Meatros I have to agree with you that there were different versions of Christianity even back then, Paul even mentions this in his epistles (false preachers will come, wolves disguised as sheep or something like that).
Judging from the swift action taken by Paul to protect his flock, I think it’s a safe bet to say these teachings were marginalized and known to deviate from mainstream teachings. Of course someone could argue otherwise but I believe the small number of Christians in each town in conjunction with the communication between Christians from different towns (if Paul send letters then others have done as well) could alert to different teachings than the ones the Apostles told them.
Also, Paul (and presumably other apostles as well) re – visited those towns and set out disputes regarding Christianity.
You make a good point though, one that possible needs to be addressed further.
Speaking only for me, I have to say that you’re overlooking some viable possible sources of compelling evidence. The discovery of a letter that passes all the evidenciary sniff tests from a Roman centurion to his wife that expresses “HOLY SHIT! You WILL NOT believe what I fucking saw yesterday…”, or better yet several such discrete letters, from a variety of eyewitnesses who have no stake in teh Gospels’ accuracy, or a long-lost diary of Pontius Pilate (again, duly authenticated) or some such. That would put a cork in my bunghole, wouldn’t it? You’re not quite being fair in painting Biblical skeptics as refusing to validate any and all evidence, I think. I’m willing to specify exactly what would constitute powerful evidence to me, at great length if you’d like, and to comment that to date there is no such evidence on display.
Not at all. They are all equally plausible and have exactly the same amount of evidence.
Correct. None of these were written by witnesses. All of the authorship traditions attributed to them are regarded as spurious by mainstream scholarship.
What oral tradition.
Obviously, “revelation” has no empirical value.
Not “worthless” in every regard, just not sufficient evidence to prove that a dead body came back to life.
The analogy is more like a waiter serving empty plates and saying they have invisible food on them.
What makes you think the NT is anything but a set of papers written by ignorant, bronze-age men?
You are assuming that the NT is magical, and then using it as evidence that magic is real.
Every religion on Earth, (well, a lot of them at least) have holy books. You think they are all fake, why is the NT not? Because it’s the myth you’ve chosen to believe.
Czarcasm, can you tell us who was Patroclos and how he end up in Troy? Only you have to completely disrecard the Iliad. Also stories you have heard don’t count
What? There are no other data regarding Patroclos? Toughen up man, stop whining. What do you mean you have nothing?
Diogenes Oral tradition is what kept the church going before the NT was written. Basically the teachings of the Apostles communicated from mouth to mouth among Christians. A lot of the Church’s beliefs were communicated like these, stuff that are not mentioned anywhere in NT.
I think you are vastly understating the evidence that “supernaturalists” as you put it would appeal to.
One of the key evidenses of the reurrection is the early Christian community itself that believed in the physical resurrection of Christ. Historically we know that almost from the date of the resurrection itself onwards there was a community in Jerusalem and around the ancient world that believed in the physical resurrection of Christ. It is especially significant that this community started in Jerusalem, which was the city in which the resurrection took place, as these people would be in the best position to evaluate the truth claims of the resurrection story.
In that sense Paul is called on as a witness not to the resurrection itself, but to the existence of the community that believed in the resurrection. The reason passages like 1 Corinthians 15 are so powerful is that:
It is early, written probably between 20-30 years after the resurrection, which in historical terms, almost immediately.
It is incidental. Ultimately Paul is not trying to convince the Corinthians of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. What Paul argues for is that the Corinthians themselves will be resurrected. Apparently the Corinthians already accept the resurrection of Jesus, and so Paul uses that as a premise of his argument.
Secondly, we also have the accounts of the resurrection itself, given from at least two entirely independent source traditions (The synoptics and John). These are also, in the context of history, extremely early accounts of the resurrection, comeing probably between 30 and 60 years after the resurrection. There are also layers within the gospels (such as Q) that were written even earlier, so it is difficult to give a singular dating to the gospels.
One of the key stumbling blocks to accepting the gospels in this thread appears to be that people are arguing that they are not “eyewitness” accounts. This I think is a pointless objection. If we were to require that all history were written by eyewitnesses, then we would have to throw out nearly all of recorded history, both ancient and modern. So for instance would you insist that the only people that could write histories of the Vietnam war were veterans who participated in the battles themselves? That unless professional historians were involved in the accounts they describe they are merely reporting “heresay”? In ancient history it is even worse. Nearly no writer in ancient history directly witnessed the things that they record. Many historians write of events hundreds of years before they were born, and yet we find that they are in general reliable. While far from being eyewitnesses themselves they have good material on which to draw on, which enables them to accurately record things they were not a witness to. Given the comparatively early dating of the gospels it is necessary to assume that they likewise would have had access to good, reliable accounts of what happened. This is strengthened by the fact that apart from some minor details, both the Synoptic and John traditions report essentially the same events.
Thirdly, there is the fact that Christianity is really quite distinct from the existing worldviews around at the time. In particular the Christian view of the resurrection of the Messiah was completely new and had no direct parallel with other beliefs. Here N. T. Wright does a good job of surveying the pre-existing views of Jesus day and showing that the Christian view of the resurrection was quite unique. Despite what people may think the ancients were not all gullable fools. To convince them to change their belief into a previously unknown, especially in the face of persecution, would not have been easy.
When considering historical questions a proper historical method is to appeal to what is the “best explaination”. Which explaination accounts for all of the facts and ties it together in a way that is not contrived. When considering all possible explainations I think the best one is that Jesus really did rise from the dead. That explains how the early Christian community came to believe in the resurrection and makes sense of the gospel accounts. Just appealing to the fact that resurrection is “physically impossible” as Diogones and his followers does refuses to engage with the evidence and is ultimately circular. To argue that the resurrection did not happen you would have to come up with a better explaination of the data points that we have.
No, what I am asking is for you to demonstrate that these laws actually exist. You claim that you can’t believe anything exists without evidence. OK then, where is the evidence that inviolable natural laws really exist? What about quantum mechanics? If the laws of quantum mechanics are truely non-deterministic, then how does that factor into your assertion that the laws of physics are inviolable? Just merely stating that the laws “are what they are” is not an arguement.
Whether or not it is the “null” whatever that means is debatable. However it is definately the conclusion that you are trying to draw. If you assume the conclusion of your argument going in, then your argument is circular. Why is that so hard for you to grasp?
Stamping your foot and proclaiming that the resurrection is impossible is also a poor argumentative technique. Do you have any evidence at all for your assertion that inviolable laws of nature do really exist? Without any evidence or argument I see no reason why I should accept your assertion that the resurrection is impossible because of some nebulous, ill-defined concept of “natural law”.
In sort, the causal agent of magical events is the person themselves. The causal agent of a miracle is a supernatural entity. If a person causes a rabbit to appear in a hat, it is magic. If God causes a rabbit to appear in a hat it is a miracle.
Of course, this raises the question what, in your view, is the difference between magic and natural law? Why is two masses moving together because of some mysterious force of gravity entirely logical, but something appearing because of a generated soundwave pattern (saying a particular spell) obviously illogical and ridiculous. Without you laying out exactly what natural law is, and what the causal agent of natural law is, then I don’t think that you can assert that natural law is not simply everyday magic.
Irrelevant, since the Christian claim is that Jesus was raised supernaturally from the dead.
So do you grant that it is possible that faeries at the end of the garden do really exist?
Of course this is contradicted in your previous assertion
So the possiblity that Jesus really did appear to Paul, and Paul is merely faithly recounting that experience is simply not possible. And this is not possible because the resurrection did not happen. And we can be certain that the resurrection did not happen because not enough evidence has been presented for it.
If this is not the case, by which reason do you assert that Jesus could not have possibly appeared to Paul.
It seems to me that you are entirely arguing that if there is not enough evidence for a statement then it is impossible for it to be true. If it is possible for something to be true despite lack of evidence, then it is possible that the resurrection really did happen.
Since you were using it to derride the work and contribution of someone, then I think you clearly meant it as an insult. Appologist as opposed to legitimate scholar.
Go to a Society of Biblical Literature meeting and ask around what people there think of the Jesus Seminar. The JS is well recieved in the popular, secular press but in academia they are regarded as radical and non-mainstream.
Also, you are correct that you have not cited the JS or Richard Carrier in this thread. You haven’t cited anyone at all because presumably your post is your cite. Thanks for drawing that to everyone’s attention.
And is that material physical or non-physical? It is clear that Paul thinks that the resurrection body is different in substance from the present body. That is not in dispute. What is at issue is whether the resurrection body is made of physical material of some sort, or whether the resurrection body is entirely immaterial. The use of the word “soma” to describe the “spiritual body” shows that Paul conceives of the resurrection body as being composed of some sort of physical material.
And how does this text advance your argument that the resurrection body is non-corporeal?
So wait, now you are saying that Paul thought that the resurrection body WAS material? So if the resurrection body has a material form, does that mean that you agree that the resurrection of Jesus was a physical, material resurrection? If so, why do you still think that Paul saw them as ghosts. If the resurrection body has a material form, then it is hardly a ghost. Ghosts are non-corporeal beings that have no material form. If Paul thought that the resurrection body was material then he cannot have thought that it was a ghost.
The ancients didn’t have a concept of outer space. Heaven doesn’t mean outer space because the ancients didn’t know that it existed. The ancients believed that the universe was only as big as the sky, and so in rising up he was symbolising that he was leaving the natural realm. It is not necessary for him to literally go into outer space, nor does the bible record that he does.
The resurrection body is still a physical body, but of a different sort of physicallity to the natural body that we all have. This is the standard Christian belief, that Jesus body when resurrected was also transformed into a new physical form that is different to the old and is perfected. The new form is still physical and is not immaterial or spiritual in that sense.
The reason for the holes in the hands has been pointed out before. The holes demonstrate the glory of God as they show the means by which Jesus paid for sin. It is not incongruous that he should still have holes in his hands.
Your trouble here is you’re trying so hard to hold on to silly beliefs they’re short circuiting your ability to think about this.
If I told you that my grandmother was beaten and raped by a chair that came to life, do I have to prove to you it didn’t happen?
It’s impossible for chairs to come to life, and they would likely be asexual if they did. But by your standards, you can’t say that.
Corpses begin rotting immediately. Brains fall apart minutes after breathing stops. This isn’t an elegant packing away of information, like a zipping a computer file. This is a disruptive, horrifying process where the connections that were wired in life (which generate the consciousness by the way, not some imaginary soul) break, unspool and fall apart, impossible to ever be retrieved.
The onus to prove it is on the guy who says that chairs can come to life and hunger sexually for septuagenarian pootie. Just like the onus to prove it is on the guy who says that the dead can reverse their entropy and live again.
Biblical archaeology cannot verify the miracles. Nevertheless, a people who can be identified as Israelite begin to appear in what is now the West Bank, and Jordan about 1200 BC. They did not seem to eat port. Earlier, a settlement of Canaanites has been identified as living in the west of the Nile Delta, which Genesis and Exodus calls “the Land of Goshen.”
Numbers 1:46 says that the adult male Israelites who participated in the Exodus were 603,500. If we add women and children we are probably talking about three to four million people. The Sinai Peninsula probably could not have supported this many people for the forty years the Children of Israel are supposed to have been there. Also, that many people would have left archaeological reminders of their presence that have not been found.
However, the Song of Deborah, which is chapter 5 of Judges, is believed to date to about 1200 BC. Judges 5:8 suggests that there were forty thousand Israelites at the time. That is consistent with the archaeological record. A much smaller number of participants in the Exodus, spending less time in the Sinai Peninsula would have survived, and left less of a record.
The earliest archaeological evidence of Israelites has them most likely to be located in North-East Sinai or South of Canaan. They were South of the Dead Sea by as much as three or four times the length of the Dead Sea itself. The West Bank is, as the name attributes, on the West Bank of the Dead Sea.
The earliest guaranteed reference to the Israelites isn’t until 850 BC, and that evidence is a polytheistic place of worship created by the King of the Israelites. According to the Bible chronology, 850 BC would be something like 800 years after God handed down the Ten Commandments. All evidence points to the OT having been written in 650-550 BC or at least having made significant edits to older materials during that time period, to rewrite history according to a monotheistic vision. The Song of Deborah is just as likely a poem about an entirely different god, written by an entirely different group of people, with their god’s name scribbled out and Yahweh’s written over it.
I am not confused because of my “silly beliefs”. The fundamental premise that Diogenes appears to be working with is that the resurrection is physically impossible because of “natural laws”. All I am doing is asking that he justify the existence of these natural laws and give some reason to think that they actually exist. He is the one presuming that these laws exist, and so he has to provide some evidence that they are real.
This is more than just some silly, academic argument, because ultimately science itself denys the possibility of fixed, immutable laws of nature. If one hold to the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, then fundamentally the laws of nature are indeterministic. That means that it is not “impossible” for anything to happen, it is merely unlikely. So the statement that all of history shows that there are fixed laws of nature is clearly wrong. Whether or not the laws of quantum mechanics are deterministic or not, and whether there are immutable fixed laws really is an open question in the philosophy of science.
And really it is not hard to get atheists to start proclaiming that the laws of nature are in fact non-deterministic. Take for instance the Kalaam cosmological argument. The argument is essentially:
Anything that begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore the universe has a cause
What this argument shows at the least is that the natural world is not all there is, that there must be some transendent cause of the universe that exists necessarily outside of the natural world.
Premise 2 is well confirmed by modern science and cosmology. For instance The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorum states that any universe that is on average inflationary in the past must have a begining at a finite point in the past, irrespective of what goes on in the plank-time moment after that begining point. That covers the vast majority of serious cosmological models. Those few that are not covered by this model do not obey the second law of thermodynamics, and are therefore pretty much dead in the water.
The only real way to avoid the conclusion of the argument is to argue that premise 1 is false, and that things can come into existence without cause. This is in direct violation of Diogenes insistence that there are natural laws that govern the behaviour of all things. So for instance in the book “Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology”, the atheist philosopher Quentin Smith argues that the universe simply came into existence, from nothing, by nothing and for nothing. But if things can happen without cause that means that the premise that all things happen according to natural law is simply false.
So given that this is genuinely a point of contention even amoung atheist philosophers I think what I am asking is entirely reasonable. If Diogenes wants us to accept that natural inviolable laws really do exist then he has to give us some reason for thinking that is true. It is entirely hypocritical to assert that I have to give evidence for the entities that assert exist, and then himself assert that questionable things exist without any evidence or reason and expect as to just accept it.
Secondly, your ridiculous examples of living chairs get us nowhere and I can only assume brought up because you have no real argument to offer. It is clearly a contrived example and one that is not all that hard to really investigate. If the chair did come alive are there any records from the time that talk about it? Were there any people at the time that believed it? Is there any physical evidence of this alleged chair? Of course if you just state it I don’t believe you, because it is clear that you just made it up on that spot. That has nothing to do with the resurrection which has not just one individual claim going for it, but several accounts and a whole early community that believed it. If you are going to argue by analogy at least make sure that the situations that you use are actually analogous.
I know what they were theoretically. The problem is that we can’t really identify what specifically came from any authentic oral tradition and what was created later. The most likely artifacts of oral tradition are generally thought to be a common sayings tradition (basically sayings and parables attributed to Jesus), but we pretty much don’t have squat for an early oral tradition regarding the resurrection. Paul’s appearance formula arguably represents an earlier sayings tradition, Paul himself denies that. Paul’s formula also contains elements that are unlikely to have emerged from any original oral tradition.
Actually, there us a way out of that causation logic.
One can argue that causation is required now, but was not then. Essentially, an argument that the fundamental laws changed at some (very short) point after the Big Bang.
Not that I’m personally promoting this theory - I was just thinking through your logic and that was the conclusion I reached. It works only if the laws never changed.
There is no such thing as Biblical Archaeology. The Bible cannot be archaeologically excavated. There is such a thing as Ancient Near Eastern archaeology. I’m not sure it’s entirely true that archaeology cannot confirm miracles. Theoretically, a miraculous object such as the Ark of the Covenant could be discovered. I wasn’t talking about miracles anyway. It obviously goes without saying that miracles didn’t happen. I was talking about alleged historical events such as the enslavement in Egypt and the Exodus.
Correct. The distinct culture which came to be known as the Israelites emerged from the indigenous Canaanite culture. This did not happen until after the alleged events of the Exodus, however.
I assume you mean pork. That’s correct. It’s one of the earliest and most consistent characteristics of the Israelites.
There were lots of Canaanites migrating in and out of Egypt for a long, but one group of them, the Hyksos (who were not Israelites) ended up taking over Egypt and (according to Egyptian accounts which may be exaggerated) ruled them brutally for 400 years. They were eventually expelled by a Pharaoh named Ahmose (an original Egyptian form of the name Moses) in the 16th Century BCE. After that, the Egyptians became paranoid about foreign immigration and shut down the borders. When the Israelites emerged in Canaan, several centuries later, they never left it, never got enslaved, never escaped and came back.
Correct. Not a trace of of evidence has ever been found for any human presence at all in the Sinai at that time, much less for a group numbering in the millions. The Bible says the Israelites spent 39 of their 40 years at one particular oasis, yet not so much as a potsherd has been found there.
No it isn’t. At all. 40,00 people would have left considerable evidence. Archaeologists can find the remains of campfires from small groups numbering in the dozens moving in the Sinai well before and well after the alleged Exodus, but not jackshit for any humans at all in the relevant time and place. The Sinai has been scoured for decades by the most high tech and highly motivated means available, and there’s nothing.
Plus, there’s also still that issue that no Israelites yet existed at the time the enslavement and exodus is supposed to have taken place.
Yes, I’m quite familiar with the Book of Mormon and As I said, I believe Joe Smith was a charlatan. The idea of the American Indians being descendents of a lost Jewish tribe was kicking around back then and there was a book of fiction concerning hidden golden plates. I just don’t believe Smith or his immediate cohorts wrote the book from scratch. I think it’s likely they plagiarized the ideas and theology in it from another source and I’m a little curious about where it came from.