Reserection "historical Reality"

[hereticzero]

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the gospels weren't necessarily written by the supposed eyewitnessess to begin with.

 

If I tell a story about how somebody's life was changed by a miraculous event, that doesn't necessarily mean it actually happened the way I say it did.

Absolutely correct, you move to the top of the class.

Your statement is more true when people take it upon themselves to 'clarify' points of doctrine by exaggerating the event in more writings. Christians talk out their asses when they claim there is proof of the resurrection. They base their 'proof' on the babble, and they must because there are no other corroborating writings from that period of history, and no independent observation or witness accounts found anywhere other than the babble.

[Badger]

The only place the resurrection is found is in the babble. The only thing we know about the apostles are from church traditions which in no way resemble historical facts. The only history we have is from the Catholic church and we are supposed to take their word for the accuracy of their records when they have been noted for changing ancient texts to suit their doctrine or promote their theology? Calling anything from the church a 'historical fact' is a stretch.

So which of those "historical facts" I have listed here you reject and why?

[hereticzero]

The only place the resurrection is found is in the babble. The only thing we know about the apostles are from church traditions which in no way resemble historical facts. The only history we have is from the Catholic church and we are supposed to take their word for the accuracy of their records when they have been noted for changing ancient texts to suit their doctrine or promote their theology? Calling anything from the church a 'historical fact' is a stretch.

So which of those "historical facts" I have listed here you reject and why?

All of them, take your pick. A hypothesis is supposed to be based on reliable (can we say 'truthful') data or facts. Emphasis on facts. What you give is religious speculation, not data, not facts. I haven't read anything in this posting that could be used as fact. You may be able to use it in Sunday School but it is hardly historical fact. It is a religious assumption based on faith. That is entirely different from facts.

[Badger]

All of them, take your pick.

Maybe you wanna share your thoughts and explain why.

 

It is a religious assumption based on faith. That is entirely different from facts.

Which of those events or factors are religious assumptions and why?

[hereticzero]

So which of those "historical facts" I have listed here you reject and why?

 

Your quote from post #24: 'I'm not going to back up these claims right now, since that would make a long post. However, I believe in the resurrection since I find it to be simple the best explanation for all this facts and it requires only one additional hypothesis: that God exists.'

Your religious bias already demonstrates a lack of an hypothesis because your 'hypothesis' are based on religious faith--you 'believe in the resurrection' because you 'find it to be ... the best explanation for all these 'facts' ...', which shows you do not believe in real facts only what you find palatable through religious doctrine. There is no proof god exists. Strike one. You believe in the religious unprovable story of the resurrection. Strike two. Your whole assumption in the babble being a source for historical proof of miracles is wishful thinking. Strike three. Your hypothesis wouldn't make a bible scholar blink twice. You don't have an hypothesis, you have a question of religious doctrine.

[Looking4Answers]

I would propose the following events as "historical facts:"

 

* Jesus died due to crucifixion and was buried afterwards.

* His tomb was (probably) discovered to be empty.

* The disciples had experiences which they thought were literal appearances of the risen Jesus.

* Due to these experiences, they were radically transformed.

* James, the sceptical brother of Jesus, was converted when he had similar experience.

* A few years later the same happened to Paul, who was the persecutor of the Church.

 

Let's take a look at these for a moment.

 

* Jesus died due to crucifixion and was buried afterwards.

 

We don't know that for sure. The only source for this information is in the Bible. We don't have any authentic Roman records of his crucifixion, for example, and the Romans were pretty meticulous about keeping records. So right from the beginning we have a problem. Some scholars argue whether this Jesus person ever really existed to begin with. Most do not. However, if we cannot even state with certainty that he existed, then how can we state with certainty that he was crucified and buried. And, on top of that, some claim that he did not die on the cross, but was taken down and given time to recover. There are so many theories and ideas out there. We just don't have the facts (including what is written within the Bible).

 

* His tomb was (probably) discovered to be empty.

 

You claim this as an historical fact and yet you, yourself, add the word probably to it. It cannot be a fact and be a probably at the same time. Again, if we do not have any reliable information on the person of Jesus himself and if we do not know for certain how he died, then we do not not if his tomb was discovered as empty.

 

* The disciples had experiences which they thought were literal appearances of the risen Jesus.

 

We don't know that either. All we have are the writings in the New Testament to go by. Particularly the book of Acts (in this case). The authorship of Acts is disputed, though tradition claims it was Luke. The date of its writing is disputed as well. There are, of course, mentions of the post-resurrection Christ in the Gospels and the epistles attributed to Paul mention this event as well. However, the same problems arise. The authorship and date of any of these books is disputed and largely settled by church tradition more so than scholarly evidence.

 

Frankly, we do not know if any of these supposed disciples/apostles actually even existed, let alone that they had any experiences that they through were the literal appearances of a risen Jesus. For all we know, these were just stories told and added to over time that eventually were written down.

 

* Due to these experiences, they were radically transformed.

 

Again, we don't know that. We only know what tradition says about these guys and what is recorded in the book of Acts about the supposed transformation of these disciples. And both these traditions and the Bible itself are suspect.

 

* James, the sceptical brother of Jesus, was converted when he had similar experience.

 

You state this as fact, and yet the identity of James is also a debated issue. Is this James, the brother of Jesus or is this a different James? And, even if it was, how do we know that he actually existed? From tradition and the Bible? How do we know he was converted? From tradition and the Bible?

 

* A few years later the same happened to Paul, who was the persecutor of the Church.

 

Again, this is assuming that the Paul character is even real. He could have been and probably was. But how do we know that he was anything like what we read about in the New Testament? How do we know his conversion was as HE stated it was (he could have been telling a big, fat story to create a bunch of followers, for all we know)?

 

What it comes down to is you only have tradition and the Bible to rely on for your historical facts. But that is not going to cut it. You are assuming these things are true because they are in the Bible or have been taught, via tradition, from the pulpit. However, we have no proof. Therefore, your historical facts are far from being either historical or facts.

[Ouroboros]

I just started another thread about it and searched afterward to see if any topics had mentioned, Jesus and the tomb and all. Anyway, this current topic is still here and came up in the search, and after reading; I am dumbfounded that this hasn't been brought up.

 

Jesus remnants and grave supposedly was found, along with Mary, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, James, Joseph, and....Judah.

Actually, even us non-religious gave up on that find.

 

(this will be slightly sarcastic...)

But I think some interesting things came out from that discussion, one is that one of the counterarguments why this is not the tomb is: the name Jesus was a very common name. Pretty much everyone were names Jesus, if you listen to the apologists disproving this find. Which leads me to think that several Jesus'es existed, each one did a bunch of different things, and the Gospels are the sum of several stories from different Jesus'es.

 

But then again, the real argument to support the tomb being Jesus's family was that the name combination in itself was unique. My name is common, and so is my dad's, and my mom's, but the combination of my name, my dad's, my mom's is much less common. Same thing with this tomb. The combination itself is the key. But the again, the apologists say that those names also were so common, that pretty much every family had members with those names... again leading me to suspect that the stories about the martyrs might have been the wrong. It's easy to mix up the martyr James with the disciple James, since every family had one named it. So it's possible that the disciples who died martyrdom were not the same disciples who started the cult.

[Badger]

Your religious bias already demonstrates a lack of an hypothesis because your 'hypothesis' are based on religious faith--you 'believe in the resurrection' because you 'find it to be ... the best explanation for all these 'facts' ...', which shows you do not believe in real facts only what you find palatable through religious doctrine.

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical scholars.

[Looking4Answers]

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical scholars.

 

Let's work on that sentence a bit. Perhaps it should read like this:

 

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical CHRISTIAN scholars.

[hereticzero]

Your religious bias already demonstrates a lack of an hypothesis because your 'hypothesis' are based on religious faith--you 'believe in the resurrection' because you 'find it to be ... the best explanation for all these 'facts' ...', which shows you do not believe in real facts only what you find palatable through religious doctrine.

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical scholars.

There it is, the circular reasoning skills. The scholars are what, historians? No. Scientists? No. Biologists? No. Those who believe in the resurrection are .... Christian ..... they already believe in the babble's writings and religious doctrine. See my last several statements. An hypothesis is based on facts. You don't have any facts to support your hypothesis. You have only religious doctrine to support your arguments. Religious arguments are not an hypothesis. Religious doctrine is not the same as supportable facts. You only have speculation that what you claim is true.

[Badger]

What it comes down to is you only have tradition and the Bible to rely on for your historical facts. But that is not going to cut it. You are assuming these things are true because they are in the Bible or have been taught, via tradition, from the pulpit. However, we have no proof. Therefore, your historical facts are far from being either historical or facts.

That's exactly what I'm not doing. My point was to take data that is accepted by majority of scholars.

[Badger]

Let's work on that sentence a bit. Perhaps it should read like this:

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical CHRISTIAN scholars.

There it is, the circular reasoning skills. The scholars are what, historians? No. Scientists? No. Biologists? No. Those who believe in the resurrection are .... Christian ..... they already believe in the babble's writings and religious doctrine.

That's not true. Bart Ehrman is not Christian scholar, nor Gerd Ludeman, Pinchas Lapide, Michael Grant...

[hereticzero]

Let's work on that sentence a bit. Perhaps it should read like this:

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical CHRISTIAN scholars.

There it is, the circular reasoning skills. The scholars are what, historians? No. Scientists? No. Biologists? No. Those who believe in the resurrection are .... Christian ..... they already believe in the babble's writings and religious doctrine.

That's not true. Bart Ehrman is not Christian scholar, nor Gerd Ludeman, Pinchas Lapide, Michael Grant...

And, you are going to tell all of us that these people are nonbelievers and all these who are nonbelievers in Jesus are going to claim the resurrection actually happened? They found evidence a Jewish zombie came back from the dead?

[Badger]

And, you are going to tell all of us that these people are nonbelievers and all these who are nonbelievers in Jesus are going to claim the resurrection actually happened?

No, that's not what I'm saying. Read again,

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical scholars.

[hereticzero]

And, you are going to tell all of us that these people are nonbelievers and all these who are nonbelievers in Jesus are going to claim the resurrection actually happened?

No, that's not what I'm saying. Read again,

My hypothesis is based on historical facts that are accepted by great majority of critical scholars.

No, you are confused about what you want to prove through your 'hypothesis'. The title to your OP reads, 'Reserection "historical Reality"'. Throughout all these pages you have been arguing the validity of the resurrection based on true historical records (facts?). If a historian claims Romans crucified people then you will claim the cruci-fiction of Jesus was true? So if Romans crucified Jesus, then how does that prove the resurrection is true, in your mind? Everyone knows the Romans crucified many people. So what? Your data does not demonstrate it is based on fact when it comes to the resurrection. Where is your evidence to prove Jesus came back from the dead simply because the Romans crucified people? The belief in the resurrection is an act of faith, not historical recorded facts.

[mwc]

It's out of context and he's already been called on it.

How it is out of context? My point is exactly what Ehrman admits, namely, "It is a historical fact that some of Jesus' followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution."

Because that sentence isn't why you post that quote. No one seizes on that portion of the quote. AM sure didn't. It's the line before that is why you post that quote. This bit:

"Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus' resurrection, since this is a matter of public record."

You can say that it's not your fault that people look at that part and not the part you meant, the part of the disciples, but you're enlisting the aid of the critical scholars and he is weighing in. We need to take all his words into account. He's "saying" that "Historians have no trouble speaking on the resurrection as it is in the public record." That's basically the sum of that sentence. Who are the "historians?" We don't know. The ancients? Ehrmans' peers? Both? Perhaps. And if we include the word "belief" (as I left it out) then who has this belief? It appears the historians do. So we just assume the historians believe in the resurrection which is why I dropped it. This is a loaded sentence by itself (even with the next sentence...the one with the disciples). The context does not allow for an honest reading.

 

So I'll offer these sentences:

I have already shown why historians would have difficulty making this judgment—— since it would require them to subscribe to faith in the miraculous working of God. Yet even if historians were able to speak of the resurrection as a historically probable event, it could not, in and of itself, be considered the beginning of Christianity.

Now the "historians" from your quote aren't so accepting of the resurrection. The don't have the ability to speak on the supernatural. This isn't something "historians" do. So now what? They can't not accept such an event but also have no problem believing in the same event. Something must be wrong. Well, now we understand that key word that I dropped. "Belief." Historians have no problems speaking on the "belief" in all this. They speak of "belief" in the resurrection. Not that they believe in it but that someone else believed in it. This is something different. Very different.

 

So you can present all the historical evidence you want and all the historians you want and when they say "belief" all this means is the historians are saying that they (ie. the disciples) believed something happened and not that they (ie. the historians) believe (or know) something happened. These are very different. How can I say this so you'll get it since you totally missed the Phoenix example I tried to use? If you bring out 1000 historians that say "The disciples believed jesus rose again" that means nothing. I already know that. That just means 1000 historians agree that the disciples believed something and the historians all agree on this because the gospels all say they did. I agree with them because I can read the gospels too.

 

mwc

[centauri]

Why should a cult that has a fetish for fulfilling prophecy be considered accurate with regard to history?

How is it to be determined that cult stories, driven by a need to fulfill scripture, represent actual events?

Because maybe there was no any such fetish or need. In fact, the Jewish messianic expectations and beliefs about afterlife and resurrection are considerably different from what the early Christians believed. Where their "fetish for fulfilling prophecy" came from? What prophecies or scriptures they had need to fulfill?

 

All you have to do is read the New Testament to see the fetish.

Jesus is depicted as the fulfillment of prophecy, according to Christians, over 300+ prophecies.

It's plastered all through the Gospels.

Here's just a few:

Jesus and family went to Egypt so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem and of a virgin so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus then moved to Nazareth so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus taught in parables so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus rode on a donkey so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Judas betrayed Jesus so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus was executed with thieves so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus was crucified, rather than stoned, so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus was buried in a tomb so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

Jesus rose from the dead so that prophecy could be fulfilled.

 

In the minds of cult propagandists, the more prophecy that Jesus is portrayed as having fulfilled, the more legitimate he is.

The narratives in the New Testament are driven by this motif.

[Looking4Answers]

In the minds of cult propagandists, the more prophecy that Jesus is portrayed as having fulfilled, the more legitimate he is.

The narratives in the New Testament are driven by this motif.

 

Not only that, but they made some wild stretches to make it seem like Jesus was fulfilling prophecies that sometimes weren't even prophetic or had nothing to do with some future messiah to begin with. So it sort of looks like they ran out of prophecies and started grabbing any Old Testament verse that they could get their hands on.

[Abiyoyo]

Discovery Channel

 

I just started another thread about it and searched afterward to see if any topics had mentioned, Jesus and the tomb and all. Anyway, this current topic is still here and came up in the search, and after reading; I am dumbfounded that this hasn't been brought up.

 

Jesus remnants and grave supposedly was found, along with Mary, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, James, Joseph, and....Judah.

The tomb has shown to be unreliable. From what I have read and watched on television concerning this tomb is that the carvings on the Ossuaries was done at a much later date than when they were first placed in the tomb. To call this tomb, the burial plot of Jesus' family is imaginative but unprovable. Who has a sample of Jesus' DNA to test the tomb with? How is anyone going to know? Finding everyone's Ossuary in one tomb is too coincidental to be true, and I point to the fact the names were added to the ossuaries many years later, this is supported by carbon dating. The ossuary of James was not found in that tomb but another. The connection to the 'tomb of James' was not made but 'supposed', that is, the reference was made by speculation and not based on real data. The tomb of James and that ossuary was found to be a fraud for the same reasons the tomb of Jesus' family was found to be a fraud--the writings on the tomb were made many years after the ossuary was placed in the tomb. The ossuary of James is in litigation over ownership and accusations of fraud. The story on Discovery is very questionable. If there had been an accuracy in it, the Catholic church would already be trying to deal for the tomb and ossuaries. They have remained silent about it.

 

According to the research, all of what you said is not true. It is genuine according to them. The James tomb was stolen, and turned out in the Antiquities market to be then resurfaced. The inscription on the James tomb was controversial; it was then confirmed that the reason of the false report of the tomb was because it had been cleaned by the Antiquity dealers who possessed it before re-surfacing. Anyway, the top ancient inscriptions somebody (in the article) examined it and concluded this as well as it being 100% authentic.

[hereticzero]

Discovery Channel

 

I just started another thread about it and searched afterward to see if any topics had mentioned, Jesus and the tomb and all. Anyway, this current topic is still here and came up in the search, and after reading; I am dumbfounded that this hasn't been brought up.

 

Jesus remnants and grave supposedly was found, along with Mary, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, James, Joseph, and....Judah.

The tomb has shown to be unreliable. From what I have read and watched on television concerning this tomb is that the carvings on the Ossuaries was done at a much later date than when they were first placed in the tomb. To call this tomb, the burial plot of Jesus' family is imaginative but unprovable. Who has a sample of Jesus' DNA to test the tomb with? How is anyone going to know? Finding everyone's Ossuary in one tomb is too coincidental to be true, and I point to the fact the names were added to the ossuaries many years later, this is supported by carbon dating. The ossuary of James was not found in that tomb but another. The connection to the 'tomb of James' was not made but 'supposed', that is, the reference was made by speculation and not based on real data. The tomb of James and that ossuary was found to be a fraud for the same reasons the tomb of Jesus' family was found to be a fraud--the writings on the tomb were made many years after the ossuary was placed in the tomb. The ossuary of James is in litigation over ownership and accusations of fraud. The story on Discovery is very questionable. If there had been an accuracy in it, the Catholic church would already be trying to deal for the tomb and ossuaries. They have remained silent about it.

 

According to the research, all of what you said is not true. It is genuine according to them. The James tomb was stolen, and turned out in the Antiquities market to be then resurfaced. The inscription on the James tomb was controversial; it was then confirmed that the reason of the false report of the tomb was because it had been cleaned by the Antiquity dealers who possessed it before re-surfacing. Anyway, the top ancient inscriptions somebody (in the article) examined it and concluded this as well as it being 100% authentic.

Thank god they found where the ol' boy was buried!

You should move to Israel where you can explore this discovery in person!

[Abiyoyo]

Thank god they found where the ol' boy was buried!

You should move to Israel where you can explore this discovery in person!

 

Yeah, it's not really funny to me. Maybe you should fly to mars a be the first to step out and try living there.

[Looking4Answers]

Yeah, it's not really funny to me.

 

It's usually not too funny the first time a child really discovers that Santa Claus is not real ... or the tooth fairy. But we all have to grow up sometime.

 

And, YoYo, don't be too offended by that comment. I just left the faith less than a year ago. So I was the child back at that time.

[mwc]

A few posts ago you claimed that we can't trust the tradition that the tomb was Joseph. The Gospel was carried by oral tradition (supposedly) before it was written down.

Is 1 Kings 13 a possible source for this? Especially:

28 Then he went out and found the body thrown down on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey.

29 So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God

, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him.

30 Then he laid the body in his own tomb

, and they mourned over him and said, "Oh, my brother!" 31 After burying him, he said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. 32 For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true." (NIV)

There are no names associated with these characters and the cherry picking nature of "fulfillment" used by the gospel authors would not preclude its use.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

There are no names associated with these characters and the cherry picking nature of "fulfillment" used by the gospel authors would not preclude its use.

Very nice. I never heard that connection before. But it definitely could be a religious rewriting of that story. (Is it true it's called midrash? Is that a correct term for this kind of rewrite into contemporary characters?)

[mwc]

Very nice. I never heard that connection before. But it definitely could be a religious rewriting of that story. (Is it true it's called midrash? Is that a correct term for this kind of rewrite into contemporary characters?)

It might be. I think that a lot of what is said may fall under pesher except normally (to my knowledge) pesher is pointed out to the reader. So there's likely a form that I'm just not aware of.

 

I decided to snip the following from the wiki on pesher just to give an idea what it is:

The pesharim give a theory of scriptural interpretation, previously partly known, but now fully defined. The writers of pesharim believe that scripture is written in two levels, the surface for ordinary readers with limited knowledge, the concealed one for specialists with higher knowledge.

To my mind this is what the NT authors were doing in a number (not all) of cases.

 

You can take a look at some more "modern" (read more Rabbinic) forms of Jewish interpretation, with examples, here.

 

mwc