Jesus was only one person who appeared to few people, and yet that got mentioned in the Bible multiple times.
Not to be snarky, but I don’t see why this is necessarily true. Suppose the Ancient Greeks were correct (WRT hercules and co), if that’s the case, then Christ would simply be a false prophet - someone to be ignored.
You are presupposing that the NT has authority.
Not to speak for DtC, but I think that the NT is largely worthless as far as ascertaining a miraculous event. I’m open to being wrong, of course. I think the NT is useful for determining what a certain group of people believed back in the day - but as far as reality goes, it’s no more persuasive then the Illiad, IMO.
Why do you believe the NT claims as opposed to Seutonious - a historian - who said that Vespaisian miraculously cured someone’s blindness with spit?
So suppose one of those alternative versions is correct - would you then change your beliefs to the gnostic version?
Unless, of course, Paul’s beliefs WERE the ones that were eventually marginalized!
Uhmm, I would suggest that it is Paul who is the wolf is sheeps clothing.
Didn’t he, basically, set up his own version of Christianity?
A version different from the original movement, we know this.
We are left with Paul’s version, in which the other (real!) apostles are derided, mind you.
Maybe so, but that is not my intent.
I think you are begging the question on the physical resurrection. IMO, it’s not clear that the early Christian community did believe this, as I’ve repeatedly stated.
We know that the physical resurrection belief probably gained traction around 70AD. Prior to that I think the evidence is good that the early Christians, a la Paul, believed in a spiritual resurrection.
Paul is also evidence for a plethora of early competing Christian belief. I would say that Paul supports a spiritual christ, not a physical one. You would disagree.
I think Paul was trying to explain to the Corinthians the exact nature of the resurrection - a spiritual one - which is why he repeatedly attempts to explain it.
Those are independent. Those are also not really early. Those are also not eye witness accounts.
We do throw out all recorded historical events of miracles, even when they are written by eye witnesses.
Why are you trying to establish a special case for the Christian version, when it’s worse then the other miracle accounts we have! This is a primary question that hasn’t gotten a satisfactory answer here.
You act as though modern historians accept that Vespasian could miraculously cure blind people. As though modern historians accept that Alexander was the son of a God, as though Josephus’ account of a calf giving birth to a goat was literal history.
Why do you accept the Christian story, which is not as well attested to some of these, AND not the multitude of other miracle stories?
During Sabbatai Zevi’s life, he was claimed to have done miracles - do you believe that he did? I think Charles Manson was said to have levitated a bus (I seem to recall that Robert Price said that in a debate), do you believe he did?
This is simply false - you can derive Christianity from Judiasm and paganism. How exactly is it ‘distinct’?
Messiah claims were not distinct, nor were Godmen. Nor were Godmen who came back to life - there were pagan rituals that were associated with annual harvests.
Further, people DID change their beliefs frequently. There were dozens of competing claims during the time - as I mentioned. There were Jewish cults that thought that Herrod was the messiah (IIRC, Carrier mentions this in the Empty Tomb).
Your claim about persecutions is vague and I suspect founded on Christian tradition.
If this was a legitimate criteria (uniqueness) then Zoroastrianism becomes true, as does the mystery cults of ancient egypt. They were there first, of course.
This is Craig’s argument - it is poor. We do not use this with any other miracle claim.
A better explanation is that Christianity started as a messiah cult of Judaism and that 30 years after the fact a rival sect believed in a physical resurrection - they did this by taking the old testament and creating ‘what must have happened’.
Could be.
Or he could have been attempting to take the reigns from the other Christian leaders; they all believed the same thing (roughly), and Paul was simply trying to get power.
Paul’s version is the first we have.
Actually this isn’t true - the entire thing begs the question towards the a theory of time AND although I haven’t read that book, I do not think that is Quentin Smith’s position since he had quite a lot of work related to the b theory of time.
It’s largely irrelevant to this discussion though.
Why believe the Gospels? They were not eye witness accounts. Because they were independent? is this a reason?
If so, then do the Christians here believe that Vespasian cured a blind man with spit? (I originally brought this up here)
It’s an independently attested miracle:
According to the multiple attested ‘evidence’, Christians who accept such should also believe that Vespasian cured a blind man through a miracle.
Do you believe this Calculon? Why or why not?
Josephus describes the following miracle - do you believe this happened - why or why not?
Josephus witnessed these sorts of miracles - do you accept that?
How about the following, which Josephus mentions here:
Josephus is highly regarded by modern historians - yet I would hazard a guess that none of them believe these miracles actually happened.
What’s the ‘best explanation’ for this? That the miracles happened or that the story was hyperbole, myth, misremembered occurrence, or a misunderstanding?
As to the uniqueness of Christianity - the early Christian apologists didn’t believe this. In fact, in trying to defend themselves from the Romans, Justin the Apologists tried to play up their similarities. He often pointed out that the Roman versions were Satanic mimicry.
In his dialogue with Typhro (a jew), says the following:
In other words, one of the reasons the early Jews rejected Christianity was because of it’s similarity with the Pagan religions. Further, as the passage illustrates, the Jews believed that the early Christians twisted scripture (the virgin passage).
Moar:
To be sure, Christianity was not a copy - it was not simply plagarized Paganism. It had it’s own unique qualities and it’s own differences - but to say it was completely unique or that it just sprang out without any cultural references or baggage is simply not true.
The Greek verb used for “raised” in that passage (egeiro) is the same one used repeatedly by Paul to refer to Jesus being “raised,” and is also used by Luke and John to refer not only to Jesus being raised, but Jesus’ raising of Lazarus as well.
Total pervs, those Greek gods were…
This URL should point here and not where I was pointing it in the quoted section.
My point. I believe we’ve had some threads about this, but one of the roots of Christian anti-Semitism is thought to be the annoying fact that the Jews who should have known about the miracles “proving” the Messiah story were dutifully unimpressed. So, either it didn’t happen or we were tools of the devil. For the clergy, better to oppress a weak minority than be out of a job, right?
Now there is something you don’t see everyday, Edgar.
What’s that, Chauncey?
20 dead saints shambling towards the center of town.
Nothing to be surprised at, Chauncey. The money lenders are having an Easter sale today.
This brings up an interesting episode in “My Life, With Fundies In It”… ( A (nonexistent) show I highly recommend avoiding)…
My sister was a fundy for a few years, after rejecting the Catholicism she’d been raised in (and unfortunately she’s still a fundy, and so’s her hubby, but I’d already rejected the Catholicism, as well as the Fundy foolishness she and my brother were embracing, at the time), and I’d been working as a “Civil Engineering Technician” for a while. She was a big fan of David Copperfield (she’d seen several of his shows, starting in her early teen years, knew they were ‘magic’, instead of “MAGIC”), and she wanted me to figure out his ‘tricks’, so she could use them (i.e. reproduce them) in an attempt to show that Jesus’ tricks weren’t “tricks”… Just to save more heathens, you know…
Anyway, she recorded them from the TV special, via VHS. I looked at those tricks, repeatedly, and asked myself “Given my knowledge of engineering, how would I reproduce that, and if I did, what evidence would show I’m right about how he did it?”
I figured out much more than half of his tricks, and proved my reverse engineering, by pointing to what to look at, despite the misdirection.
Then I pointed out ways to “reproduce” all Jesus’ ‘tricks’, as recorded in the Gospels, except for the Resurrection one, that one I have no ideas on, given the time and place…
That didn’t go over well… It was a couple of decades ago… We still avoid talking about those subjects…
Me and my sister still have a rather precarious relationship. I really don’t want to deal with her first child on these issues, the second doesn’t even ask, and the third, well, that’s an interesting issue. She wants to see some actual porn. I’ll actually show her that, if her husband is present. He frequently wants to see it too, so sometimes… The fourth… Her fourth kid? I shudder on that one… Nevertheless, I’m NOT responsible for what she wants to teach 'em. She is, and I decided (slightly more than) 20 years ago, I’ll teach 'em what I know, I will answer what they ask. Fuck her if she doesn’t like it.
Personally, at this point, I’m kinda partial to the “FUNDIES???. shoot 'em in the head, they’re worse than zombies” theory.
Since I’m following the thread and we have several learned folks participating, I thought I’d take this opportunity to ask about Papias. To be clear, I’m an atheist, so this isn’t an attempt to meet the challenge in the OP. It’s just an interesting question. I spent some time about a decade ago reading up on early Christian history, trying to piece together a sense of how the story came together. If I tripped over Papias at the time, I didn’t notice.
Anyhoo, Papias was an early 2nd century bishop who wrote the following (no longer extant in its original form but only as quoted by others):
Notice that Papias doesn’t claim to have spoken to eyewitnesses, only to those who had. But he does claim to have spoken to many of those.
My question is what mainstream Bible scholars, both believers and skeptics, say about Papias. On its face, it should be pretty good evidence as historians measure such things for the validity of the Gospels. Indeed, if the latter hadn’t included magic claims (e.g., casting out demons, miraculous healings and of course the physical resurrection) I think most people would take it as very suggestive that Jesus existed and had said and done the things reported. Whether he was in fact the Son of God would be another thing, but that he had claimed to be probably would be accepted. Thoughts?
BTW, Czarcasm, my apologies for having misread your post.
(Bolding mine)
The bold part here I think reveals the unstated assumption in your thinking, namely that resurrection from the dead is impossible. However, as I have stated it is simply circular to assume that the resurrection is impossible due to lack of evidence when the same conclusion is used to dismiss the lack of evidence.
It also has not been demonstrated in this thread that Jesus resurrection is actually impossible. Remember that the Christian claim is that Jesus was raised supernaturally from the dead, not that he rose naturally. Therefore statements that resurrection is physically impossible are simply non-sequitors. The Christian claim is in fact predicated on the impossibility of physical resurrection. If resurrection from the dead was physically possible, then there would be no reason to assert that Jesus was resurrected supernaturally. To have a good case that resurrection is supernaturally or logically impossible, you would have to present an argument that gave reasons to think at the very least that God was unable to intervene in history. So far no such argument has been put forward, and so we have no reason to think that Jesus supernatural resurrection from the dead is in fact impossible, or that any naturalistic theory is in fact infinitely more likely than it.
With respect to the actual theory that you present, I think it so unlikely to be virtually impossible. It is essentially a version of the “apparent death” theory that nearly all scholars of every type find implausible. There are several reasons for this:
- Crucifixion was a brutal method of execution, designed not just to kill people but also to make them suffer as they died. Victims were not just hung up on a cross, but were usually also beaten nearly to death before crucifixion. Simply taking a body down from a cross before they died would not actually ensure that they survived. Josephus tells a story of three friends of his whom he tried to save from crucifixion by the Romans. After appealing to the governor the three people were taken down from the cross and given the best medical care Rome had to offer. Even still two of them died, while the third did recover. If you were interested in faking your own death there are many easier ways to do it than crucifixion.
- People in the ancient world were used to seeing dead bodies. The means that Jesus would have had to use to convince both the soldiers that he had actually died so they would take him down and the disciples so that they would bury him would have been extraordinary. I am not aware of even any technology today that could achieve that, that would work on a normally healthy male. What ancient world method do you propose Jesus used that would have both convinced people that he was dead and also that would not have killed him in his weakened state?
- Even if by a miracle Jesus was able to survive the crucifixion he would not have been able to appear to the disciples in any sort of form that would have the appearance that he had risen from the dead. All of the various crucifixion wounds that he had (not just the holes) would still not have healed, and it is unlikely that Jesus would have even been able to walk, let alone appear as though he had risen in glory.
- Why? To what end did Jesus want to fake his own death? Why did he choose crucifixion? Who else was in on it? What actual evidence is there, apart from the dogmatic statement that miracles are impossible that this view is even likely? The whole theory raises more questions than it answers and in that sense seems entirely ad hoc.
Really I think the “apparent death” theory really requires a miracle of it’s own for Jesus to survive the crucifixion and appear risen in glory to the disciples. As such I think it is far less likely than the Christian view, since it is no less physically impossible than the resurrection and makes less sense of the accounts if one assumes that there was a supernatural element involved.
Calculon.
This I think is confused on several levels. The question at hand is whether there exist natural laws that are somehow inviolable by supernatural entities. That is really the question that needs answering. Is it possible for God to raise Jesus from dead or not.
First of all scientific empiricism assumes the existence of natural laws. Natural laws are not observed directly, their existence is simply assumed. Secondly the key feature in dispute, the inviolability of natural laws also cannot be observed. Even assuming that natural laws do exist, these law are under-determined by empirical experiment. Given any finite set of data points an infinite number of functions can be made to fit those points. By convention we normally assume the “simplest” functional form, but there is no real reason why more complicated functions could not also be just as valid. Therefore by empiricism we will never with certainty what the true form of the natural laws are. Therefore it is impossible to determine through empiricism if a given event violates natural law because it is simply not certain what the actual law is.
Therefore your claim that we have somehow “observed” natural laws is simply wrong. The existence of natural laws is inferred, it is not observed. Empiricism alone is also not able to determine if inviolable physical laws themselves exist or not.
Thirdly the non-deterministic nature of quantum mechanics also throws the existence of inviolable natural laws in doubt, because in quantum mechanics nothing is truly impossible. Quantum mechanics does not deal with possible or impossible, but with varying amounts of probability. So under quantum mechanics everything is technically possible, although some things are fantastically improbable. However if we are to take it is a principle that some things are strictly impossible because of natural laws it seems hard to define what low probability we would assign “impossible” to be. Strictly speaking 0 is the only true impossibility, but that would allow as possible all manner of weird things.
You are also wrong about the gas laws. Statistical thermodynamics does not posit that the nature of the motion of gas particles is non-deterministic. Statistical thermodynamics is still a classical, deterministic theory. The reason that gas motions are treated statistically is not because they are not well defined, but because there are so many variables that treating them all gets you nowhere fast. Therefore a statistical framework is adopted as a tool for simplifying the deterministic system to something tractable.
At best the fact that people usually don’t come back from the dead may be evidence that it is unlikely that someone would come back from the dead naturally. It is not evidence that someone could not be resurrected supernaturally. In the Christian view God chose to resurrect Jesus from the dead, so the non-resurrection of other people is simply explained as God not choosing to resurrect these people. To demonstrate that it was impossible for God to resurrect Jesus you would have to show that it is somehow logically impossible for God to intervene in history. Simply pointing out that God has chosen to not intervene in a particular way in the past is not a good reason to think that he cannot intervene in a specific instance. Christians believe that Jesus resurrection is a singular event in history, so even if the resurrection occurred there is no reason to think that there would be a lot of other resurrections that should be observable.
I have presented evidence for why I think a specific supernatural event, namely the resurrection has occurred. In that sense my claim is limited to that one specific supernatural event. For the purposes of this argument I have no claim over any other supernatural events, and so I have no burden of proof to show that they occurred. If you want to make the definite claim that the supernatural is in some way impossible, then as with all definite claims it is up to you to shoulder the burden of proof for that claim. Without a good reason to think that supernatural events are in fact impossible, then the possibility of them remains an open question. If you want to argue that it is closed, then you have to present arguments for that.
Also, I think it is you that needs to work on your understanding of natural law. Scientific epistemology is much more complicated than the cookie-cutter version that you present. In general I am fine with the assumption that most things happen in a regular, ordered way. Even from a Christian point of view, God is a god of order, not of disorder. What I object to is the statement that it is impossible for supernatural events to occur. I think it is also a poor rebuttal to the resurrection because it does not interact with the evidence, nor does it demonstrate how from a naturalistic point of view the evidence may be explained. I think all of the naturalistic explanations are simply less likely than a supernatural event happening, and therefore I think that the best explanation is that Jesus really was raised from the dead.
Calculon.
Classy.
Calculon.
(Bolding mine)
This is a dodge that William Lane Craig uses - are you suggesting that people usually come back from the dead supernaturally? Because that is the inference you are making.
You seem to be mistaking possibility for probability. What is the probability of someone coming back supernaturally? What do you base that probability on?
Even you seem to admit that it is incredibly unlikely that people get resurrected, you say:
It seems you undermine your entire point (as does Craig), that:
"At best the fact that people usually don’t come back from the dead may be evidence that it is unlikely that someone would come back from the dead naturally. "
Why should we believe that supernatural claim as opposed to the claim that Vespasian cured people with spit? Further, what evidence have you presented? Paul? He wasn’t an eyewitness. The Gospels? They were not eyewitness accounts? The uniqueness of Christianity? It was not unique. Multiple attestations? The Gospels were not independent, further this logic would support the Vespasian miracle.
So what solid evidence have you actually presented?
Even you admit that a supernatural resurrection is absurdly unlikely (one time in history) - yet the evidence you have presented is beyond paltry. Why believe Christianity on such evidence and not, for instance, Rastafarianism? Mormonism? or a dozen other religions?
You are begging the question that the supernatural is a coherent possibility - you are attempting to switch the burden of proof here (which you even admit that a supernatural resurrection has only ever possibly happened once) by saying that we have to put forth an argument against the possibility of supernatural resurrection.
You have suggested that a supernatural resurrection is possible - what do you mean by that? What evidence do you have that the supernatural exists?
So far, all you’ve got is - at best - the inability of naturalistic theories to cover a literal reading of the bible. Surely even you can admit that this is appealing to ignorance. You aren’t appealing to any positive evidence to support your supernatural claim, you are appealing to the lack of a coherent counter-theory.
(I’ll also point out you are begging MASSIVE questions in addition to that!)
This is a bit disingenuous - I would say that most non conservative scholars do not necessarily accept the gospels as literal history. Further, they reject the claims made for various reasons - so some might accept the apparent death, others might think that Christ was entirely spiritual (and therefore there was no need for the apparent death).
The question is, is the ‘apparent death’ theory more likely than a supernatural resurrection, which has only happened once (according to you) in history.
It’s hard to see how the supernatural resurrection is more likely, since we have not verified that the supernatural even exists. So please make your case for how likely the supernatural is and how likely a supernatural resurrection is.
From your own post, you actually provide evidence of someone surviving. That’s one point for the apparent death theory.
Where’s your evidence of the supernatural?
Right now, it’s 1 point apparent death, 0 supernatural resurrection.
This begs several questions:
What soldiers would he have to convince? the ones that took him down? You might say it’s unlikely, but people are declared dead all the time only to be discovered not dead.
So that’s another point to the apparent death:
Apparent death: 2
Supernatural resurrection: 0
We have no first hand accounts of the disciples witnessing the resurrection - so you are essentially arguing from silence here. Further, the Gospels state that the disciples waited 50 days (IIRC) to go preaching the resurrection - so it wasn’t instant. It could have been much longer than 50 days - giving Jesus ample time to heal. There are passages in the Gospels that indicate that Jesus still had his wounds (Thomas touches them, for instance).
To recap: We have no first hand accounts
What we have seem to indicate that Jesus, after his reappearance, still had visible wounds.
Maybe he didn’t intend to fake his own death - it’s possible he survived and had no intent on continuing his preaching, yet his followers didn’t listen/believe him and continued to preach miracles and his resurrection.
Something similar to this happened with Sabbatai Zevi - he was forced to convert and his true believers refused to believe this.
So, again, there are some questions, but this is not support for a miracle - it is unlikely, but completely within the scope of the apparent death theory.
It’s slightly ironic that the only evidence you present of miracles is the miraculous nature of the apparent death theory.
So, let’s have at it:
You accept miracles, so how do you give greater weight to the miracle of a supernatural resurrection than to the miracle of the apparent death theory?
Seems like both are unlikely, so even by your (and Craig’s) standards, they should be equal, since both rely on miracles (according to you).
In any event, I’ve shown that the apparent death theory does not require any sort of miracles. It’s also not necessary, to be frank, to believe. It begs the question that the gospels are accurate.
The fact is, EVEN if you take the gospels as relatively accurate (a big if), one can always postulate naturalistic theories (how about identical twins and a power grab?) that may be unlikely, but are completely possible.
Until you show that the supernatural is probable (as opposed to simply logically possible - which is all that Craig disingenuously argues), even the most unlikely naturalistic theory is more likely that the supernatural.
- is easy to debunk (by debunk, I mean present an explanation that does not stretch the limits of credulity)- He had the guards bribed, so his beating was minimized. Or he had a look-alike take the punishment for him. He may not have planned to be crucified, but once he was sentenced, he set his backup plan in motion. (no miracles here)
- There are herbal drugs that can simulate death to various levels (for example, tetrodotoxin). Alternately (and perhaps more plausibly) a subsititute, look alike body was switched. Or he did die, and a look-alike reappeared 3 days later. There are fiction cliches here, but nothing miraculous.
- is easily explained by various combinations of the previous alternatives.
- Why? Who can know? Perhaps he wanted people to believe he was the messiah. Perhaps he was nuts. Perhaps it was a scheme to get money, or discredit the Romans. Perhaps he was a big prankster. What evidence? It doesn’t matter- I’m attacking your claim that the actual Resurrection is the best explanation. I’m saying I have better explanations- and any combination of 1) and 2) above is better than your explanation, because it requires nothing beyond the mundane. If your friend arrives at work and says aliens from Saturn took him from his bed and deposited him at work (and has pieces of the spaceship and blurry pictures of aliens to “prove” it), you don’t need anything more to conclude that it’s more likely that he’s lying or crazy than that his story is true.