# Proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 24, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129 "2018-03-24T21:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/321 "2018-03-27T18:29:39Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > No. They aren’t extraordinary evidence. The question was does evidence exist. The answer is that yes evidence exists. It is decent evidence and probably evidence that requires a response, but not anywhere near conclusive evidence and certainly not proof. If something approximating objective proof existed, then the whole world would be Christian and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. > > Again, what we have compelling and fairly conclusive evidence for is that there was a religious leader named Jesus tooling about Judea, he said some things, he was crucified and within roughly 20 years of this event a large number of people who were acquainted with either him or people who knew him believed him to be resurrected. Those particular claims are pretty set in stone and unchallenged by any but the extreme fringe. > > Does a large number of people believing in the resurrection 20 years after the fact equal evidence of the resurrection? Yes, it does. It is information pointing toward the truth of the claim. Period. That’s what it is. It is definitionally evidence. Is this evidence proof of the resurrection? Of course not. There are many reasonable explanations other than the event actually occurring that could account for it. Is it strong evidence? I guess that depends on what you mean by strong and how stuck you are in your presuppositions. I think that it’s strong enough that it deserves a rebuttal. If a large group of people believe something, I think that you at least need to have an explanation as to why they are incorrect. I’m not sure it requires an incredibly robust rebuttal since it is a pretty far-out claim, but likening it to our UFO example above, if I were to walk into a town and everyone there believed that a group of of their fellow townspeople saw a UFO, I think the response, “No they didn’t” isn’t enough and probably a more robust explanation as to why they are wrong is warranted (street lights, experimental aircraft, weather balloon, etc.), but I guess others could be satisfied with simply saying “Nope.” all you have so far is evidence that some people believed it happened - you have zero evidence that the event itself happened. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/322 "2018-03-27T18:34:13Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Again, what we have compelling and fairly conclusive evidence for is that there was a religious leader named Jesus tooling about Judea, he said some things, he was crucified and within roughly 20 years of this event a large number of people who were acquainted with either him or people who knew him believed him to be resurrected. Those particular claims are pretty set in stone and unchallenged by any but the extreme fringe. What evidence do we have of a large number of people believing he was resurrected within 20 years of the religious leader named Jeshua’s death? (Yep, you got his name wrong.) We have evidence that a large number of unverifiable tall tales were told about a religious leader by his acolytes while they were trying to drum up followers. I’m…not particularly impressed by that. There’s nothing about the culture and education of those followers that suggests to me that they had very good bullshit detectors, either. Heck, mormonism managed to get off the ground in the _1840s_, with a rather scattered and inconsistent mythology at its beginning. They even tell tales of mass numbers of people experiencing miracles together. Such tales aren’t credible in modern times. They’re way less credible being told third-hand by bronze age proselytizers. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/323 "2018-03-27T18:41:43Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > It’s probably closer to ‘A number of people claim to have sen a UFO 20 years ago > and large numbers of people familiar with them believe them.’ That’s not strong evidence that there was a UFO, but neither is it weak. It’s probably enough evidence to warrant further investigation, but certainly not enough to prove anything. A few people claiming something both impossible, and impossible to verify, is indeed weak, no matter how many people they manage to persuade. If I had more energy, I would start a topic about [this clown](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43550908), who somehow managed to convince women to be his slaves – doing menial chores, branding themselves, starving themselves to accord to his idea of beauty, and of course, having sex with him, and him alone. Not to mention the 30-odd percent of Americans who still think Trump is a great President. Some people will believe anything. So the claims of the resurrection are weak by themselves. But they become so weak that I still don’t understand how anyone could possibly believe them when they are accompanied by other miraculous claims that are KNOWN to be false. The gospels don’t just claim that Jesus was resurrected, or even that all the Jewish saints around Jerusalem were also resurrected, but that followers of Jesus would be able to do any magical thing they wanted — even something just to show off, like casting a mountain into the sea, or something petty and spiteful, like killing a fig tree for not having fruit out of season — simply by praying for it. They also list all kinds of signs and wonders, including the stars falling from the sky and a worldwide tribulation severe enough to end all life if it were not shortened, followed by: > [@Matthew 24](#): > > 30Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earthc will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.d 31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other… 34Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Not a single Christian can demonstrate the powers that Jesus said they would have, and none of the things Jesus predicted happened within the lifetime of his listeners, nor in the 2000 years since then. The claims are clearly, provably false. Of course, apologists can and do try to explain this away by saying the words don’t really mean what they say, just like they do with Genesis. They labor to say that a man referring to “this generation” when speaking to a crowd is OF COURSE referring to a time at least 2000 years in the future. Unfortunately for them, Jesus removes all doubt that he is talking about all this happening within the lifetime of his audience: > [@Matthew 16](#): > > 27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. > 28Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Hence the Wandering Jew. So we don’t just have people claiming to see a UFO, and other people believing them. We have people claiming to see a UFO, and the UFO shot out rays that made all the dogs in the world have six legs. The unverifiable claim that was weak by itself becomes something that no rational person would believe when it is inextricably linked to other sensational claims that are provably false. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/324 "2018-03-27T18:45:24Z")
> [@simster](#): > > all you have so far is evidence that some people believed it happened … senoy is just trying to make the point that _anything_ you might use to help you decide if something is true can be called “evidence” if that could change your estimate of that truth, even a little bit. The fact that people believe UFOs exist can be evidence - if I start with nothing other than the physics of the universe we know, I would tentatively conclude that there are no alien visitors here. But if you then tell me that some people believe that they exist, that would make me back off my estimate of the likelihood _a very tiny amount_. So yes, that can be evidence, it’s just extraordinarily shitty evidence. I’ll give him that much, it’s just that this doesn’t get anyone very far. If you are evaluating whether to believe that some guy died and then started living again 2000 years ago, the fact that someone wrote down that some other dudes believed it, is so far from helpful that it’s hardly worth considering. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/325 "2018-03-27T18:48:55Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > How do you know I’m speaking facetiously? How do you know the people who wrote the bible were speaking literally? Or truthfully? Or from first-hand or even second-hand accounts? Did those people they were quoting have agendas? > > The writings of the bible are evidence -nay, _proof_- that somebody at some point wrote down the words in the bible. (If you’re reading it in english that person was a translator.) It is not evidence that the account is factual or reliable. I know (or perhaps should say I have very strong evidence for the proposition that 🙂 )you’re speaking facetiously because you conjured a fairly ridiculous claim as a rebuttal to a point I made. As to the claims in the Bible, I actually acknowledged above that a metaphorical reading of the resurrection is not an argument without merit. As for the truthfulness of the writings, I think it’s more helpful to look at the audience rather than the writer. We know fairly conclusively that Paul was important to early Christianity. I think that anyone going down the rabbit hole of saying he wasn’t is pretty out there. We have very strong evidence that at least seven of the Epistles were written by Paul (There are 14 traditional Pauline epistles. Hebrews almost undoubtedly was not written by Paul. Ephesians, the Timothies and Titus were very, very likely not written by Paul and Colossians and 2 Thessalonians are debated, but since they are debated, they are not compelling, so excluded. The evidence for what was or was not genuine is a very long academic discussion, but this breakdown is what serious secular and non-traditionalist scholars have settled on.) So what we know pretty conclusively is that Paul sat down and wrote something. He says that he was writing letters. I think that that is a reasonable claim to accept. Letter writing was common at the time and he put instructions in the letter as to whom it was for and who should read it. He mentioned banalities that had little to do with those to whom the letter was not addressed. We have access to these writings, so they were found at some point and the most logical explanation is that they are what they are purported to be, letters written to Christian groups that Paul had visited. Is Paul telling the truth? Certainly some of the time he is. When he writes that Timothy brought greetings from Thessaloniki to him, that’s an easy thing for his audience to disprove and lying would serve little purpose. Does Paul believe his own theological claims? I don’t know. Gauging someone’s belief now is difficult let alone through a 2000 year lens. I don’t even know if I am good at gauging my own beliefs. Anyway, we do know with a degree of good certainty that he died and was imprisoned for those beliefs. (One could rebut that Joseph Smith did too and I think many of us think that he was a conman and not a true believer. But dying for something is usually pretty strong evidence that you at least claim that your beliefs are true. If he were writing as a joke, it’s unlikely that he would have continued joking after being chucked in prison.) So while he may not have believed it himself, he almost certainly claimed to believe it. And leaving Paul’s belief out of it, it does seem likely though that the people he wrote to believed it, else why write it? They could be the letters of a madman written to no one in particular, but I think we see ample belief that Christian communities did exist. They saved his letters. They wrote books about his travels. I think the evidence does come down on the side that early Christians thought he was truthful. So when Paul says something like “Jesus who was resurrected.” I think that it’s very reasonable to say that the people he was writing to believed that Jesus was resurrected in some way (again, I think that a metaphorical resurrection is a possibility. Until the gospel of Mark (ca 64-68), we don’t have a real proof of the belief of real physical resurrection. The remarks regarding it in the early Epistles are along the lines of “Christ who was risen” or “Christ who died and rose” types of commentaries which don’t convey whether it was a true physical or a metaphorical resurrection prior to Mark.) And I think that very few scholars would disagree with that assessment. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/326 "2018-03-27T18:51:22Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I’ll give him that much, it’s just that this doesn’t get anyone very far. If you are evaluating whether to believe that some guy died and then started living again 2000 years ago, the fact that someone wrote down that some other dudes believed it, is so far from helpful that it’s hardly worth considering. … and yet, here we are. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/327 "2018-03-27T18:58:26Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > What evidence do we have of a large number of people believing he was resurrected within 20 years of the religious leader named Jeshua’s death? > > (Yep, you got his name wrong.) > We have evidence that a large number of unverifiable tall tales were told about a religious leader by his acolytes while they were trying to drum up followers. I’m…not particularly impressed by that. There’s nothing about the culture and education of those followers that suggests to me that they had very good bullshit detectors, either. > > Heck, mormonism managed to get off the ground in the _1840s_, with a rather scattered and inconsistent mythology at its beginning. They even tell tales of mass numbers of people experiencing miracles together. Such tales aren’t credible in modern times. They’re way less credible being told third-hand by bronze age proselytizers. I’m writing in English. Jesus is the Anglicization of his name. His actual name was likely spelled ܝܫܘܥ, in Aramaic, but we only have the Koine version which is usually rendered in Latin script as Iesous and typically translated without the o. English replaces the I with a J because that’s how we roll. As to whether widespread belief is convincing or not, you’re right. As I mentioned probably a half-dozen times above, there are certainly other explanations than the event actually happening that would account for it. Regardless, it is still evidence for the claim. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/328 "2018-03-27T18:59:47Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > I know (or perhaps should say I have very strong evidence for the proposition that 🙂 )you’re speaking facetiously because you conjured a fairly ridiculous claim as a rebuttal to a point I made. > > As to the claims in the Bible, I actually acknowledged above that a metaphorical reading of the resurrection is not an argument without merit. As for the truthfulness of the writings, I think it’s more helpful to look at the audience rather than the writer. We know fairly conclusively that Paul was important to early Christianity. I think that anyone going down the rabbit hole of saying he wasn’t is pretty out there. We have very strong evidence that at least seven of the Epistles were written by Paul (There are 14 traditional Pauline epistles. Hebrews almost undoubtedly was not written by Paul. Ephesians, the Timothies and Titus were very, very likely not written by Paul and Colossians and 2 Thessalonians are debated, but since they are debated, they are not compelling, so excluded. The evidence for what was or was not genuine is a very long academic discussion, but this breakdown is what serious secular and non-traditionalist scholars have settled on.) So what we know pretty conclusively is that Paul sat down and wrote something. He says that he was writing letters. I think that that is a reasonable claim to accept. Letter writing was common at the time and he put instructions in the letter as to whom it was for and who should read it. He mentioned banalities that had little to do with those to whom the letter was not addressed. We have access to these writings, so they were found at some point and the most logical explanation is that they are what they are purported to be, letters written to Christian groups that Paul had visited. Is Paul telling the truth? Certainly some of the time he is. When he writes that Timothy brought greetings from Thessaloniki to him, that’s an easy thing for his audience to disprove and lying would serve little purpose. Does Paul believe his own theological claims? I don’t know. Gauging someone’s belief now is difficult let alone through a 2000 year lens. I don’t even know if I am good at gauging my own beliefs. Anyway, we do know with a degree of good certainty that he died and was imprisoned for those beliefs. (One could rebut that Joseph Smith did too and I think many of us think that he was a conman and not a true believer. But dying for something is usually pretty strong evidence that you at least claim that your beliefs are true. If he were writing as a joke, it’s unlikely that he would have continued joking after being chucked in prison.) So while he may not have believed it himself, he almost certainly claimed to believe it. > > And leaving Paul’s belief out of it, it does seem likely though that the people he wrote to believed it, else why write it? They could be the letters of a madman written to no one in particular, but I think we see ample belief that Christian communities did exist. They saved his letters. They wrote books about his travels. I think the evidence does come down on the side that early Christians thought he was truthful. So when Paul says something like “Jesus who was resurrected.” I think that it’s very reasonable to say that the people he was writing to believed that Jesus was resurrected in some way (again, I think that a metaphorical resurrection is a possibility. Until the gospel of Mark (ca 64-68), we don’t have a real proof of the belief of real physical resurrection. The remarks regarding it in the early Epistles are along the lines of “Christ who was risen” or “Christ who died and rose” types of commentaries which don’t convey whether it was a true physical or a metaphorical resurrection prior to Mark.) And I think that very few scholars would disagree with that assessment. I don’t think anyone here has argued that Christians do not believe what they fundamentally claim to believe, or that there is no foundation on which the Christian system of faith is based. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/329 "2018-03-27T19:00:49Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > I’m writing in English. Jesus is the Anglicization of his name. His actual name was likely spelled ܝܫܘܥ, in Aramaic, but we only have the Koine version which is usually rendered in Latin script as Iesous and typically translated without the o. English replaces the I with a J because that’s how we roll. > > As to whether widespread belief is convincing or not, you’re right. As I mentioned probably a half-dozen times above, there are certainly other explanations than the event actually happening that would account for it. Regardless, it is still evidence for the claim. You’ve seemed to have skipped over the actual question: What evidence do we have of a large number of people believing he was resurrected within 20 years of the religious leader named Jeshua’s death? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/330 "2018-03-27T19:07:14Z")
To put the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” aphorism on a more quantitative footing, it’s essentially taking a Bayesian approach to truth claims. You have two hypotheses h(1) = resurrection h(2) = no resurrection The prior probability for h(1) is extremely close to zero, since no other resurrection has ever occurred. Second- or third-hand eyewitness testimony in 2000-year-old documents ago is certainly evidence, sure. Asking whether it is “strong” or “weak” evidence is really asking to what extent it is equally consistent with both h(1) and h(2). If you want to shift the posterior probability for h(1) away from zero, you must find evidence that is likely under h(1), but _extremely_ unlikely under h(2). In other words: of course we should expect this evidence if there was a resurrection. That’s not what matters. Since the prior probability of a resurrection is close to zero, the burden is to prove that we could _not_ expect this kind of evidence if there were _no_ resurrection. And that’s where it all falls apart, of course. It transparently idiotic to claim that people never lie, that people are never deluded, that people never use wacky motivated reasoning, especially in support of religious beliefs. The presence such evidence is equally likely under both h(1) or h(2). So it’s completely worthless. This is completely consistent with the fact that similar eyewitness evidence might be quite valuable in a situation where the prior probabilities for h(1) and h(2) are around 50%. For example: were the curtains in some ancient temple green or purple. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/331 "2018-03-27T19:10:56Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > What evidence do we have of a large number of people believing he was resurrected within 20 years of the religious leader named Jeshua’s death? > > (Yep, you got his name wrong.) Nope, he didnt, that is the common Anglicization of Jesus’s name. Look, we have a number of eyewitness accounts, albeit biased. That _is_ evidence. Obviously, it isn’t evidence enough to convince you, and that’s fine. No use ridiculing those that wish to accept that evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/332 "2018-03-27T19:15:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nope, he didnt, that is the common Anglicization of Jesus’s name. > > Look, we have a number of eyewitness accounts, albeit biased. That _is_ evidence. > > Obviously, it isn’t evidence enough to convince you, and that’s fine. > > No use ridiculing those that wish to accept that evidence. What number, and who were they? ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/333 "2018-03-27T19:16:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You’ve seemed to have skipped over the actual question: What evidence do we have of a large number of people believing he was resurrected within 20 years of the religious leader named Jeshua’s death? You can read the previous post. We know that by Galatians, Paul was writing “I was sent by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised (Jesus) from the dead.” Why would he write this if the people he was writing it to didn’t believe him? If we look at 1 Corinthians (another of the genuine Epistles written ca. 53-54) he actually expounds on the idea of Resurrection, but in this case the writing is more persuasive so it cannot be taken as a given that the Corinthians did believe in the Resurrection, though it is reasonable to assume that James and Peter were both claiming the physical resurrection at that point since they were familiar to the readers and mentioned in the text. What is also interesting is that he writes that over 500 witnesses actually saw a living Christ post-crucifixion and that most were still living at the time of the writing. Obviously not proof, but he is writing to people who are in a position to call him on this claim and he’s writing it to people that doubt his claim. It’s a dangerous claim to make if it couldn’t be backed up. Again, it’s not proof, but it is another piece of evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/334 "2018-03-27T19:17:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Obviously, it isn’t evidence enough to convince you, and that’s fine. > > No use ridiculing those that wish to accept that evidence. The evidence would not convince any rational and objective person. You get to have your own beliefs, sure. The right to hold a belief does not make it an equally reasonable belief. And it is perfectly reasonable, correct and _desirable_ to ridicule ridiculous beliefs. That’s why we don’t burn witches. If you feel that you are being ridiculed by association with those beliefs, find some less ridiculous beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/335 "2018-03-27T19:23:52Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > If we look at 1 Corinthians (another of the genuine Epistles written ca. 53-54) he actually expounds on the idea of Resurrection, but in this case the writing is more persuasive so it cannot be taken as a given that the Corinthians did believe in the Resurrection, though it is reasonable to assume that James and Peter were both claiming the physical resurrection at that point since they were familiar to the readers and mentioned in the text. What is also interesting is that he writes that over 500 witnesses actually saw a living Christ post-crucifixion and that most were still living at the time of the writing. Obviously not proof, but he is writing to people who are in a position to call him on this claim and he’s writing it to people that doubt his claim. It’s a dangerous claim to make if it couldn’t be backed up. Again, it’s not proof, but it is another piece of evidence. Please see [post #211.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20866753&postcount=211) ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/336 "2018-03-27T19:23:53Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > You can read the previous post. We know that by Galatians, Paul was writing “I was sent by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised (Jesus) from the dead.” Why would he write this if the people he was writing it to didn’t believe him? The simplest answer to this is that he is writing “I am a helicopter” and trying to establish his authority as such. We have no evidence how those letters were received - they could have been mocked by the Galatians and kept as an example of “what not to write” - beyond that - he was writing to fellow believers. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/337 "2018-03-27T19:25:27Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > You can read the previous post. We know that by Galatians, Paul was writing “I was sent by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised (Jesus) from the dead.” Why would he write this if the people he was writing it to didn’t believe him? > > If we look at 1 Corinthians (another of the genuine Epistles written ca. 53-54) he actually expounds on the idea of Resurrection, but in this case the writing is more persuasive so it cannot be taken as a given that the Corinthians did believe in the Resurrection, though it is reasonable to assume that James and Peter were both claiming the physical resurrection at that point since they were familiar to the readers and mentioned in the text. What is also interesting is that he writes that over 500 witnesses actually saw a living Christ post-crucifixion and that most were still living at the time of the writing. Obviously not proof, but he is writing to people who are in a position to call him on this claim and he’s writing it to people that doubt his claim. It’s a dangerous claim to make if it couldn’t be backed up. Again, it’s not proof, but it is another piece of evidence. It isn’t worth jack as evidence if the place we read it is a collection designed to promote a certain agenda, so there might have been people questioning what he claimed. The last thing I would expect to see in the New Testament are contrary facts and/or opinions, and let’s not forget that that he was a leader in the movement and they had no way of confirming how many, if any, observed the event. A claim of 500 anonymous and unreachable “witnesses” is useless by someone promoting an agenda. How many actual and named witnesses to the event witnesses were there? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/338 "2018-03-27T19:29:31Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The evidence would not convince any rational and objective person. > . And of course, you get to define "rational and objective " so that you are in that class. :rolleyes: Ok, so on the one side, we have a anonymous poster on a message board stating he is rational and objective , but believers aren’t. On the other side, we have Francis Bacon, Galileo, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Euler, Lavoisier, Linnaeus, Cuvier, Faraday, Maxwell, Mendel, Pasteur, Kelvin, Marconi, Carver, Fleming,Heisenberg, Dyson, and literally hundreds of Nobel laureates. All of whom pretty much define “rational and objective”. Calling names doesnt really get you any points. Let’s just go with the fact the the evidence hasnt convinced _you_, and that’s fine. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/339 "2018-03-27T19:32:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And of course, you get to define "rational and objective " so that you are in that class. :rolleyes: > > Ok, so on the one side, we have a anonymous poster on a message board stating he is rational and objective , but believers aren’t. > > On the other side, we have Francis Bacon, Galileo, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Euler, Lavoisier, Linnaeus, Cuvier, Faraday, Maxwell, Mendel, Pasteur, Kelvin, Marconi, Carver, Fleming,Heisenberg, Dyson, and literally hundreds of Nobel laureates. All of whom pretty much define “rational and objective”. > > Calling names doesnt really get you any points. > > Let’s just go with the fact the the evidence hasnt convinced _you_, and that’s fine. Argument by Authority? O.k. then, what specifically was the evidence used to convince _them?_ ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/340 "2018-03-27T19:32:10Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > I don’t know what you think evidence is exactly. Evidence is simply information that points to the truth or falseness of a statement. If there’s a bar fight and 3 people say that they saw someone pull out a knife, that’s most certainly evidence. It isn’t conclusive because they could have been mistaken or in collusion, but it is certainly evidence. And of course the eyewitness accounts don’t have to change, that’s absolutely ridiculous. I can imagine a court hearing where the defense says, “I’m sorry, it’s impossible for there to have been a knife, could we recall the witnesses and make them change what they said?” That’s ludicrous. Whether it is dismissable (in the sense of not believable) or not depends on many things, that’s why we talk of a ‘body of evidence’ where all of the available information is considered together and a conclusion is reached. > > The question though was not ‘What is the veracity of the claim that Jesus was resurrected?’, but rather “What evidence is there that Jesus was resurrected?” There is most certainly evidence. Widespread belief in something is actually pretty strong evidence. If someone asked me for evidence that the city of Dhaka existed and I said, “Of course it exists, everyone that I have ever talked to believes it to exist.” then that’s pretty strong evidence that Dhaka exists. It’s not definitive or conclusive, there are many explanations for why a large group of people might believe Dhaka to exist when it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean that wide spread belief is not evidence at all. Quite honestly, wide spread belief is the evidence (read that as “information that points to the truth of a claim”) that we tend to use most when forming our own beliefs. When people tell me that Flight 370 crashed, I don’t go tracking down the whisper chain until I find an original source and then verify it against flight records and next of kin. I consider it true because everyone else around me considers it true. Again, that’s not conclusive, but it’s certainly evidence. According to what you’re saying here, there was great evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because millions of people believed it, even though there was zero actual evidence. I always wondered, if Iraq had WMD’s, why on earth didn’t they use them to defend themselves? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129.md?page=18)