Are there historical documents with personal accounts, reports, or other data to support the resurrection of Jesus Christ? If so, would this not be strong evidence of who he says that he is?
If there were, don’t you think there would be all kinds of people who would be eager to point it out. Absence of evidence is no evidence of absence, but in this case, I’d think it’s pretty close.
While the first question is factual, the second question appears to seeking a debate. Off to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
No.
I’m sure there are many documents claiming such evidence. Just like there are many personal accounts, reports and other data claiming that we faked going to the moon and that people can bend spoons with their minds. Doesn’t make it true.
If you’re going to violate the laws of nature as we understand them, the burden of proof (or even of mere evidence) is going to be rather high.
Well, there are the Gospels, which claim to be firsthand accounts, though they were likely to have been written quite some time later. But of course, while one might call those “evidence”, they’re a far cry from “proof”. There are similar documents attesting to all manner of other events that I imagine that you don’t accept. For instance, there are written, firsthand accounts that the angel Gabriel visited Mohamed and gave many revelations to him: Do you consider that proven, or strongly evidenced? If anything, that should be considered even stronger, because those accounts were written by Mohamed, and we don’t have anything written directly by Jesus.
The Gospels describe the resurrection which only a few witnessed, (or the walking Jesus, anyway) but they also describe earthquakes and the dead walking, which might have caused at least someone to record - perhaps Josephus.
Parson Weems wrote about Washington throwing the dollar across the Potomac etc. right after Washington’s death, so these stories would seem more credible. But also bogus.
If you’re going to find fault with all the available evidence, of course you’ll think that there’s no evidence for the Resurrection. But many people have a different take on the matter.
You are right, there are many documents supporting the resurrection and 100s of witnesses of having seen Jesus shortly after his resurrection.
To those who state that we faked going to the moon, there are thousands of documents and witnesses, as well, that prove that prove that we did. There are not reliable documents or witnesses that can prove that Jesus’ resurrection was faked, as far as I know. But, it is useless to try to prove a negative, they say.
You are right that the proof of Jesus’ resurrection would have to be strong for most people to believe something that violates the laws of nature, or “a miracle.”
Perhaps a discussion of the documents claiming to be proof, including accounts of the 100s of witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, would be interesting, especially if we have an open mind to what is truth. Would you want to have such a discussion?
It’s something I’ve thought of for a while, and it is an interesting question: What would constitute good evidence for a “miracle”, to use your term?
Answer: I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be merely a document. It’s tempting to be pithy here, but taking the question seriously… Evidence we could see that could be agreed upon by most reasonable people and / or experts in that knowledge area. We have a system for that, and it’s called science.
It can be argued (and has, ad nauseum - we’re certainly not the first people to have this discussion) that science isn’t the right tool for examining faith. I tend to agree, but you have used the words “proof” and “evidence”. Perhaps you used them in the legal sense. But as I say, no documents are going to convince me of a “miracle”.
Einstein published a document that made some pretty outlandish claims back in the day. But it was backed up by mathematics and, over time, observations that agreed with his predictions. I won’t ask anyone to come up with a mathematics demonstrating the miracle of Christ’s resurrection, but you’d have to come up with something equally strong. For starters, off the top of my head:
- A dead body, verified dead by several experts
- Wait three days with no intervention
- The guy gets up
- All of this under lab conditions with multiple witnesses, recorded
- Repeated numerous times in different parts of the world
Maybe others can hone my experimental methodology. It’s a high bar, but you’re the one claiming miracles.
Do you have any citations to support that statement? In your future here that will be shortened to “Cite?”
Could be fun. You bring the documents.
This is an interesting discussion already.
You have described a high bar, indeed.
We are talking about history, and have to rely on what written accounts have survived over 2,000 years, though amazingly, there are many. Lab conditions 2,000 years ago on an unexpected event? Jesus was the First and the Last in history - no repeats (thus far). But suppose that there are multiple sources of evidence, in several languages, and many of them independent of the others, and all describe the same event and do not contradict each other?
What would you say is strong support for any historical event?
OK, now I’m genuinely confused. It is my understanding that the gospels were written roughly 40 years or more after the death of Jesus. Were those “many documents supporting the resurrection” written forty years before those gospels? How about the written testimony of those “100s of witnesses”?
Or did someone just write forty years after the fact that there were many documents and 100s of witnesses supporting the event?
I will try to point you to evidence and provide reference to documents, or maybe documents that point you to the references to the evidence. I will not be able to walk you through them. Also, I have a full-time job and may not be able to keep a “regular” schedule of a discussion thread. Hopefully I will give you enough that you can Google from there. We will see.
So the Bible is … zombie literature?
Sounds like you’re describing the Bible. It’s already been pointed out that descriptions of the resurrection were written quite some time after. Certainly long enough for a game of Iron Age telephone to have rendered them unreliable. Or wrong. Or made up. Or made up and then wrong.
Again, trying not to be too snarky here, but no, it doesn’t wash.
And as to your implication that the Bible’s accounts don’t contradict each other, I suggest you start by reading some of Bart Ehrman’s books.
What would you say is strong support for any historical event?
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Evidence, as I said. But you’re not talking about any old historical event, you’re talking about miracles. The burden of proof and evidence is higher.
The emperor Caligula lived around the same time as Jesus. We know a few things about him, but a lot of it can’t be substantiated because there are conflicting accounts. He probably didn’t appoint his horse to an office, that was likely a claim of some detractor, so it’s discounted. We are pretty sure there was an emperor Caligula, just like we think there may have been a historical Jesus. But the details are fuzzy.
You’re quite welcome to believe in Jesus the divine being and his associated miracles. But you’ll have a hard time proving them in court.
Sounds like you’re describing the Bible. It’s already been pointed out that descriptions of the resurrection were written quite some time after. Certainly long enough for a game of Iron Age telephone to have rendered them unreliable. Or wrong. Or made up. Or made up and then wrong.
Again, trying not to be too snarky here, but no, it doesn’t wash. And as to your implication that the Bible’s accounts don’t contradict each other, I suggest you start by reading some of Bart Ehrman’s books.
Evidence, as I said. But you’re not talking about any old historical event, you’re talking about miracles. The burden of proof and evidence is higher.
The emperor Caligula lived around the same time as Jesus. We know a few things about him, but a lot of it can’t be substantiated because there are conflicting accounts. He probably didn’t appoint his horse to an office, that was likely a claim of some detractor, so it’s discounted. We are pretty sure there was an emperor Caligula, just like we think there may have been a historical Jesus. But the details are fuzzy.
You’re quite welcome to believe in Jesus the divine being and his associated miracles. But you’ll have a hard time proving them in court.
(edited for formatting)
There are none. There are no historical documents showing that he even existed in the first place.
I will try to present evidence that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical event according to established criteria for any historical event. Is that reasonable? If the resurrection of Jesus is an historical event, then you have consider the possibility of the miracle implied.
Sometimes, even in our present age, events happen that science cannot explain. I hear of events (I call miracles) that have happened that you would not believe, but I believe them to be true based on trustworthy witnesses.
As far as the gospels being written 40 years after Jesus lived on Earth, there were earlier writings by witnesses that predated the four gospel books. That is part of the evidence.
As for proving the resurrection in court, if Jesus’ resurrection occurred in our time and the observable (historical) facts were presented in court and the 100s of living witnesses to his life after death were called to testify, the court would rule that the resurrection occurred. The living witnesses alone would have occupied the witness stand for about two weeks (or was in one week? - not sure), as I recall from a book I read last year.