Yes, I’m sure all sorts of things can be seen when reality is removed from the equation.
I selected Muhammed because his claim is just as valid as any of the people who had or do claim they spoke to God, or that God spoke to them.
Since an angel is supposed to be a spirit that is invisible, then it has to be in the mind of a human who makes the claim and they cannot prove it was a spirit, just a belief that their mind created.
Since you actually seem to care about the answer 
The problem with “the dog that didn’t bark” type arguments generally is that history is full of weird events that make little to no sense to us today. Put simply people either do not act rationally 100% of the time, or what we consider rational behaviour was not considered rational at the time. To be clear as well this has nothing to do with miracles, but is just a general fact of history. Therefore if we used the argument that “every action that seems irrational must be non-historical” we would have to discount a wide range of things that we otherwise believe did happen. Therefore I am very suspect of arguments for non-historicity of this type.
So when we come to Jesus the question is would Jesus really have thought going to the temple post-resurrection was a good idea. I think from the gospel accounts it does not appear that he actually would. The first point is that I don’t think the Pharisees really doubted that could perform miracles. The real question was what was Jesus identity, and by what power was he able to perform miracles. The Pharisees expectation of the Messiah was completely different to who Jesus was, and so concluded that Jesus was somehow Satanic. So for instance in Mark 3:25 or Matthew 12:25 the gospel writers have the scribes and the Pharisees claiming that Jesus was performing miracles through Satan. If Jesus had shown up to the temple post-resurrection it is not clear that the Jewish leaders would not have simply considered the resurrection a Satanic act. As well the Saducees did not believe in the resurrection on principal, so they would also be even more difficult to convince.
There is also another interesting passage in Luke 16:14-31. Here Jesus, adressing the Pharisees tells a parable about a rich man and a poor man called Lazarus. At the end of the story the rich man, who ends up in Hades, asks to be able to go back and warn his brothers as to the fate that awaits him. Jesus response in the story is that if the brothers have not believed the Law and the Prophets, then even someone rising from the dead will not convince them. So it appears likely that Jesus thought that his resurrection, even if proven, would not satisfy a lot of people that he was really the Messiah. The problem is not whether or not a miracle has occured in raising Jesus from the dead. The problem was the incorrect assumptions about the Messiah that people had that were stopping them from recognising Jesus for who he was.
So in total I think the premise of the argument that Jesus necessarily would have gone to the temple if he had been resurrected is not true, and therefore the argument is invalid.
Calculon.
Agreed we can’t assume people are always 100% rational, but I think we can assume the Son of God is. Publicly declaring his miracle might not have persuaded the Pharisees and the Saducces - or it might have rocked them to the core - but Jesus wasn’t primarily preaching to them. He had stated he would rise on the third day and proving to the masses that he had done so was the obvious thing to do. The argument from Luke is interesting, but overlooks that Jesus (allegedly) appeared to the disciples and we’re supposed to take those accounts as proof of the resurrection.
What I’m arguing, really, is the best explanation thesis on which you hang your hat. Admittedly, there are theories, of which you mention three, which could explain Christ’s failure to make a public appearance. The best explanation, though, is that the physical resurrection didn’t happen and the later story tellers had to fit the tale to the record. For, if Jesus had declared his miracle in the sight of all, that would have been remembered. Big time. Meanwhile, bear in mind the Gospel story has the curious characteristic of getting more detailed the further we get from the events. Thomas and Q are just sayings. Paul has a resurrection, but no miracles, no Mary and no Pontius Pilate. These things don’t show up until Mark.
Since we’re having a friendly conversation, let me ask you this. Suppose the story which had come down to us is what I call the Joshua Scenario. For simplicity, I posit this as essentially the Gospel story without the magic. Thus, Jesus is a teacher in the Greek Cynic school (poverty a virtue, etc.), claims to be the Son of God, claims that his death will be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of mankind and that he will be resurrected directly to the right hand of God. If this were the Gospel story, would you be a Christian?
Or it is a fear and reward based control mechanism designed to keep you in the fold.
Cults and pyramid schemes use the same methods.
Make people feel special and “in the know” while avoiding the issues with having an errant “inerrant” testimony.
It seems obvious to you, but I don’t think it was obvious to Jesus, or would have really been obvious to others in his situation. The real question is whether or not more people would have become Christians if Jesus showed up at the temple. I think it unlikely that they would have. If people did not believe in Jesus during his earthly ministry, which itself is said to have contained many miracles, then I don’t think that one more miracle, even one as spectacular as the resurrection would have tipped them over.
There are several factual innacuracies and/or distortions in this paragraph.
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The data that we have from Paul about the resurrection is all incidental. Paul does not write directly about the resurrection because it is assumed knowledge to the people that he is writing to. To argue that Paul was unaware of the basic gospel story is I think unfounded. There is no place in Paul’s writings where details like Mary or Pontius Pilate are conspicuously absent, so therefore I think we cannot conclude that Paul did not know about these elements of the gospel story.
One interesting passage that illustrates the problems with this interpretation is 1Corinthians 10:15-21. Here Paul indicates that he is aware of the traditions surrounding the last supper, and is therefore aware of at least that element of the passion narrative. The reference to bread and wine is clearly a reference to an early form of communion already established at the church in Corinth. However if there was no issue with idolatry at Corinth Paul would most likely have not mentioned this, and we would not know that he was aware of this tradition. -
Using Q as a source in an argument from silence (which is what you are attempting to do) is problematic, because no-one really knows the extent of the material that was in Q. We are only able to reconstruct Q based on the material from it that appears both in Matthew and Luke. There may be several things in Q that for whatever reason were not mentioned by Luke or Matthew or perhaps both, and therefore we are unable to say with certainty that it was in Q.
That being said Q is commonly thought to contain at least one miracle, the healing of the Centurion’s servant (Matt 8:5-13 / Luke 7:1-10). So painting Q as entirely a sayings source is not accurate. It contained at least one miracle that we are reasonably certain about, with the possibility of more. -
The Gospel of Thomas is generally dated to be early second century, and is therefore not contemporary with the NT. Those that do rely on the Gospel of Thomas (namely the Jesus Seminar) merely take the primacy of Thomas as one of their fundamental assumtions, not as a result of their research.
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The claim that the accounts of Jesus resurrection get more elaborate as time goes on is not really substantiated by the evidence. For a start the first two early sources that you cite (Q and Paul) had no intention of giving an exhaustive account of Jesus resurrection, and therefore it is unsurprising if later accounts are more detailed. Secondly though the theory of the historical embelishment is lacking because there is no significant sign of the mythologising of Jesus as the accounts move from the earlier (Mark) to the later (Luke and Matthew). If anything Matthew and Luke are in many ways more sedate than Mark. The much later pseudopigraphal gospels do contain more mythical elements about Jesus, which is expected given their late dating.
The other main problem with the developing myth hypothesis (ie: that there is a naturalistic core of historical truth to Jesus, but that Christianity as we know it developed as a myth over the ensuing years) is that there is no evidence of early Christians believing anything but what is in the gospels. Indeed some of the traditions contained within the NT writings, such as the resurrection formula in 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 seem to go back to within a few years of the resurrection itself. The only thing that the developing myth theory has going for it is that it allows a naturalistic account of Christianity. Unfortunately it is contradicted by the evidence that we have and has no real supporting evidence of its own. Therefore I don’t consider it more credible then the resurrection alternative.
I haven’t thought about it a lot, but probably not.
Let me say though that I would definately not be an atheistic naturalist. I consider that worldview to be simply incoherent. Essentially if you claim that all things happen according to natural laws, then obviously thought is included in that, and thus there is no reason to suspect that our thoughts have any truth value.
Additionally I think that several of the “classical” arguments for God’s existence (kalam cosmological argument, argument from contingency, moral argument, teleological fine tuning argument, ect) are at least more plausible then their negation, which would lead me to believe that some sort of God exists.
I guess I would have to toss up between nihlistic atheism (which, while incredibly bleak is at least coherent) and some other form of theism. Which it is would probably depend on the exact nature of the “Joshua Scenario” that you are positing.
Since we are asking questions, can I ask you a similar question? Assuming that the gospel accounts were actually historically accurate, and Jesus really did rise from the dead, would you be a Christian? Is that the only thing holding you back or do you have other objections to Christianity that do not focus on the resurrection?
Calculon.
As you say, what I’m proposing is a naturalistic accretion of mystery theory. It’s been too long (over ten years) since I looked into the bible scholarship to recontruct the textual arguments, but there were many. The scholarship is by no means as one-sided against as Dio liked to claim, but nor is it as one-sided in favor as you (and Craig) claim. The most plausible answer, I think, lies in the middle. That Jesus was a real person and that he won a small following by his teachings, not by miracles. They believed he was resurrected because he said he would be and they believed he was the Son of God. (Yes this was a new theory but, hey, it was a new religion.) Only later, when the first generation began to die off, was there a need for written gospels and a tendency to introduce magic to make them more wonderful. The best evidence of this, for me, is the dog that didn’t bark. Frankly, it’s obvious that declaring his miracle in the sight of all would have had a huge impact. How you can deny this eludes me. That it didn’t happen places the whole account in doubt. And, of course, whether the account is historically reliable is the point in question.
As for your return question, I was a Christian for nearly thirty years, mainly because that’s how I was raised. Where I fell off the turnip truck was the day I realized my praying to God was the sound of one hand clapping, i.e., that I was supplying both sides of the conversation. Upon reflection, I concluded the Christian theory of salvation doesn’t make sense (a subject for another thread) and walked away. It was only many years later, when I became interested in the historical question of how the Gospels came to be accepted that I looked into the biblical scholarship. FWIW, if I were still a Christian, I would find the naturalistic theory - what I call the Joshua Scenario - perfectly acceptable. The stumbling block for me isn’t the scriptures. It’s the theology.
I don’t think this makes any sense, further, why is the only public showing to be done at the temple? Why not to the Romans? If this is all true, why show up to anyone at all? Seriously though, Jesus showing up would have convinced the Sadducee and he most likely would have convinced the Pharisees as well - he did, after all (according to you), convince Paul that he was the Christ. Further, what about all the other people he could have convinced?
A common criticism is that Jesus’s death was (supposedly) a very public event, yet his resurrection was very private. In fact, if there were skeptics at the time who cared enough to investigate, by the time the disciples started proclaiming the resurrection (taking the Gospels at face value, mind you), there would have been no way in to tell whether or not a decomposed corpse was Jesus.
It seems very suspicious to me. This seems a very weak response to why he didn’t make his resurrection public. Even granting your arguments, that might explain the temple, but not other public places.
It may not have satisfied everyone, but it would have satisfied quite a few people.
Shoot, if this is the case, then why did Jesus show up to his disciples, who doubted? Why show up to Thomas?
I don’t think it’s necessary that Jesus would have done this or that - it just makes the claim less convincing because he didn’t do anything that would have convinced a lot of people at the time (as opposed to his church after the fact).
In fact, we don’t have anything from anyone who actually witnessed the resurrection.
We just have third hand accounts.
This doesn’t convince us of Urban Legends, why should it convince us with regard to Jesus?
Why would it not have? You are begging the question here. I mean, seriously, we are expected to believe that third hand accounts of miracles/resurrections are more convincing to more people than if Jesus had been more public and shown people himself? That strains credibility and I think you need more than ad-hoc rationalizations in order to make that case.
This is another slide of hand trick of the apologists - upon inspection, Craig’s argument is not rational.
How does this not beg the very question at hand? Paul/Q are minimal with regard to Jesus’s life - yet the first Gospels flesh it out and you don’t see that as embellishment? How do you account for the lack of an ending in Mark, yet by the time that Matthew came around there were Saints flying out of their graves?
This isn’t an embellishment?
Calculon, can you respond to this and post 138 and then 134 (I correct a misreading in 138)?
The idea that the miracles were added in later years is something that we can figure out from the layers of the writings, from oldest to newest. But you can use the same concepts to look at the whole “Son of God” idea as well. The earliest sources seemed to have Jesus as a prophet who God brought up to heaven after his death - that during his life, he was a regular prophet like many others before. Then the stories about the empty tomb and the resurrection came later, partly in Mark and then were embellished in Matthew/Luke. But for the claim about being divine himself, you have to wait until you get to John. I think that points clearly to the idea that his followers at the time did not see him as divine.