Debunking The Resurrection With Critical Scholarship

[Ravenstar]

It's easy to forget that the dying/reborn god idea was an accepted idea at the time…all over the entire region, as an archetype, if not something a lot of people embraced fully in their concepts of divine beings.. as were 'godmen' or demigods. Christianity is a latecomer to this particular theme. Cultural influence I'm sure played more of a part in early christianity than some would realize, especially from those whom were formerly pagan (gentile), and not Jewish.

 

It's difficult to follow the scholarship, because of the incredible amount of it over the centuries… most of it in the church's favour, unfortunately (but not all!) Going on texts alone is leaving out whole pieces of the puzzle…like social anthropology, ancient politics and archaeology… questions like; Who were these early christians, who wrote these texts… and why? What did they bring with them from their backgrounds? What do we know about the societies they came from? What was the cultural and political atmosphere at the time? Who penned the forgeries? What was their purpose… etc, etc, etc...

 

The material in this thread sounds very interesting though… I'll have to take a look!  

[Joshpantera]

I read the article and then the comments below. WTF? 

 

He clearly debunked all of the Christian comments below in his article and yet they go on posting the very things he'd debunked completely oblivious to the fact that the claims are already dead and laid bare. Amazing, it's absolutely amazing the blinders people put on when it comes to this topic. He shows the evolution of Paul through John and how the stories were greatly embellished over time and what is the response?

 

To provide passages from the Gospels as 'eye witness accounts' and 'contemporary to Jesus' as proof of the resurrection when it was firmly established that the Gospels are not eye witness testimony from contemporaries of Jesus in the first place. 

 

Face Palm......

[Guest Furball]

One of the commenters said that no amount of evidence from 2,000 years ago will help an unbeliever. WTF?!? What evidence?

 

It was searching for real evidence that started and helped finish my deconversion.

 

Bunch of fairy tale believing idiots.

 

By the way, if no amount of so called "evidence" will persuade an unbeliever then why do they keep pushing this crap in our faces telling us to believe? 

[♦ ficino ♦]

One of the commenters said that no amount of evidence from 2,000 years ago will help an unbeliever. WTF?!? What evidence?

This is one of the features of the story/stories that convince me it's a crock. If the Son of God, through whom all was created, etc. etc. became human, taught stuff in contradiction to the Torah, was crucified and rose again, and no one can be saved except by believing in him and his resurrection --- wouldn't you think God would make this MOST STUPENDOUS EVENT OF HISTORY known to the very people who needed to know about it?

 

No. Hide it from everyone except a group of his own disciples. Leave contradictory accounts, embellished with pretty obvious falsehoods (like the earthquake and the "guard" mentioned only in Matthew). When the doctrines of these disciples contradict the Torah, don't give a "sign" to your own people, who are obeying what you told them before. No, instead condemn them for "seek[ing] signs." When the doctrines of the disciples contradict reason, don't show the Greeks the doctrines' truth directly. Leave it to the disciples to roam around Greece, accusing Greeks of "seek[ing] wisdom."

 

Then keep mum for centuries, watching everyone argue over the details. Require everyone to surrender all sense and grab onto this 2000 year story, while rejecting other religious stories, some much more recent.

 

What the fuck kind of revelation is this? The Hebrews supposedly all 3 million of them heard the voice at Mt. Sinai and made an agreement with Yahweh.

 

The whole resurrection story presumes a God who plays hide and seek games with the eternal destinies of his own creatures.

[bleedblue22]

Just got a membership to bart ehrmans blog. His stuff is a gold mine of information for topics like these

[Guest Furball]

Just got a membership to bart ehrmans blog. His stuff is a gold mine of information for topics like these

You should email me cliff notes on what he says so we can discuss it ourselves

[zuker12]

I recently heard the argument that the resurrection stories are most likely true because if it was pushed as intentional fakery the gospels would have been almost totally consistent in their depictions of Jesus' resurrection.

 

This does sound like a compelling argument but this brings to me other questions like textual and historial analysis, and also why would they get such details wrong if they were close eyewitnesses? Also the fact that there are little outsider sources that refer to Jesus in any other way than that he was a leader of a sect that identified themselves as christians. (Plus chance of forgery)

 

What do you think of this argument?

[midniterider]

I recently heard the argument that the resurrection stories are most likely true because if it was pushed as intentional fakery the gospels would have been almost totally consistent in their depictions of Jesus' resurrection.

 

Maybe instead of intentional fakery it was pushed by rabid religious retards. The same kind of rabid religious retards you see today. If something is written incorrectly but 'becomes' the holy account then it cannot be changed or corrected. :-)  I dont know much about the lives of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (if they really existed)...did they actually know how to write? How smart were they? The above is an argument but I wouldn't rate it as compelling. :-) 

 

Maybe someone decided to write the gospels to appear the way they are to throw off the scent of fakery? Maybe Jesus didn't exist until the writer of the gospels created him. Who knows?

 

[Dhyin]

^Indeed it is not compelling for even today the same general myths are reinterpreted by different authors & film makers who put their own spin on it, e.g. the Superman of the DC Comics has contradictions with the Superman of the Justice League cartoons who in turn have contradictions with the films starring Christopher Reeves which in turn was contradicted by the recent "Man of Steel" film which likewise contradicted the tv series "Smallville" etc. and so on.

Some might retort that in those cases the writers know & admit that are dealing with fiction, and are not trying to sell these as true stories. Very well then, differences in stories alleging to be true accounts of the same events can be accounted for by different authors having different agendas. One evangelist portrays his savior as god incarnate, another as a mortal prophet. One includes a virgin birth, another omits any birth story at all. Both might very well sincerely believe in this fellow (or both might not and simply want YOU to sincerely believe in this fellow), but they do not share the same agenda and thus pick & choose details which help make their particular agenda more appealing to their target demographic. The evangelist who portrayed his savior as "the logos" incarnate was clearly trying to appeal to the Platonist crowds, whereas the evangelist who kept quoting OT scriptures (out of context and declaring them as "prophecies") was clearly trying to appeal more to the semitic crowds.