? THE TRUTH "makes no difference"? Yep. I was right. Amy is a "Liar For Christ".

 

Why are we wasting our time seeking to have an honest and intelligent conversation with someone who believes that TRUTH doesn't matter? Is it any wonder that our words have no effect on Amy?

 

Amy, since TRUTH means absolutely NOTHING to you, why don't you go join the Mormons or the JW or the Muslims? Since TRUTH makes NO difference, then you shouldn't have a problem accepting their religious tenets. Who cares if they lie, or if they can't prove what they claim? All that matters is that "something unique happened", and YOU, Amy, just can't see the forest for the trees.

 

Jesus' Fucking Tits!

 

 

 

(Will someone PLEASE move this thread to the Lion's Den, so that I can unleash my Full fury on such idiocy? This isn't fair! )

[Ouroboros]

I asked someone about this and they essentially said what you did Han, that the money wasn't enough and they eventually told Matthew so that's how we know the story. Too bad the gospels have just a few too many of these little stories. Especially like this guard story since, as I pointed out it has a few logically inconsistancies (or the problems of the story of jesus in the garden...when did he have time to pass that little gem along?).

The problem with the guards telling Matthew is that why didn't Matthew reveal that fact? It would have strengthen the "truth" of the story. The story about the guards were put there to explain away the rumours about the disciples taking the body, so if Matthew really wanted to make sure anyone would understand that this actually took place, he should (I would have at least) said what his source was. Since he doesn't, it only comes out as a narrative you would do in a play. The audience know more than the actual characters in the act.

[ThePureOne]

Hi Amy Marie, glad to see you're still around.

 

What I AM saying is all these events happened at different times and were experienced by different witnesses. Why couldn't it have been one angel and then two? And yes angels can appear suddenly.

Jesus could be in a different place with the blink of an eye and walk through solid doors. That's the truth but when you don't believe in the miraculous you'll see the story as one big contradiction.

 

I just saw this in isolation, so forgive me for jumping in without reading the rest of the thread...but if Jesus was essentially Superman, wasn't "dying" on the cross a bit of a joke? That's like Superman offering to take a bullet to the chest...some sacrifice. It fascinates me how any of this can make sense to anyone, *even in the context of believing in magic*. Jesus is actually God-but-not-God (the Trinity stuff defies even magical logic as well), so he's going to die, then get resurrected (resurrect himself?), etc. If you can't really die, it's not a sacrifice.

 

Then of course there is the issue of believing in magic to begin with. What you're saying here is no different than someone saying there really is or was a Hogwarts school somewhere with a Harry Potter. Believing in magic is simply not rational. No one has ever objectively demonstrated magic, and it's all rather convenient that the undocumented-outside-of-his-followers Magic Man performed 2000 years ago, and didn't bother to leave anything magical for the ages for us to verify anything. Couldn't he have, say, magicked an obelist of Commandments out of an indestructible unearthly material that would stand as objective proof to this day? Wait...don't tell me...he just didn't want to, that would spoil the fun. When you abandon logic, answers are easy, but unfortunately magical answers really don't answer anything.

 

You can ascribe any qualities to angels as you can to unicorns; make-believe has no limits. But the more it contradicts itself the less meaningful it is. Religionists can be argued into a corner where their statements have been logically reduced to saying 2 + 2 = 5, then they throw up their hands and say, well, that's human math, it doesn't apply to God. But that doesn't work either, you can't abandon logic. If God is to impart any meaningful message to Amy Marie, he has to do it according to the rules of logic we poor dumb humans grasp or else His message is gibberish. If you can just make things up as you go, logic be damned, then the fact is you really don't have the foggiest idea of what angels can do, whether they exist, whether God exists, or if He does, what the heck he wants you to do. This fog of nonsense is why there are 2,000 splinter factions of Christianity alone, and the reality is worse: there are millions of factions. Your little brand of Christianity is totally unique to Amy Marie, because like anyone else who wants to believe, you cherry pick those things that give you warm fuzzies and ignore the rest (murder, genocide, slavery, and other niceties condoned or committed by the Bible God, etc. etc). You're flailing and making things up as you see fit. But at least you are not alone in this. The bottom line is this: if you can't use logic and evidence, then God's message is indistinguishable from gibberish; and if you use logic and evidence and see the obvious contradictions, the nonsense, the excuses, the utter lack of evidence, all you are left with is a God who either does not exist or else tries very successfully to appear as if He doesn't.

 

Take heart though. Like most Christians you have been sold various falsehoods, the most important of which is that without faith you cannot be a good, moral person. Should you ever come to your senses, you will see that you are as good or better as a human being without wasting so much energy on magical delusions. I prefer real happiness to happiness based on fantasies, but to each his own.

[RHEMtron]

This is no problem for Jesus resurrected body. There were no time limits. He could cross into different demensions, walk through closed doors, vanish. change forms.

Youre still missing the point. Maybe it was my fault for not making it clear, so here's what i mean. The problem is with the disciples. It lists them being in Galilee, Jerusalem, and Emmaus. Jesus appears to them separately, while in pairs, and all together at the different locations. The distance between each location, is as i said, about 7-60 miles. Ill grant that with Jesus, there were no limits. He could be anywhere and change forms as you stated. But the problem is the disciples. They're limited. The disciples wouldnt have been able to travel back and forth and still be back in time for supper.

 

Now please reconstuct the timeline using details from each of the gospels, while keeping this in mind. DO NOT leave any details out.

 

I believe Jesus appeared to the women first and then to Mary Magdalene.

Like i keep repeating... CONSTRUCT the timeline of events before we discuss anything... and without omitting any details mentioned in the gospels.

 

But to address the point. Mark makes the claim that Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene first [Mark 19:9]. Matthew states that Jesus appeared to Mary M. and "the other Mary". Luke doesnt say Jesus appears to the women. The first account recorded is with 2 disciples going to Emmaus. But it turned out he appeared to a whole lotta them. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:4 says he appeared to Cephas.

 

When the angel first appeared to the women telling them that Jesus was not there and had risen, that was not enough for her because it was Jesus Himself she wanted to see. The other women may have gone ahead satisfied with the news, Mary choosing to stay behind. (Or) later on this could have been another appearance of Jesus to the women with Mary included in the experience. I don't see contradictions in the story. I see all of these events happening at different times.

1- Youre doing a real stretch here. Youre adding waaaay too much psychoanalysis.

2- The only time Mary stays behind is in John when it was the women and the disciples who left her behind.

3- What do you mean these events happened at different times? All events listed happened immediately after the tomb was found empty.

4- The challenge asks to make a complete timeline of events using the Gospels. You cant say "Or" this happened. Well, you can, but that's admitting the scriptures dont corroborate.

 

No. All the gospels say it the events happened at the empty tomb of Jesus.

Again, my fault if i didnt make it clear. The event being described is the appearance of Jesus to everyone.

 

But anyhow... construct the timeline of the events that happened at the empty tomb then.... as well as everything that happened afterwards.

 

Well, I'm glad to read that. Doesn't throw considerable doubt in my direction. Why couldn't all the events take place at different times?

Because, again, it says the chain of events happened immediately after the tomb was found empty. But you should really try answering your own question by [for the 13478927343th time] trying to construct that timeline for yourself.

[SkepticOfBible]

Here ya go Rhemtron:

 

http://www.shoutingman.com/bible/harmony/

 

...

 

I wanted you to see another side of the argument.

 

And what about these two?

 

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/rezrvw.html

http://jcsm.org/biblelessons/Barker17.htm

 

It seems your side cannot even agree on the chronology of the events. So please tell me from the three websites, which one is the correct one?

 

This is no problem for Jesus resurrected body. There were no time limits. He could cross into different demensions, walk through closed doors, vanish. change forms.

 

But what about his disciples?Do they have magic powers too to teleport?

 

http://www.geocities.com/b_r_a_d_99/jesusappear.htm

A reasonable reading of the Luke story would conclude that Jesus first appeared to his inner circle of eleven disciples at Jerusalem on the day he rose from the dead. The Gospel of Luke has established that Jerusalem was the place where the initial appearance was made to them.

Note that the eleven were all present when Jesus appeared to them for the first time as a group.

As so noted, this occurred in Jerusalem and not at a mountain in Galilee. Galilee is over 60 miles away.

Jesus also instructs the eleven disciples not to leave the city of Jerusalem until they have received the power of the Holy Spirit.

[Antlerman]

If they saw one angel, two angels, one hundred angels it makes no difference. When did Jesus appera to the women or the disciples? The point is that they saw something. Something unique happened. It's like you can't see the forest through the trees.

Clearly you weren't ready to engage in the other converstation you bailed out of with us to come back here to beating the same old dog again with the same old stick, but nontheless I will offer one thought to you in hopes you can finally leave behind the training-wheels of literalism: If these are the literal words of God, then the details must be 100% accurate.

 

You have just stated that the accuracy of the details doesn't matter, it the bigger picture that holds a truth to you. Welcome Amy to the world of open possiblities outside literalism!!! You have just graduated away from being a literalist!

 

Now for those next steps in your growth...

[mwc]

The problem with the guards telling Matthew is that why didn't Matthew reveal that fact? It would have strengthen the "truth" of the story. The story about the guards were put there to explain away the rumours about the disciples taking the body, so if Matthew really wanted to make sure anyone would understand that this actually took place, he should (I would have at least) said what his source was. Since he doesn't, it only comes out as a narrative you would do in a play. The audience know more than the actual characters in the act.

I don't know the terms (the chorus?) but Matthew comes off as a play where the reader knows more than the actors. The whole scene with Herod and the wisemen for example. How could anyone outside of Herod know of that? Sure, Matthew could have gotten the story of jesus' birth from his mom but everything that went on in Herod's temple would have been long forgotten (but the double-cross of the magi seems particularly like something you'd see in a play). Also, if I were Herod and I was going to kill a bunch of babies I might as well kill off my temple staff that allowed the failure to happen in the first place and I guess I'd send someone to kill off those magi too (if I were just that evil...so there'd be no witnesses to leak the story on my end).

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

MWC, exactly! That's how I see all of the Gospels. They come out as plays.

 

But here's the interesting twist to it all... maybe that's exactly where they came from? Maybe Q was a play, a hero's journey, just a Die Hard Prequel

[dibby]

If the Gospels were found in a cave in the last few years , just like the Nag Hammadi scriptures were in 1945, do you think that anyone would read them and say, 'Oh look! This is absolutely true. It's real history. Someone really did ressurrect from the dead!' Or would we treat it just like any other discovery of archaeology?

[mwc]

If the Gospels were found in a cave in the last few years , just like the Nag Hammadi scriptures were in 1945, do you think that anyone would read them and say, 'Oh look! This is absolutely true. It's real history. Someone really did ressurrect from the dead!' Or would we treat it just like any other discovery of archaeology?

Well, of course they'd be fake because everyone would be busy worshipping something else (Mithra maybe?) for the past 2000 years.

 

mwc