Historians generally accept (with only a few exceptions) that Jesus existed and was executed by crucifixion, at the very least, based on the evidence we have.
Aside from its miraculous nature, is there any reason to believe that the Resurrection wasn’t also a historical event? After all, at least three of the twelve Apostles died a martyr’s death believing it, along with Jesus’ brother James. Additionally, Paul says that five hundred people witnessed the resurrected Christ at once (along with many other individual apparitions), and that at the time of his writings most of them were still living. He could be repeating a rumor, but this implies to me that he personally knew multiple people who claimed to have seen Christ resurrected.
Personally I’m an atheist, but I have to admit that Christianity seems a lot more credible than other revealed religions, such as Islam and Mormonism, both of which revolve around a single man’s testimony to a miraculous revelation from God. It seems hard to explain why people would undertake torture and death if they weren’t being sincere about seeing a resurrected Christ.
Scientifically, Jesus rising from the dead obviously doesn’t make any sense (unless you believe in a God that can intervene), but could one argue that the historical testimony is so compelling that we can’t dismiss the witnesses as being deluded or wrong? Is it compelling enough that an atheist might want to reconsider their position?
That a human was properly dead and came back to life or that those who worshipped him, followed him and those who ended up writing down the stories, embellished the tales somewhat to make sure that the Jesus character seemed more supernatural and god-like than is possible.
Two-thousand year old eye witness testimony is not reliable. People do not die and come back to life.
What historians state that the Resurrection happened?
Are you claiming the Bible is a historical document?
As far as I know, the main description of Christ rising from the dead is from the Gospels.
These were written about 30-100 years after the event when presumably all the eye-witnesses were dead.
Also they are contradictory (e.g. who entered the tomb? what did they find?)
Is Judaism as credible as Christianity?
Judaism states that Christ was a prophet, not the Son of God.
So no, the ‘historical testimony’ is so scanty, vague and contradictory that it is hard to see why anyone would be convinced of it.
“Miraculous nature” is usually a pretty good reason to disbelieve an event. I’m a little worried you’re privileging the hypothesis here.
Many people have martyred themselves for religious causes. Most if not all religious causes are necessarily not true (because they’re mutually exclusive). The fact that someone was willing to die for a belief does not indicate that the belief was necessarily true. There were christian martyrs long after the people who could have seen Jesus’s resurrection were all dead.
This is assuming that Paul is a reliable source on that claim. Given what Paul writes about… Questionable. One person claiming 500 witnesses is not the same thing as 500 witnesses.
How much eyewitness testimony would you require to believe that we were visited by aliens? Or historical testimony? How many people or old books would have to tell you that they were visited by aliens in order for you to believe that? Because there are people you can talk to today who will tell you with complete conviction that they had be seen UFOs or interacted with aliens. And aliens and interstellar travel are at least theoretically possible within our understanding of reality.
This kind of question is a good starting point for a person to question their own reasoning process, as well as others. It’s important to know how you come to accept or believe something is factually true, because there are TONS of people who are eager to lie to you in the world.
The Historicity of Jesus is itself more subtle than is presented here. Although it is true that the majority of modern day historians might be said to accept that a real person named Jesus did once live long ago, and was put to death, even that statement has flaws.
What is accepted, is that a tiny few old documents have come down to us that have the name Jesus in them, referring to some person of note in what we now call the Middle East. Some of those documents are still doubted as to their authenticity, especially because they came down to us through a filter of people who had strong reason to forge them or "adjust" them. Even if the few documents we have are genuine, it is still true that none of them were written by first person witnesses.
This is true of a great deal of our history, especially for the times before it became common to retain original documents and preserve them.
The most dangerous reasoning to allow in, are appreciations or guesses as to the nature of the witnesses you use. Be especially cautious about accepting arguments which call upon you to accept a statement by someone as being FACT, simply because you can’t imagine why the person would lie. Innocent people have been put to death by mobs, because no one could imagine why the witnesses against them would lie.
Some people actually accept SOME of the testimonies to the effect that Jesus as a religious leader actually existed, because the person who reported about him didn’t like him. Their reasoning is that since such an opponent WOULD have understandable reasons to DENY Jesus existed, that therefore they must be telling the truth, and giving factual information. But even THAT isn’t truly logical, from an unbiased point of view.
Gods do. Lots of 'em have done it. It’s their very nature. The fact that so many claim to come back to life makes the Christian version quite unremarkable and JC unworthy of worship.
The OP properly notes that “Jesus rising from the dead obviously doesn’t make any sense (unless you believe in a God that can intervene).” Belief in the resurrection of Jesus is generally accompanied by belief in “a God that can intervene” and belief in the Incarnation. To those who don’t accept the latter beliefs, or aren’t at least open to them, the former is a non-starter. But that means (and this seems to be where the OP is coming from) that if there were a good reason to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, this could lead to belief in God and the rest of the claims of Christianity. Which makes sense (it’s one way some Christian apologists try to argue for Christianity), but there’s a definite danger of circular reasoning, in both directions.
When we’re talking about historicity and historical evidence and such, I wonder if it might be more fruitful to consider the question, not of whether the resurrection actually occurred, but of whether the early Christians genuinely believed it occurred. This question can be studied historically without presuppositions about the possibility of miracles or the supernatural. For example, the OP states that “at least three of the twelve Apostles died a martyr’s death believing it.” What’s the historical evidence for this?
If, early on, people did in fact believe that Jesus had risen, then you can consider explanations for how and why they came to believe this, and compare the plausibility of the Christian explanation (because it actually happened) with that of other competing explanations.
The acid test is whether non-believers recorded these events … and here we’re talking about what the Romans recorded … my understanding is that these records are quite thin, there was someone named Jesus, and He raised something of a ruckus with the Jews … but do the Roman records say He walked on water or rose from the grave? … we’ll need independent confirmation of these events if we wish to say they were independently confirmed …
The Quran rests on the word of a single man, but Islam isn’t just based on the Quran but also on the hadiths (which involve miracle accounts), and those in turn are based on multiple witnesses with well documented chains of transmission. (Any informed Muslims here are welcome to correct me). I wish that we had as good evidence for the events of early Christianity as Muslims do w/r/t the hadiths. There are also a number of individual events that are only recounted by one Gospel (e.g. most of the material in John, or the resurrection of the saints in Matthew).
I agree that Christianity is more credible than Islam or Mormonism (partly because I find Trinitarianism credible on philosophical grounds, and I find strict monotheism impossible to believe), but at least as regards Islam the difference in credibility isn’t quite as stark as one might think on first observation.
I don’t think these are good arguments. The first argument depends on accepting standard historico-critical consensus about the dating and authorship of the Gospels (that they were written between 70-100 AD and not by eyewitnesses or by secondhand witnesses). I think the historico-critical method depends on some very weak assumptions and methods and that the ‘traditional’ position (as well as that of conservative scholars and a minority of liberal scholars today) regarding the authorship of Luke, Mark and John at least is correct. (And I would agree with the John A.T. Robinson argument, which disagrees with both traditional and historicocritical positions, that John and Luke were dated early as well, between 35-40 years after the resurrection rather than 60-65 years). As for the second argument, while I would be surprised if there aren’t any contradictions between the Gospels, I think most of the “errors” or “contradictions” (e.g. about the death of Judas, or about the census of Quirinius) are only apparent errors/contradictions that can be reconciled on further analysis.
If you want to argue more about either of these claims I’m happy to defend my position. To be clear I took the historico-critical position about 15 years ago and gradually became convinced the more conservative scholars were correct.
Roman records do not confirm the existence of Jesus at all. He is not mentioned in any contemporary records. But neither are lots of people. The nearest-to-Jesus’-time writings referencing Jesus that are accepted by historians that we have are the writings of Paul, which are generally believed to have been written within 30 years of Jesus’ death. Paul never met Jesus while he was alive, but did say he’d met his disciples, particular Peter and James, brother of the Lord. That’s counted (quite reasonably) as a point in favor of Jesus actually existing, since Paul talked to people who followed him in life.
I’d like to see these reconciled analysis. Because I’ve never sen anything about the different deaths of Judas or the census of Qurinius that wasn’t twisting the narratives/historical records into knots with the most implausible explanations imaginable.
Plus, of course, the titles of authorities and the geography of the region is wrong in one of the gospels.
And I still like how no non-biblical source recorded the earthquake and all those holy people who rose from the dead and went into the city and were seen by many (Matthew 27).
But that does get off the topic of the resurrection itself, a bit.
Let’s return to OP’s implicit question: What is the source of the Resurrection stories. Possibilities include
[ul][li] [A] Jesus was taken down from the cross before death (e.g. with the help of a soldier secretly a fan of Jesus) and lived for at least a few more days.[/li][li] ** Jesus and his disciples were masters of hypnotism. The spottings of resurrected Jesus were the result of hypnotic, post-hypnoptic, or self-hypnotic suggestions.[/li][li] [C] Some group of disciples decided to concoct a resurrection story.[/li][li] [D] God gave the world his only begotten son, who suffered was crucified, dead and buried, but rose again to sit on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.[/li][li] [E] Other.[/li][/ul]
I’ll go with 15%, 20%, 30%, 0.00000001%, 35% as chances for the five choices. Other Dopers?
The problem with the gospels as historical evidence is that they do not claim to be eyewitness accounts. Paul, for example, never says he personally witnessed Jesus’ resurrection; he heard about it from other people. Which is the same way I heard about it and the same way I’m assuming the OP heard about it. (If not, the OP really buried the lede.)
I’ve heard numerous other accounts of people performing miraculous acts. Why should I decide that one account of a miracle is credible and another account of a different miracle is not?
