# Evidence for the resurrection **URL:** \ **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:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/61 "2006-05-14T15:34:54Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > I don’t know offhand; however, professional historians do regard Eusebius as a reliable authority. That is why even _secular_ history books and encyclopedias state that the Apostles did exist and were martyred for their cause. Consider the Encyclopedia Brittanica’s entries on [Saul of Tarsus](http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108605?query=saul%20of%20tarsus&ct=) and the [Apostle Matthew](http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9371552?query=Apostle%20Matthew&ct=), for example. Dude, _no one is questioning that the Apostles were martyred._ But that has jack-shit to do with whether or not the resurrection occured. > [@](#): > > As I said, professional historians do acknowledge that the Apostles exist, and that Jesus existed. The also acknowledge the reality of the [empty tomb](http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb2.html), among other things, even though some may propose alternate explanations for these events (e.g. the [swoon theory](http://www.equip.org/free/CP0112.htm), or the aforementioned id[entical twin theory](http://www.theism.net/authors/zjordan/debates_files/probable.htm)). Son, I am a professional historian. And I can tell you without a bit of doubt that no reliable historian would make such incredible claims based solely on one source. I don’t know any historians who accept the “empty tomb” because there’s nothing outside the gospels to suggest that it happened. _True_ scholars do not accept a single source as the whole truth without external evidence. (Please try to realize that there is a difference between Christian scholars and secular historians.) Let’s say I found a diary in which the writer claimed that he had been at Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot, and the writer claimed that he had personally witnessed Mary Lincoln shoot her husband and then frame John Wilkes Booth. In the margin, the writer’s sister and brother write in that they saw it, too. No real historian would then say that we should toss out 100 + years of Lincoln scholarship based on this single source. What a real historian would do was test the paper and ink to see if it was of the proper time period, read it carefully to see that all wording was contempoary (that the writer didn’t use any words or phrases not in use at the time) and then settle down to researching who the writer was. Is there any evidence the writer was actually at Ford’s Theater? Did he know any of the players in the story. (He’d lose a lot of credibility if it turned out he was JWB’s best friend and had made a fortune travelling the country to plug a book of his theories.) If nothing external could be found to support the diary’s authenticity, historians would probably quietly set it aside and dismiss it as the ravings of a kook, or someone who had a vested interest. > [@](#): > > But their situations are NOT the same. In the case of early Christianity, we are talking about the spread of a religion that claims a singular historical event as its very foundation. As the Apostle Paul himself said, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” Paul himself pointed to the Resurrection as the reason for people to believe. Nearly every religion is founded on a supernatural event that the believers swear happened. A billion Muslims would swear that Mohammed ascended into heaven from a stone, and they have the very stone from which he supposedly left. Sure Paul would point to this incredible event as reason to believe, just as the believers in Mohammed would point to their holy stone. > [@](#): > > The explosive growth of early Christianity despite intense Roman persecution, suggests that something happened to trigger that growth. This does not automatically prove that the Resurrection occurred, but it’s a piece of evidence that must be considered, evaluated and explained. Yeah, it’s called _political upheval,_ which is a great time for cults to flourish. When people are scared, they want something external to rely upon, and religion neatly fills that void. That a particular cult managed to gain more popularity than others means nothing other than the cult offered something that people liked at the time. Christianity has undergone massive changes in the time since it began-- it’s not always been the religion you see today. > [@](#): > > Now, this is the point at which people recklessly jump in and say, “But maybe it wasn’t the Resurrection! Maybe there was some other cause! You still haven’t proven that Jesus rose from the dead!” Must we again reiterate that we are talking about evidence, not proof? Any scholar – whether historian, legal expert or philosopher – first proceeds from the evidence and works toward a conclusion. One might propose an alternate explanation for the evidence, but that does not mean that the evidence is non-existent. As a historian, I conclude from the evidence that there was a man named Jesus who called himself the Christ, and managed to gather a following in his lifetime which expanded after his death. There’s evidence for that, but not much else. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/62 "2006-05-14T16:13:51Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > The explosive growth of early Christianity despite intense Roman persecution, suggests that something happened to trigger that growth. This does not automatically prove that the Resurrection occurred, but it’s a piece of evidence that must be considered, evaluated and explained. Thus providing evidence that the angel Moroni actually did present a new scripture to Joseph Smith. Thus providing evidence that Li Hongzhi has received a message of higher calling to establish the Fulan Gong. Thus providing evidence that the Cathars had received a new message of Knowledge from God. Thus providing evidence that the Beguines were prompted by God to renounce their worldly possessions. It seems to be a fairly typical bit of evidence that tends to lead to a lot of different conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/63 "2006-05-14T16:15:04Z")
I really would like to know the sources Eusebius used, if anyone can find it. JThunder: It doesn’t matter if he raised the dead, flew like Superman, and made it rain chocolate… he wasn’t the _jewish_ messiah. There are certain things the messiah has to do. As Maimonides writes, > [@](#): > > “The anointed King is destined to stand up and restore the Davidic Kingdom to its antiquity, to the first sovereignty. He will build the Temple in Jerusalem and gather the strayed ones of Israel together. All laws will return in his days as they were before: Sacrificial offerings are offered and the Sabbatical years and Jubilees are kept, according to all its precepts that are mentioned in the Torah. Whoever does not believe in him, or whoever does not wait for his coming, not only does he defy the other prophets, but also the Torah and Moses our teacher. For the Torah testifies about him, thus: “And the Lord Your God will return your returned ones and will show you mercy and will return and gather you… If your strayed one shall be at the edge of Heaven… And He shall bring you” (Deuteronomy 30:3-5).” Neither here nor there, just pointing out that you really should read all the words when someone says something so specifically. Furthermore, you should be careful how the blinders of your world-view shape what you read. It’s very nice that this person who works at the Talbot School of Theology, a teacher of Philosophy of Religion, a Doctor of Theology, who is far more educated than I am, has faith in the Empty Tomb theory. However, that doesn’t make him a historian. It does suggest he may be biased. Now, I can’t evaluate his arguments, save that his source material appears to be post-… aw, lost the term. Codification around 300 AD? and I don’t see him studying more primitive versions. He also doesn’t take into account possible borrowings from existing religions when citing the ‘age’ of a phrase. That said, all it says is that these people acted as if they believed in the Empty Tomb. Honestly, that’s all you can do. … reading further… it’s philosophy. Theology, really. Studying the words of people through the lens of God’s work, applying theologically necessary standards. That’s not history. Different sort of thing entirely. He’s very good. But why does he say things ‘must’ be false? … he’s saying the Apostles were fleeing for fear of the Jews? … okaaay. Now, that’s a bit odd. “cannot be excluded” “low status of women in Jewish society”? “The Jewish Polemic presupposes the empty tomb” Yes, Matthew says that, but that’s taking Matthew’s unsupported word for it. Begging the question, as it were. Ah, the Empty Tomb seems to come from Michael Grant. > **[The Times & The Sunday Times](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/)** > > News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times Wonder why the references call him a skeptical historian. [http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/resurrection/index.html](http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/resurrection/index.html) [http://www.4truth.net/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=hiKXLbPNLrF&b=784429&ct=1549995](http://www.4truth.net/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=hiKXLbPNLrF&b=784429&ct=1549995) Hm. Okay. I see the point. As far as any historical event that has no physical evidence goes, the empty tomb is as established as any. That doesn’t mean the resurrection is, it just means that either the tomb was found empty, or everyone believed it was. Really, I don’t think you can get convincing evidence at this point of any specific event, some people still have trouble proving he existed, let alone he did anything. Ignoring the bible, which we have to do for the sake of the argument, how can we prove Jesus existed? How much evidence is there? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/64 "2006-05-14T16:25:41Z")
My apologies for arguing by web page link, but I know I’m not educated enough to cover this properly. I hope that I _can_ find good sources to help people debate with. That said, this gentleman here, [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff\_lowder/jesus\_resurrection/](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jesus_resurrection/) seems to have a counterpoint for the previously advanced arguments, and cites several persons to further study. He does cover Dr. Craig’s work, as well as C. S. Lewis’ Lunatic, Liar, or Lord syllogism. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/65 "2006-05-14T16:31:03Z")
I hate replying to myself constantly. Just noted Lissa’s comments, which happened after I opened this page. Actually, I was questioning the martyrdom of the apostles. It occured to me that we know the Book of Mark et al were written at a minimum of 70 years after the Crucifixion. Thus, the question is, what evidence do we have that the Apostles existed? I know of Josephus mentioning Jesus, and I know of the later Christian historians adding him into certain works, but honestly, I don’t know of any secular authorities mentioning the Apostles. Never thought to look. I’m certainly not saying they didn’t exist, I just saw the topic covered before. ---
**Author:** ![Tripwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tripwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripwire)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/66 "2006-05-14T16:40:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Sacrificial offerings are offered and the Sabbatical years and Jubilees are kept, according to all its precepts that are mentioned in the Torah. And yea, they will make macaroni pictures and those little popcorn necklaces and paper plates glued together that are all sparkly! ---
**Author:** ![Tripwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tripwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripwire)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/67 "2006-05-14T16:43:35Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I think you’re missing what JThunder’s point is. Christian beliefs may be compelling to many people today. It was compelling to a group of Christ’s contemporaries, though, in a circumstance that implies something unusually consequential. The people who were best in a position to know whether or not Christ rose suffered extreme persecution and were martyred in horrible (and, in most instances, solitary) ways. You and he are trying to argue that this is something out of the ordinary. And yet, it is something that is not only perfectly ordinary, but if you believe the truth of Christianity, then you must also concede that it is ordinarily WRONG (many more sincere false phrophets and cults than the one true one). > [@](#): > > but the original spread of belief in the face of intense persecution, it seems to me, is evidence consistent with people who felt that they had strong reason to believe. Sometimes persecution is exactly what takes people off the focus on whether something is true or not, and puts in on apologia and emphasis in how right it makes them. In fact, this was something of an obsession for early Christians. Many embraced, sometimes gleefuly and deliberately martyrdom precisely because they felt it enhanced their cause. Some even turned each other in all so they could all die for the greater glory. Which I guess is another side point: we talk about all these people as if they were like Joe down the street, thought the same way, saw evidence and so forth the same way. But that’s not even remotely the case. These people had radically different ideas of evidence and truth and worldviews, to the point where they are almost alien to our modern sensibilities. So trying to make arguments that appeal to our own psychological senses of how people should think and act is highly misleading. > [@](#): > > _Somebody_ would have cracked in the face of such dreadful treatment (and death), it seems to me, if they were all knowingly spreading a lie for some unknown reason. There is no particular reason to think that anyone was deliberately hoaxing anything. But it is perfectly plausible and indeed common that cults of believers will spur each other on and inflate in their own minds events either directly or through rumor and reinforce each other with reports of visions and posessions and so forth. It happens all the time. And in those times it both happened all the time and people were killed for it all the time, going to their graves professing belief in some bizarre thing. Trying to pretend that it is an extrodinary circumstance is what’s bizarre. And, of course, it isn’t even the case that we necessarily have the direct word of any first-hand observers. The only person we have for sure is Paul, and he wasn’t a first hand observer of anything other than a vision he after the fact. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/68 "2006-05-14T16:55:59Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > It occured to me that we know the Book of Mark et al were written at a minimum of 70 years after the Crucifixion.It occured to me that we know the Book of Mark et al were written at a minimum of 70 years after the Crucifixion. Nitpick: Mark is generally considered to have been written around (possibly before) 70, which puts is about 40 years subsequent to the life of Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/69 "2006-05-14T17:09:51Z")
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. We have no eyewitness testimony. Nothing in the New Testament was written by anyone who ever knew Jesus. We actually don’t have any direct evidence that any direct follower of Jesus ever believed he had been physically resurrected. Those claims are only made _about_ Jesus’ followers by anonymous sources writing decades after the alleged events, who never met Jesus, and with the possible exception of Paul, never met a disciple. The Empty Tomb is almost certainly a Markan fiction. Paul knows nothing about it and it is also not present in the earliest sayings traditions of Q and Thomas. The tomb story also implausible for a number of other reasons, not the least of which is that the Romans did not turn over the bodies of crucifixion victims for burial but either left them on the cross or buried them in communal, criminals’ burial pits. For more on why the Empty Tomb story is widely regarded by historians and NT scholars as ahistorical, I recommend this [evaluation](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/index.shtml) by Peter Kirby. At a minimum, it has to be conceded that there is no “scientific evidence” that the tomb _did_ exist, and quite a bit of circumstancial evidence mitigating against it. There is also no extra-Biblical evidence whatsoever that Jesus’ disciples were martyred for their beliefs and almost nothing even in the NT itself. Josephus said that James, “the brother of Jesus, called Christ” was put to death by the high priest, Ananus, but does not say why and the authenticity of the passage is disputed in any case. Not that martyrdom constitutes evidence for anything anyway. People die for all kinds of beliefs. Waco, Jamestown, Heaven’s Gate. Joseph Smith was lynched for his beliefs and refused to recant his claims to save his own life. **JThnder’s** argument about the supposed “explosive” growth of early Christianity in the Roman Empire is often called (sometimes derisively) the “Big Bang” argument for the historicity of central Christian claims. This argument fails to be persuasive with even a little bit of examination, though. For one thing (as **tom~** pointed out), there is nothing historically unique or extraordinary about a religious movement growing quickly. The LDS Church has grown more quicly and spread further in less time than early Christianity did. Does that prove the claims of Joseph Smith must be true? Moreover, there really isn’t any reason to believe that the first couple of centuries of Christian growth were all that impressive. It was one obscure cult among many in Rome, appealed largely to underclasses and slaves (understandable with it’s egalitarian ethos and spiritual inversions of social class, “rich and poor,” etc). It only became a large, powerful movement after Constantine adopted it as the state religion of Rome. I think it also needs to be pointed out that the earliest Christian movement _failed_ in the place and among the people would were in the best place culturally and historically to evaluate it. The movement went absolutely nowhere among Palestinian Jews and really was only successful among gentiles and (maybe) some Hellenized Jews outside of Palestine. By the end of the 1st Century, it was almost a purely gentile movement. So what does it prove that Pauline Christianity was successful at making some converts among Greek speaking gentiles with no ability to test or evaluate historical claims? How does that prove historicity any more than making converts in the Congo today? Having said all that, most historians and NT scholars do still believe that Jesus was a real historical person. However, you’ll find very few who will tell you that there is any substantiation for the supernatural claims associated with him. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/70 "2006-05-14T17:16:31Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > I hate replying to myself constantly. Just noted Lissa’s comments, which happened after I opened this page. Actually, I was questioning the martyrdom of the apostles. It occured to me that we know the Book of Mark et al were written at a minimum of 70 years after the Crucifixion. Thus, the question is, what evidence do we have that the Apostles existed? I know of Josephus mentioning Jesus, and I know of the later Christian historians adding him into certain works, but honestly, I don’t know of any secular authorities mentioning the Apostles. Never thought to look. I’m certainly not saying they didn’t exist, I just saw the topic covered before. Josephus seems to mention James as a brother of Jesus and Paul talks about meeting Peter, James and John (who he calls the “Pillars” of Jerusalem). That’s really about it for hard evidence. Since Paul is a primary source (a guy who’s saying "I personally met some disciples), it’s considered a fairly strong indication that the “Pillars” were real people but Paul is still a little vague as to precisely how he perceived their relationship to Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/71 "2006-05-14T17:34:57Z")
> [@Tripwire](#): > > You and he are trying to argue that this is something out of the ordinary. And yet, it is something that is not only perfectly ordinary, but if you believe the truth of Christianity, then you must also concede that it is ordinarily WRONG (many more sincere false phrophets and cults than the one true one). Perhaps, but here we’re not relying on the testimony of potentially false prophets. We’re discussing the actions of people who were actually in a position to know whether or not a particular primary claim was true or not. I’m not arguing that there’s proof the apostles were telling the truth necessarily. But they either saw the risen Christ or they didn’t. > [@](#): > > Sometimes persecution is exactly what takes people off the focus on whether something is true or not, and puts in on apologia and emphasis in how right it makes them. In fact, this was something of an obsession for early Christians. But, again, the early Christians who were not in a position to “know” could well have deluded themselves into believing something. Not so the apostles. They were lying (or not). > [@](#): > > There is no particular reason to think that anyone was deliberately hoaxing anything. Well, again, regarding the apostles there’s no other conclusion (assuming we accept their existence and the reported beliefs). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/72 "2006-05-14T17:52:11Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > He was presenting reasons why people should believe Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah. That’s evidence. Which is evidence. No, that’s propaganda. Advertising. > [@JThunder](#): > > As I said, he is also considered to be an extremely reliable historical authority, even among secular historians. So what ? Otherwise honest/competent people are often willing to compromise their principles or ignore contradictory evidence when it comes to a pet cause. You keep pointing out he was martyred for his beliefs; that means his judgement is suspect when it come to anything touching on those beliefs. > [@JThunder](#): > > But their situations are NOT the same. In the case of early Christianity, we are talking about the spread of a religion that claims a singular historical event _as its very foundation_. As the Apostle Paul himself said, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” Paul himself pointed to the Resurrection as the reason for people to believe. All the more reason for them for lie/delude themselves about it. > [@the raindog](#): > > How would you scrutinize the veracity of a body of work _you had not read?_ How would you evaluate the evidence if you did not know what ‘was described’? How would you distinguish between someone with ‘valid’ faith (presumably one with evidence) and someone who had only ‘belief wthout cause’ if you had no understanding of the bedrock of either flavor of faith? If I know it claims impossibilities like rising from the dead _and_ was written by people with a reason to lie, I can pretty much assume it to be wrong without reading it. I can’t read everything on Earth, after all, so sometime I need to make judgements like that. > [@Stratocaster](#): > > But the possibility that Christ actually rose is consistent with at least some of the evidence in a way that makes alternate explanations less reasonable, IMO. Hardly. If they were lying or deluded, like so many cult leaders and followers, then we have an explanation that requires no extraordinary assumptions. _Any_ explanation that postulates he rose from the dead is an extraordinary assumption, and would require extraordinary evidence to be plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Tripwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tripwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripwire)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/73 "2006-05-14T17:56:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Perhaps, but here we’re not relying on the testimony of potentially false prophets. We’re discussing the actions of people who were actually in a position to know whether or not a particular primary claim was true or not. No, we’re not. We don’t have any such statements from them. We have people who claim that they witnessed this. > [@](#): > > I’m not arguing that there’s proof the apostles were telling the truth necessarily. But they either saw the risen Christ or they didn’t. Or, just as commonly, grief and obsession mistakenly convinced them of things that weren’t so, and later retellings perhaps hyberbolized and mythologized events further (for instance, adding in elements like touching the wounds and so forth). It may well be that the ressurection wasn’t even mentioned early on or considered an important point, and was a later addition to the mythology, perhaps because of the influence of Paul, who seemed particularly taken with the idea in a way that hsi own writings seem to imply other other figures were not. Lucia saw the Virgin Mary, allegedly directly. Was she lying? Or just deluded? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/74 "2006-05-14T18:00:33Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Perhaps, but here we’re not relying on the testimony of potentially false prophets. We’re discussing the actions of people who were actually in a position to know whether or not a particular primary claim was true or not. I’m not arguing that there’s proof the apostles were telling the truth necessarily. But they either saw the risen Christ or they didn’t.But, again, the early Christians who were not in a position to “know” could well have deluded themselves into believing something. Not so the apostles. They were lying (or not).Well, again, regarding the apostles there’s no other conclusion (assuming we accept their existence and the reported beliefs). We don’t know what the apostles believed or claimed. There is no direct evidence that a single direct follower of Jesus ever claimed to have witnessed a physically resurrected Jesus. Those claims do not come from the apostles themselves but from anonymous, non-witnesses writing decades later. The first claim for a physical resurrection of Jesus does not appear in Christian literature until ~50 years after the crucifixion. Paul claims that Jesus “appeared” to the disciples after the crucifixion but is not very clear about what he means by ‘appeared." He does not explictly claim that it was a physical resurrecton (in fact, Paul actually _denies_ that a physical body can be resurrected), he does not distinguish between Jesus’ appearances to the disciples and the appearance to Paul himself (indicating that these could have all been visionary experiences) and also claims that he got all his information about Jesus from his own personal revelations of Jesus and “not from any man.” So it can’t be said that Paul provides any good evidence that the disciples ever claimed that Jesus physically got up out of a tomb (which itself probably never existed) and walked around showing people the holes in his hands. Mark has an empty tomb, but no appearances and he ends his Gospel by claiming the women never told anyone about the Empty Tomb. Matthew is the first to write about a bodily resurrected Jesus and Matthew was no witness, nor did he have access o any witnesses. Any discussion of whether the apostles were “lying,” “deluded,” etc. is an automatic non-starter because we have no idea what they actually claimed in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/75 "2006-05-14T19:28:06Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Perhaps, but here we’re not relying on the testimony of potentially false prophets. We’re discussing the actions of people who were actually in a position to know whether or not a particular primary claim was true or not. And if they lied or deluded themselves about what they saw, they were indeed false prophets. As well, if what they said was distorted or made up by later people, then they are _effectively_ false prophets. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/76 "2006-05-14T21:57:05Z")
> [@Tripwire](#): > > Or, just as commonly, grief and obsession mistakenly convinced them of things that weren’t so, and later retellings perhaps hyberbolized and mythologized events further (for instance, adding in elements like touching the wounds and so forth). If the apostles didn’t see the risen Christ, then it’s all nonsense. If they didn’t attest to this, ditto. If they did, then it seems unlikely to me they would continue to lie in the face of the violent persecution they faced, all of them without exception. > [@](#): > > It may well be that the ressurection wasn’t even mentioned early on or considered an important point, and was a later addition to the mythology, perhaps because of the influence of Paul, who seemed particularly taken with the idea in a way that hsi own writings seem to imply other other figures were not. Do you assert that the early church did not hold that the resurrection occurred? > [@](#): > > Lucia saw the Virgin Mary, allegedly directly. Was she lying? Or just deluded? I don’t know. Do you? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/77 "2006-05-14T22:03:38Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Mark has an empty tomb, but no appearances and he ends his Gospel by claiming the women never told anyone about the Empty Tomb. This is the earliest gospel, correct? Another [important distinction](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09674b.htm): > [@](#): > > All early tradition connects the Second Gospel with two names, those of St. Mark and St. Peter, Mark being held to have written what Peter had preached. We have just seen that this was the view of Papias and the elder to whom he refers. Papias wrote not later than about A.D. 130, so that the testimony of the elder probably brings us back to the first century, and shows the Second Gospel known in Asia Minor and attributed to St. Mark at that early time. So Irenæus says: “Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in writing what was preached by Peter.” It likewise contains Jesus’s prior prediction that he would rise, followed by the empty tomb. What, exactly, do you suppose Mark was implying? ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/78 "2006-05-14T23:55:03Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > , I recommend this [evaluation](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/index.shtml) by Peter Kirby. How well I remember this. This was really important to me as was [the thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=250535&highlight=jimmmy+Kirby) where Kirby shows up here (“NERD!!” You think and would be right). I always wanted to talk about this again. But I wanted to be ready and not have my ass handed to me once again. Since this has come up I feel safe in saying Kirby, who offered up a scattershot multipoint point possibility (FTR I think a careful reading says that Jesus _was_ buried in an unknown grave – possibly a lime pit - is his most likely scenario) needs to offer more than what he does to say Pilate would not release the body. Given Kirby’s single source is a quote from Ray Brown (a Catholic Priest) I call shenanigans and say that he needs to offer more than he has as evidence that Pilate’s default leave a body rotting on a cross at Passover possibly/ theoretically “religiously contaminating” everyone who passed it – as a regular piece of business. For my cite I offer, James D. Tabor is a Professor of Religious Studies at UNC and probably a top 10 world wide expert on the Dead Sea scrolls. He is a colleague of Dr. Bart Ehrman who I know you (DtC) respect too. Ehrman has blurbed his book The Jesus Dynasty which Ehrman says “is rooted deeply in the Historical sciences”. I know that means as much to you as to me. On Page 218, when discussing Jehohananan a crucified Jew from the first century who incontestably was taken from the cross and buried - Tabor notes that Romans would allow indeed allow Jews to remove the bodies – to make a long story short the Crucifixion was possibly visible from the Temple compound – and certainly visible to the Pilgrims in/out of Jerusalem and believes that John 19:31 is technically correct _The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the Sabbath (for the day of that Sabbath was a high [day]), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and [that] they might be taken away._ FTR (I don’t want to mislead)for his thesis Tabor needs for this to be a certain Passover, in 29 AD and so needs (or it helps him) for this to be historical memory\*\* &\*\* to avoid data mining it has to be noted Tabor is of the Paul-mythmaker school and doesn’t believe anything beyond the Markian “original ending” (i.e. the woman find the empty tomb) & would agree with much, if not most, of this thread – but not this point. What does that prove? Nuthin’ just that a man certainly more highly regarded and credentialed than Kirby, who had an even more respected guy blurb him [as “not a jack@ss”], says in a 2006 publlication “Nuh-uh it is not true or at least not inconceivable that Pilate would indeed have released the body - or buried it in a lime pit – but the actual extraordinary claim is that he left it hanging.” Since Philo notes that it happened too in certain circumstances (when it suited the public order) – I think Kirby needs to offer cites on this issue. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > ,. At a minimum, it has to be conceded that there is no “scientific evidence” that the tomb _did_ exist, and quite a bit of circumstancial evidence mitigating against it. ## I so conceed \*\*E-Sabbath \*\* there is story by Eusebius (in ~300) that two grandsons of the Apostle Jude (who may or may not have been JC’s Cousin) were questioned by the Emperor Domitian (~90) who was alarmed by the report that they were of the royal house of David. He thought they were so simple and non-threatening, living and sharing a 10 acre farm, Domitian let them go. if you were going to make cr^p up I am not sure what the point of doing that was YMMV ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2006, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/79 "2006-05-15T00:21:50Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > This is the earliest gospel, correct? Another [important distinction](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09674b.htm) The mainstream consensus of contemporary New Testament scholarship is that the tradition that the author of Mark was a secretary of Peter’s is not historically authentic. Like all of the other authorship traditions for the Canonical Gospels, it stems from the late 2nd Century and is not suppported or corroborated by the internal evidence of the Gospel itself. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s claim that “This was the view of Papias” is misleading. What Papias said was that someone named Mark wrote down the memoirs of Peter “in no particular order.” He does not connect that writing with Canonical Mark. That was an inference drawn by later patristics. The internal evidence mitigates strongly against the tradition. The author of Mark (who never names himself) does not claim to have known Peter (or any other disciple) did not _like_ Peter, and shows no indication of any familiarity with any primary witnesses. The book contains a number of geographical, cultural and legal errors that would have not been possible if it had been derived from the memoirs of a witness. The book is written in Koine Greek and contains highly stylized chiastic structures which can only result from deliberate literay choices. Papias said that Mark wrote down everything Peter said and “changed nothing.” Canoical Mark is _highly_ ordered (that is the nature of chiastic form) and cannot conceivably be verbatim transcripts of the oral memoirs of an illiterate Galilean fisherman speaking in Aramaic. The book is also anti-Petrine, anti-apostolic and anti-Jewish in its polemic. Perhaps the most telling blow against the authenticity of the tradition is that Mark does not allow Peter to see a risen Jesus after the crucifixion. Why would an ostensible Petrine memoir not have a Petrine witness of the resurrection? The overwhelming opinion among mainstream scholars and historians is that all four authorship traditions for the Canonical Gospels are spurious. The truth is that all four of the authors are unknown, none of them gives his own name, none of them claim to have known any witnesses and all of them show decidedly strong evidence that they could not have been witnesses. These traditions are currently accepted only by a minority of religious conservatives who base their presumptions on faith, not methodology or evidence. [quoteIt likewise contains Jesus’s prior prediction that he would rise, followed by the empty tomb. What, exactly, do you suppose Mark was implying?[/QUOTE] That he thought Jesus had ascended to heaven, so he created an Empty Tomb as a visual symbol. Jesus’ “prediction” was put into his mouth by Mark himself. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594/80 "2006-05-15T00:48:00Z")
> [@jimmmy](#): > > Since this has come up I feel safe in saying Kirby, who offered up a scattershot multipoint point possibility (FTR I think a careful reading says that Jesus _was_ buried in an unknown grave – possibly a lime pit - is his most likely scenario) needs to offer more than what he does to say Pilate would not release the body. Given Kirby’s single source is a quote from Ray Brown (a Catholic Priest) I call shenanigans and say that he needs to offer more than he has as evidence that Pilate’s default leave a body rotting on a cross at Passover possibly/ theoretically “religiously contaminating” everyone who passed it – as a regular piece of business. Why? That was, in fact, the default Roman practice. Pilate didn’t care about religious contamination. Denying proper burials was part of the punishment. At best, he would have allowed a common burial in a lime pit, but to turn over the body for burial would have been regarded as a tacit admission of _innocence_, and considering the crime for which Jesus was allegedly crucified (claiming to be the King of the Jews), allowing that kind of leniency would have been an insult to Caesar himself. It would have also been virtually unprecedented. The only other example is a case where Jospephus personally prevailed upon the Emperor himself to release a couple of friends of his. The default practice of denying a proper burial to insurgents (and make no mistake, the Romans saw them the same way we see insurgents in Iraq, i.e. as terrorists) is a gigantic hurdle to overcome. For my cite I offer, James D. Tabor is a Professor of Religious Studies at UNC and probably a top 10 world wide expert on the Dead Sea scrolls. He is a colleague of Dr. Bart Ehrman who I know you (DtC) respect too. Ehrman has blurbed his book The Jesus Dynasty which Ehrman says “is rooted deeply in the Historical sciences”. I know that means as much to you as to me. On Page 218, when discussing Jehohananan a crucified Jew from the first century who incontestably was taken from the cross and buried - Tabor notes that Romans would allow indeed allow Jews to remove the bodies – to make a long story short the Crucifixion was possibly visible from the Temple compound – and certainly visible to the Pilgrims in/out of Jerusalem and believes that John 19:31 is technically correct _The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the Sabbath (for the day of that Sabbath was a high [day]), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and [that] they might be taken away._ FTR (I don’t want to mislead)for his thesis Tabor needs for this to be a certain Passover, in 29 AD and so needs (or it helps him) for this to be historical memory\*\* &\*\* to avoid data mining it has to be noted Tabor is of the Paul-mythmaker school and doesn’t believe anything beyond the Markian “original ending” (i.e. the woman find the empty tomb) & would agree with much, if not most, of this thread – but not this point. What does that prove? Nuthin’ just that a man certainly more highly regarded and credentialed than Kirby, who had an even more respected guy blurb him [as “not a jack@ss”], says in a 2006 publlication “Nuh-uh it is not true or at least not inconceivable that Pilate would indeed have released the body - or buried it in a lime pit – but the actual extraordinary claim is that he left it hanging.” [/quote] It’s not inconceivable that Jesus could have been buried in a lime pit but it is highly implausible that he would have been turned over for religious internment…and if the Sanhedrin had indeed seen Jesus as being guilty of a capital crime, they could not have allowed a proper burial either. Ehrman doesn’t believe in the historicity of the empty tomb either, by the way. These facts, in conjunction with Paul’s silence about the tomb and the lack of any veneration of a tomb by early Christians makes > [@](#): > > Since Philo notes that it happened too in certain circumstances (when it suited the public order) – I think Kirby needs to offer cites on this issue. Philo says that it was quite extraordinary when it happened and that it only happened (and it was far from automatic) on Roman holidays. Passover was not a Roman holiday. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-for-the-resurrection/356594.md?page=5)