Christians: What is your best evidence for the literal, historical resurrection of Jesus

Great Debates
321

In fairness to Calculon, I think he would probably say that Dio was arguing the impossibility of the resurrection. I think Dio would say that it was physically impossible and there is no reason to believe that it is actually possible, but he would conceded (maybe?) that it was logically possible. I’m not 100% on this last point.

I find it kind of funny that I’m trying to clarify these people’s positions when I’ve mangled other people’s positions (unintentionally) in this thread, btw… So take my interpretation with a grain of salt. :slight_smile:

Dio isn’t going to be able to respond and I’m not sure if Calculon is coming back to this thread.

I’ve corresponded through email with people who have debated with Craig and they seem to think he genuinely believes that the truth or falsity of a position is determined by who wins a debate. The person I corresponded with said this is the impression they got in either the post debate or pre debate dinner (I can’t remember which).

The problem is that debate is mainly the art of rhetoric. The affirmative has an advantage - especially if they are able to perform a ‘gish gallop’. Add a thorough understanding of counter arguments and Craig comes out as a fairly competent and intelligent debater. It’s easy to whip out counters to the argument from evil, for instance, in a debate format. You can practically dispense with all the difficulties with one liners. When the person putting forth the argument from evil then challenges those rebuttals, it takes quite a lot more time to show how they don’t work. This equates to debate inflation and a skilled debater (such as Craig) takes advantage of this. This is one of the reasons Craig goes first. He’d say it’s because he’s taking the affirmative position - but really, it’s because:

  1. He gets to frame the debate (instead of theism v. atheism it’s theism v. strong atheism).
  2. He gets to set the pace (gish gallop).

The other advantage he has is a wide scope of knowledge. He’ll take on historians and then add in the cosmological argument (or the moral argument). He’ll take on astrophysics and add in a historical argument. He knows his stuff, there’s no doubt about it.

The sad fact is that debates do not determine truth.

Very true - with the introduction of magic, anything goes. Why is Jesus’s resurrection caused by the Christian God? Isn’t it equally likely that it was caused by Ahiriman as a way to deceive people away from the true God Ahura Mazda?

The other problem is (and this piggy backs off of my last statement), let’s assume there is a God - that might make the resurrection possible, but not more probable.

Actually ch4rl3s has said something like that. I’m not sure if Calculon has.

I think both should answer the question as it would provide insight into their position.

I think the ice ants would require magic - I can’t remember the original formulation. I initially modified Dio’s position and suggested aliens with advanced technology - no magic required. So the aliens position would be more believable because of what you suggest.

Even time travelers from the future are more probable - I do not believe either aliens or time travelers are known to be physically impossible, whereas even the theists admit that a resurrection is.

322

He said several times that resurrection was on its face impossible, therefore the standard of evidence is extremely high. He later shortened it, leaving out the “on its face.”

323

As I’ve pointed out before — perhaps even earlier in this thread — resurrection is not the sort of thing which is flat-out impossible; why is it assumed to be a physical impossibility? No current theory may exist by which resurrection could be practically effected, but one could name any number of ways that a resurrection could take place in principle.

Heck, at the very least, some vastly improbably quantum fluctuation could pop an entity into existence in every apparent respect identical to some dead guy.

Two multiplied by two with five resulting — that’s analytically impossible. Perpetual motion machine — that’s impossible by all known physical theories. Taking a dead guy, rebuilding him, and returning him to life? That doesn’t sound impossible to me.

324

That actually does sound familiar now that you mention it.

325

The impossibility of a perpetual motion machine, and of resurrection, are actually pretty comparable. After all, quantum fluctuations could all add up to give your machine more output power than it loses to friction.

326

Well, it violates the laws of thermodynamics and information, as it requires re-building information that was lost when proteins denatured. It’s like taking a heap of ashes and re-constituting it into a nice fresh pine log.

Only some mystical “gnosis” that somehow stored the information that was lost could restore it. Some god who had a memory of the pine log. But by the mundane laws of information theory, nuh-uh. The data is erased and scrambled, and we can’t get it back.

But, as I noted above, once you admit gods and miracles and violations of natural law – where do you stop? Traffic was light on the I-8 this morning: had to have been a miracle of God…

Trinopus

327

Yep, I was thinking along the lines of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics when I compared a perpetual motion machine to a resurrection. They’re both impossible for basically the same reason.

328

I think one of the reasons these discussions are so difficult is that the different sides have very different assumptions and even epistemologies going in that make progress difficult.

There are two fundamental assumptions that I have going into this debate. The first is that the NT books actually historically accurate documents. Note that I am NOT assuming that the NT is inerrant, which is really more a statement of faith than of evidence. However in comparison to other historical documents I think that the NT documents stack up very well. In historical terms the descriptions of the resurrection are early (in ancient history 30-50 is considered early), they are relatively free of myth and theological embellishment (unlike the later pseudopigraphal gospels, such as the gospel of Peter), and while we are not 100% certain exactly who wrote them, clearly come from sources within the early church. Also while themselves early, some sections, such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 or the passion narrative in Mark contain sources that are even earlier, and may date to within a few years of the resurrection themselves.

This is not just my view, but it is a view that is shared by a number of scholars. So for instance many articles (citecitecite) or books (citecitecitecitecitecitecitecite)

329

It doesn’t matter if you think something or you can find a few authors to agree with you. A few place names in the bible being accurate is not evidence for the supernatural claims therein. Remember, New York really exists. The UN building is real. That doesn’t mean that Spider Man comics showing him swinging from the UN Building are factual. Similarly, a few historical tidbits in the bible do nothing to provide evidence for the supernatural claims in it.

No one who was in a position to witness the resurrection even claimed to have done so.

Since no one in history has ever come back from the dead, someone who did, and was widely witnessed, would have been huge news. And certainly would likely have been written about before a few decades had passed.

Especially if you factor in the saints rising from their tombs nonsense.
The far, far likelier explanation is that primitive men told stories and now two thousand years later, you’re just as duped as they were.

330

Within an early church. There is likely to have been other early churches, which simply didn’t have any written materials, where those materials were lost, or those materials were destroyed.

The early church from which we have writings dating back the earliest is also the only church which specifically says that they are based upon the teachings of a man who never met Jesus, and for whom the resurrection was his only way to explain why he had anything to teach to begin with. Other churches had no such need.

331

This is not just my view, but it is a view that is shared by a number of scholars. So for instance many articles (citecitecite) or books (citecitecitecitecitecitecitecite) that lay out the arguments in a more detailed fashion. I am constantly surprised at how often people argue for the non-historicity of the gospels without really engaging with the arguments for their historicity. Unfortanately this happens not just with lay people, but with liberal scholars as well, as in this case here.

My second premise is that if something is to be demonstrated real or not real, then it should be done with the same rules of evidence and logic as anything else. Therefore I would use the same rules of evidence in evaluating the resurrection as I would with any other claim. The standard that I use is the same that historians everywhere use, which is reference to the best explaination. That is, given the data at hand, what hypothesis best accounts for all of the data that we have.

Several people in this thread appear to be arguing that the resurrection can only be considered with some special rules of evidence that are in some way more difficult than usual. I don’t think anyone has clearly laid out what that means, but I think that ultimately all these types of approaches are merely begging the question. If God really is part of our reality, then why assume that claims about God must be proved to some higher standard before they can be rationally believed? The only reason it seems to me that people want to hold claims about God to a higher standard is that they assume going in that the claims about God are impossible (or at least highly improbable), and therefore want to bias the evaluation of the claims so that it comes out the way that feels right to them. Of course the problem is that in evaluating the resurrection whether it is possible/probable that God has acted in history is entirely the question to be answered, so assuming that makes the argument circular.

I also wonder what people who argue for higher standards of evidence are afraid of. If miracles and other supernatural things are indeed impossible, then they should be able to be seen to be impossible with the normal rules of evidence. If they are not then I think the only rational conclusion is that they did actually happen. Constructing special rules of evidence for particular events is not IMHO a rational response to evaluating a claim.

Calculon.

332

I don’t think that you are really engaging with the arguments being presented. So for instance:

This is false, since Paul claimed to have witnessed the risen Jesus.

The NT is not the only material written about Jesus. We only have a small fraction of the material written in ancient times. Likely there were other writings about Jesus written closer to resurrection, but these were not preserved as people in later times found the gospels to be more complete and accurate accounts of Jesus, and simply didn’t bother to copy all of the other material. So for instance this appears to be what has happened to the Q document.

Calculon.

333

People make up and believe wacky things.

334

No one who has their head on straight assumes that impossible stuff actually happened. There was no worldwide flood. There was no ark, no animals. Nothing of the sort.

We know that flooding the Earth is impossible (not to mention the writers of the OT were so ignorant they thought the sky was a dome that held back water) and the geological records show no evidence of a world-wide deluge. So we don’t think that happened.

The flood is just like the resurrection. It’s impossible, and flies in the face of all of science, so we assume it didn’t happen.

The one being circular here is you. There is no evidence for God or the resurrection. So don’t believe in him unless you get some evidence.

You have decided that you will believe in Him and the resurrection regardless of any evidence. Good for you, but it’s no rational.

You appear to not understand how to reason.

If I claim that my car can get 40mpg, that’s a reasonable claim. It’s a little unlikely, but it’s not impossible. So accepting that has a lighter burden than if I claimed that my car can damn people to hell and move backwards in time.

Are you able to understand the difference? An exceptional claim that flies in the face of huge amounts of evidence requires some evidence for people to believe in it.

335

The problem is that there is simply no real evidence for those other churches. Indeed this study concludes that the other Christianities were never more than fringe movements that were clearly influenced by Greek philosophy. Since Christiantiy is first and foremost a Jewish religion, then these other groups are clearly later.

Secondly you seem to be implying that Christianity as we know it is the invention of Paul. At least in terms of the resurrection this is not the case. The gospels provide testimony to the resurrection that is independent of Paul, and in the case of the passion narrative in Mark, may actually pre-date Paul as well.

Calculon.

336

Paul also claimed that physical resurrections were impossible. So he was probably talking about a vision. Unless you think Paul is a liar.

In any case, visions are hardly rare. The lady downstairs from me thinks there are children chained in the walls. She’s crazy. Like Paul probably was. Crazy or a liar.

So the evidence that was there was lost because the stuff with no evidence was better received?

Do you even listen to yourself?

There is no evidence of a resurrection. You are taking it on faith. Which is fine, but it’s not rational. If you want to live in a world of wishful-thinking and make-believe that’s your choice. But don’t pretend you’re being rational and using evidence.

337

So is your whole argument that the resurrection didn’t happen because it is impossible?

If so, why do you think that it is impossible? You mention that it flies in the face of science, but that is simply a non-sequitor. I have clearly stated from the beginning that my position is that Jesus was raised supernaturally from the dead. I accept that people cannot naturally rise from the dead. What argument are you going to present that justifies your assumption that the supernatural is in fact impossible?

Calculon.

338

You keep repeating “there is no evidence” as though it is some sort of mantra. I don’t know what definition you are using for the term “evidence”, but the NT documents are clearly historical evidence of the resurrection. You may not find them convincing evidence, and that is fine, but to simply assert that there is no evidence is to stick your head in the sand. If you don’t find the NT compelling then present your arguement as to why the gospels are not reliable and we can discuss it. Otherwise we won’t get anywhere.

Calculon.

339

To clarify, I’m saying that there is no evidence it did happen. Not slam-dunk evidence, but none at all.

Why should someone believe that the laws of physics were suspended in a tomb in the first century AD without any evidence to speak for it?

Brains fall apart after death.

The lack of evidence for supernatural happenings?

You might as well be asserting that the Norse Pantheon is real. Since neither one as any evidence, what possible reason (aside from your cultural preference) do you have for asserting the primacy of one over the other?

If God wanted you to have evidence, He’d have left some. Instead he left none, so either He doesn’t exist or wants you to believe based on faith alone.

Evidence God could have left:
The site of the tomb could glow slightly and heal the sick.
The dead all over the world could have risen and it could be recorded in far away cultures.
Jesus could appear to every child on their 12th birthday.

But instead, He left a bunch of shit written decades after the fact. Oooohhh. Spooky.

340

The problem with this hypothesis is that, if consistently applied, we would have to discount a lot of what we understand of ancient history. What you are essentially arguing is that all written accounts are inherently unreliable and should not be taken seriously. That is not really an argument that any historian is going to accept.

The only way it appears you can justify is with some special pleading in that Christian early belief is made up, but every other events that fit with your pre-concieved worldview are historical. That approach I think is simply self-refferential and not objective.

There is also ample evidence that written accounts can be accurate. Archaeology often confirms what written accounts say. One recent example is archaologists finding the tomb of Herod the Great based on the account of Josephus, who wrote 100 years or so after Herod’s death. If your hypothesis is correct and written history is simply made up, then that sort of thing should not happen.

Calculon.