# 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:** 18
**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, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/341 "2018-03-27T19:33:50Z")
> [@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? I work with someone who claims to be a server farm administrator. He doesn’t know how to log into a server; Ask me how I know this. Never the less, he claims it to anybody who doesn’t know any better. I work with another person who is a developer. She claims to be an application admin. She isn’t. Yet, every email she sends, there it is, “Administrator”, in her signature. Why would they make this claim knowing that I don’t believe them? Answer: Because I’m not the audience and those who can’t tell the difference do believe them. ---
**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, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/342 "2018-03-27T19:36:31Z")
Preaching to the converted is easy. ---
**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, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/343 "2018-03-27T19:37:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Argument by Authority? O.k. then, what specifically was the evidence used to convince _them?_ Nope, not argument by authority. I am not saying anyone should believe due to those worthies believing. Believe or not. But he basically claimed no one that was rational and objective could believe, and I disproved that since those worthies are considered both rational and objective. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/344 "2018-03-27T19:37:50Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > They’re way less credible being told third-hand by bronze age proselytizers. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a couple times, the Bronze Age ended in the Eastern Mediterranean 1200 years Before Christ. By the time of Jesus Herod the Great had built Jerusalem into a showplace of the Eastern Empire, a top tourist destination for the Jews of the Diaspora. It was hardly a backwater, and you disservice them by dismissing them with an inaccurate comment. ---
**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, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/345 "2018-03-27T19:41:25Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > 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? There was much actual evidence. First, Saddam used them on his own people. Next, the UN found tonnes of them after Kuwait, and tonnes were unaccounted for. Saddam openly bragged he had them, and was known to be buying things that could make WMD. So yeah, that’s pretty solid evidence. Now, after Blix was given a free hand and said he couldnt find any- then all that evidence certainly became doubtful. Very doubtful. Actually, the missing WMDs were finally found- rotting away, lost in the desert, a danger mostly to the environment. ---
**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, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/346 "2018-03-27T19:44:46Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And of course, you get to define "rational and objective " so that you are in that class. :rolleyes:… > > …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”… Those people were all religious to varying degrees, in a world that was culturally overwhelmingly religious. So what? Do you have any cite to support the idea that any of those people accepted the objective truth of the resurrection of Jesus because of the quality of the eyewitness evidence presented in the bible? Your argument that “I believe X and you believe Y, therefore X and Y are on an equal footing” is bogus. That’s not how evidence works, and it’s not how reality works (fortunately). If you want to assert your _right_ to hold beliefs motivated by religion, go ahead, nobody is challenging that. This thread is supposed to be about _evidence_, something that rises above subjective considerations. ---
**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, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/347 "2018-03-27T19:46:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nope, not argument by authority. I am not saying anyone should believe due to those worthies believing. Believe or not. But he basically claimed no one that was rational and objective could believe, and I disproved that since those worthies are considered both rational and objective. Greatest minds of their time? Yep. Nobel prize winners? Sure. We stand on the shoulders of giants? Absolutely. But they weren’t rational & objective about everything. Just the stuff they were really really right about and could PROVE experimentally or mathematically. They might have believed in the resurrection but not a single one of them tried to prove it. Care to guess why? ---
**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, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/348 "2018-03-27T19:48:07Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Those people were all religious to varying degrees, in a world that was culturally overwhelmingly religious. So what? Do you have any cite to support the idea that any of those people accepted the objective truth of the resurrection of Jesus because of the quality of the eyewitness evidence presented in the bible? > If you want to assert your _right_ to hold beliefs motivated by religion, go ahead, nobody is challenging that. This thread is supposed to be about _evidence_, something that rises above subjective considerations. There is evidence by eyewitnesses and said evidence convinced many rational and objective worthies. If you wish to say that evidence is weak and hasnt convinced _you_, that’s fine. ---
**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, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/349 "2018-03-27T19:48:26Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > The only mention of those 500 alleged witnesses is in Corinthians, as you quoted in an earlier post. Do you know why it is called Corinthians? Because it was a letter to Corinth. Corinth is in Greece. > > Now, please tell me how someone living in 1st century Greece could possibly check the veracity of a story about something that was allegedly witnessed nearly a thousand miles away at some unnamed location in Palestine (and for some reason, these things always seemed to happen out in the countryside, rather than in the Temple Square), at a time not named but probably at least 20 years ago, and by people not named? > > They had no idea whether it was true, just as they had no idea whether Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies Matthew claimed for him, because they weren’t Jews, and knew nothing about Jewish prophecy. They just believed it, for whatever reasons other people believe other religious dogma. And so Christianity grew rapidly in places like Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor. > > Oddly, almost all the people living in Palestine, who _could_ possibly check the anecdotes about Jesus, and who _did_ know something about Jewish prophecy, rejected the Christian claims. As would anyone reading about the zombie invasion of Jerusalem described by Matthew. There was a large church in Jerusalem, the commonly accepted number for its size is roughly 3000, but digging through the sands of time is difficult. The Council of Jerusalem took place there. As to not being able to go there, Corinth and Jerusalem are not horribly far apart. We know that Roman sailing vessels averaged between 2 and 6 knots depending on wind. Corinth is about 700 nautical miles from Jerusalem. That’s a trip from between 5 and 14 days. Hardly an insurmountable distance during the Pax Romanum and a distance quite regularly travelled. It’s completely reasonable to assume that Corinthians would have had some contacts with the church in Jerusalem and able to track down these witnesses should they wish to (although we don’t know that they actually did.) ---
**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, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/350 "2018-03-27T19:48:58Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nope, not argument by authority. I am not saying anyone should believe due to those worthies believing. Believe or not. But he basically claimed no one that was rational and objective could believe, and I disproved that since those worthies are considered both rational and objective. A lot of people raised in the faith are able to compartmentalize those beliefs-indoctrination in even the most open of cultures is a powerful force. Now about the actual evidence, and that supposed consensus on who wrote the books attributed to John while you’re at it? ---
**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, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/351 "2018-03-27T19:51:09Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > There was a large church in Jerusalem, the commonly accepted number for its size is roughly 3000, but digging through the sands of time is difficult. The Council of Jerusalem took place there. As to not being able to go there, Corinth and Jerusalem are not horribly far apart. We know that Roman sailing vessels averaged between 2 and 6 knots depending on wind. Corinth is about 700 nautical miles from Jerusalem. That’s a trip from between 5 and 14 days. Hardly an insurmountable distance during the Pax Romanum and a distance quite regularly travelled. It’s completely reasonable to assume that Corinthians would have had some contacts with the church in Jerusalem and able to track down these witnesses should they wish to (although we don’t know that they actually did.) _How many of those were actual witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus?_ ---
**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, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/352 "2018-03-27T19:52:59Z")
Do you understand the difference between “the claims of witnesses” and “the claim OF the existence of witnesses”? ---
**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, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/353 "2018-03-27T19:53:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A lot of people raised in the faith are able to compartmentalize those beliefs-indoctrination in even the most open of cultures is a powerful force. Now about the actual evidence, and that supposed consensus on who wrote the books attributed to John while you’re at it? The actual evidence is the eyewitness accounts. Believe them or not. > **[Authorship of the Johannine works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Johannine_works)** > > The authorship of the Johannine works (the Gospel of John, the Johannine epistles, and the Book of Revelation) has been debated by biblical scholars since at least the 2nd century AD. The debate focuses mainly on the identity of the author(s), as well as the date and location of authorship of these writings. > Although authorship of all of these works has traditionally been attributed to John the Apostle, only a minority of contemporary scholars believe he wrote the gospel, and most conclude tha... \*Raymond E. Brown, among others, posit a community of writers rather than a single individual that gave final form to the work.[82] In particular, Chapter 21 is very stylistically different from the main body of the Gospel, and is thought to be a later addition (known as the appendix). Among many Christian scholars the view has evolved that there were multiple stages of development involving the disciples as well as the apostle; R.E. Brown (1970) distinguishes four stages of development: traditions connected directly with the apostle, partial editing by his disciples, synthesis by the apostle, and additions by a final editor…More recent criticism The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran marked a change in Johannine scholarship. Several of the hymns, presumed to come from a community of Essenes, contained the same sort of plays between opposites – light and dark, truth and lies – which are themes within the Gospel. Thus the hypothesis that the Gospel relied on Gnosticism fell out of favor. Many suggested further that John the Baptist himself belonged to an Essene community, and if John the Apostle had previously been a disciple of the Baptist, he would have been affected by that teaching.[citation needed] The resulting revolution in Johannine scholarship was termed the new look by John A. T. Robinson, who coined the phrase in 1957 at Oxford. According to Robinson, this new information rendered the question of authorship a relative one. He considered a group of disciples around the aging John the Apostle who wrote down his memories, mixing them with theological speculation, a model that had been proposed as far back as Renan’s Vie de Jésus (“Life of Jesus,” 1863). The work of such scholars brought the consensus back to a Palestinian origin for the text, rather than the Hellenistic origin favored by the critics of the previous decades.[citation needed]/I] ---
**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, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/354 "2018-03-27T19:55:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > _How many of those were actual witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus?_ About 500, according to what is recorded. ---
**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, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/355 "2018-03-27T19:58:40Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > There is evidence by eyewitnesses and said evidence convinced many rational and objective worthies. Cite, please. ---
**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, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/356 "2018-03-27T20:00:00Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > About 500, according to what is recorded. Who were they, and what did they claim to see? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/357 "2018-03-27T20:02:10Z")
And were they sure it was Jesus and not an imposter? How do you know? ---
**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, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/358 "2018-03-27T20:03:03Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Cite, please. 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”. Do you deny those worthies are rational and objective? Are you trying to claim _you_ are more rational and objective than those worthies?:rolleyes: ---
**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, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/359 "2018-03-27T20:06:23Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 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”. > > Do you deny those worthies are rational and objective? Are you trying to claim _you_ are more rational and objective than those worthies?:rolleyes: Argument By Authority _again?_ By the way, are you claiming that the ones you’ve named and the supposed hundreds you haven’t all shared the same beliefs? BTW, :rolleyes: at something I never claimed? Classy. ---
**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, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129/360 "2018-03-27T20:07:49Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > 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. I’m trying to keep up here - are you saying that the people in Corinth were in a position to call him on the claim that there were 500 witnesses? That’s all I can parse out of what you wrote, but if that’s what you meant, it seems pretty outlandish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ/811129.md?page=19)