Evidence that John wrote the book? Is John here to testify as to the account?
No, John is dead.:rolleyes: Are you saying all writings and histories written by men who are now dead are not evidence? Because that pretty well means all of recorded history, you know.:dubious:
I’m pretty sure that if I walked into a courtroom and gave evidence that I personally saw Jesus come out of my bedroom closet and swear that he had risen from the slab, with his Sacred Heart blazing like a bonfire, that my testimony would be dismissed as delusional. That seems to be the difference between all of these people who’ve “seen” him and actual eyewitness testimony in a courtroom. I’m absolutely certain that if I tried to use that “eyewitness” testimony to clear someone’s name of a crime that the prosecution would object and that testimony thrown out as an obvious falsehood.
It seems like we’re coming from two mutually-exclusive directions on this and we’re not ever going to agree. I find all of the “eyewitness” testimony you’re touting, whether contemporary with the supposed resurrection or much, much later, to be obvious delusion and you obviously don’t. Which makes me wonder about your credulity, to be honest.
boy, you are really reaching aren’t you? :rolleyes:
They MIGHT be evidence. The older they are, and the more incredible they are, the more likely they are to not be valid, objective evidence. All histories are, at best, biased and, at worst, deliberately falsified. Only recently (within the last couple of hundred years, and not all published in that time) has the field of history really striven for an evidentiary foundation. If you can’t really trust American history of the pre-late-20th Century (and you REALLY can’t), then I can’t imagine that 2000+ year-old events with a very urgent need to attract followers in large numbers can really be trusted.
He’s reaching??..
In every courtroom you can swear a oath under God, on a Bible no less.
Look, if you think the evidence is weak and biased, that’s fine. Simply putting your fingers in your ears and closing your eyes and saying over and over “there is no evidence at all” doesnt make you case any stronger nor does name calling.
well - in this case you don’t even have enough evidence to state conclusively who wrote the gospel of John - so you’re already on a slope.
We’re not discussing other writings or histories - we’re discussing ‘evidence for the resurrection’ - so far , all you’ve got is …
The only person reaching here is the one who’s trying to convince us that the Bible can possibly be taken as objective, evidentiary history. You’re really surprising me, to be honest. I hadn’t taken you for the kind of religious fanatic that I’m seeing in this thread before.
Yes, I am. I’m not sure why it’s outlandish though. This was written probably 20-25 years after the death of Christ. The claim he makes is that 500 people saw it and that the majority are still alive. The fact that he says they are still alive lends credence to his claim. It would be easier for him to say 500 people saw it, but most of them have died. We know that Corinth was the capital of Achaea at the time (which today would be all of southern Greece) and enjoyed great status and trade with Rome. It was a major exporter of metals, slaves and manufactured goods. It would have had trade contacts across most of the Western Mediterranean. There’s no reason to think that anyone of reasonable means in Corinth couldn’t make a trip to Jerusalem. Paul certainly managed it without much difficulty. We know that the church in Jerusalem was fairly large at the time and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that they would know of the existence or lack thereof of these witnesses. Corinthians likely knew names of their leaders and certainly could write even if they couldn’t journey themselves. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to think they could call him on his claim if it were untrue.
I wouldn’t, since such an oath would be meaningless and actually probably perjured, as I don’t consider the Bible valuable for much other than being the basis for the Christian religion, which I also don’t consider valuable for much, to be honest.
If I were a witness in a trial, I would affirm that my words would be as true as I could make them.
Sure. But they are still evidence. We know many ancient writings are biased, but 90% of our history is based upon them.
If you dont accept any ancient evidence, then you dont accept most of what we know about ancient history. Tacticus for example, and many other ancient historians are generally accepted- UNTIL we find solid archeological evidence they are wrong.
Reaching for actual evidence of the resurrection: Got any?
Besides stories told by largely unknown sources collected in a book specifically designed to promote said event, that is. BTW, the higher the number of supposed witnesses the less credible the claim that nobody wrote about it at or around the time it supposedly happened. 500 witnesses to such an incredible event and none of them could read or write, or even think it was incredible enough to bother a scribe about?
But when Tacitus and Josephus relate any sort of miraculous event, historical scholars don’t take them at their word, because we know that kind of thing doesn’t actually happen. I can provisionally believe that mundane events happened as Tacitus and Josephus recorded them (provisionally, unless something is discovered that contradicts that narrative). Miracles take more evidence, and better evidence than third-hand accounts.
Your entire defense seems to be, “Why would he lie??”
Someone says something about an (unlikely) event 25 years in the past and claims there are 500 witnesses. Does he say this to a local reporter? On network news?
Post it on his FAcebook? Nope. Those things haven’t been invented yet and chances are that 99% of those “500 witnesses” are illiterate. Why would someone do that, you ask? Gee… I really can’t imagine.
In no way did I make the claim that the Bible is objective, evidentiary history. It is clearly biased and has been edited and changed around quite a bit. Many things in the Bible (such as the existence of Pontius Pilate) have been confirmed by archeologists. Other things have not. Much of the early OT is myth and legend. We think there was a David, yes, but that’s about it.
Like I said, if you wish to state that the evidence presented in the Bible for the resurrection is weak and biased I have no argument. But weak as it is, and biased as it it, *it is still evidence. *
compare that with what is happening ‘right now’ on FB and other sources - there’s so much noise out there that finding the signal is damn near imposible - and this is for events happening RIGHT NOW.
So - lets go back to your Thomas example -
He would not even accept the word of his contemporaries (other believers that he personally knew and had every reason to believe otherwise) - he DEMANDED physical evidence - and got it.
Why must we rely on only the ‘bible’ as it sits today?
That’s poor historiography there, Lou. It would be expected not to find primary sources at all. We basically have one from the siege of Jerusalem which would have been observed by hundreds of thousands of people, but only Josephus got off his butt and wrote about it (at least that has been preserved to today - we also got a pretty arch out of it.)
You dont have to. You are perfectly able to reject it.