# Evidence for the resurrection

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 13, 2006, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594 "2006-05-13T03:25:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 11

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/201 "2006-05-21T00:53:18Z")

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Now that we know what Ramsay was really doing, I’m curious what people think “disproving” the Gospels actually means. I don’t think we can expect to find a written record that “Jesus of Nazareth did not get resurrected today.” All we have to go on is lack of solid evidence that he was, or that any of the miracles happened. It seems that claims that so and so tried to disprove something and failed is an attempt to get non-believers to accept that the burden of disproving any of this stuff falls on us.

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**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/202 "2006-05-21T01:55:29Z")

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[QUOTE=jimmmy]  
Well that is technically true because you said it, then took it back then danced around the edges of saying it again

**ambushed** in Post 86  
There are other alternatives, by far the most likely explanation (grossly simplified) is that the Apostles and Jesus never historically existed and that the Gospels were written by people who wished to create a faith-inducing narrative that combined in a chronological and easy-to-understand manner the many divergent stories they had heard (and believed, though unjustifiably) about what they didn’t realize was actually a mythological (in its sociological sense) figure created by their forbears and neighbors

**ambushed** in Post 108  
It is, of course, true that most historians and NT scholars do believe that Jesus was a historical person. However, as you can see in my reply to Lissa above (post 105), Burton Mack (among many others, though they are in the minority) compellingly argues that there are inadequate grounds for such a belief

Then Diogenes called you on your misunderstanding/misinterpreting of Mack to support your assertions of mythicising in Post 116 we see your tone change.

**ambushed** in post 116  
This I take to be equivalent to stating that no one has ever established the existence of a historical Jesus. This is precisely what I believe. I make no flat assertions that Jesus was a mythological figure, I merely offer that as a compelling alternative hypothesis to explain the New Testament.

So \*\*Of course you did \*\* say Jesus was a myth there is no doubt about it – you say it twice in fact– but you took it back – sort of – before I noted it. That may have been, a bit, assh\*lish of me but it certainly didn’t call for the supercilious tone you answered with.  
[/QUOTE]  
You have misinterpreted my words. While I do not accept that anyone has ever established the existence of a historical Jesus _per se_, I do believe that Jesus is modelled after actual historical persons. This is the point that you have clearly confused: a figure can be mythical without being _completely_ mythical or _completely_ invented (see my elaboration of this point in [post 183](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7411461&postcount=183)). However, post 183 is not the first time I made this point.

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