A good question. Are people good only because they have convinced themselves there’s recognition for it? They don’t trust themselves to be good if there’s no credit? This question was approached on the final episode of the first season of Preacher, by the way.
Where does it say there were 16? Who was doing the counting, and who wrote it down?
Well, Genesis 6:4 does prove the existence of giants, so…
I think the point is that the eyewitnesses are anything but. The accounts were written by a group of people several decades after the fact, making the “witness” claim highly spurious.
From The Case for Easter: The following witnessed the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus per 1 Corinthians 15:5-8: Peter and then the other disciples (12), 500 of the “brothers” at the same time, James (Jesus’ brother I believe) “and all of the apostles,” and finally to Paul. I am not sure if “the apostles” just means the disciples, or others. This is one person’s (Paul) account of the numbers, written between AD 32 to 57, depending on your reference. The passage was a creed spoken in most gatherings of believers of the Church , which would have been “fact-checked” by other persons (Peter and the disciples). One of the early Jewish New Testament scholars, Pinchas Lapide, said evidence in the creed spoken is so strong that it “may be considered a statement of eyewitnesses.”
In addition, Jesus appeared to approximately 70 persons (some repeats) on 6 or so other occasions, per other references in the Gospels.
As said before, more modern attorneys have conducted a legal analysis of the accounts, incl. Sir Edmond Clarke who wrote, “To me the evidence is conclusive … I accept the gospel evidence as the evidence of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate.”
Yes, and chapter 9 of The Hobbit states that a great many men witnessed Bard of Dale shoot the arrow that struck Smaug the dragon in its underbelly and killed it, so by your logic we must conclude that the Battle of Five Armies was a historical event and that dragons are real.
Even supposing this is accurate (which I’m quite skeptical of), it’s still far more likely that there is a non-supernatural explanation than a supernatural explanation. Jesus’s death could have been faked, a convincing double could have substituted after his death, the witnesses could have been lying, or some other mundane explanation, all of which would fit the facts without requiring magic or supernatural events.
The same goes for any specific claim of supernatural events. Perhaps supernatural events actually occur sometimes. But there are tons and tons of claims of supernatural events by people around the world. The vast majority, if not all, are almost certainly a combination of deliberate deception, human error, or otherwise mundane explanations. Thus the likelihood of a mundane explanation for the text of the gospels is far greater than a supernatural explanation requiring the intervention of a deity.
Strobel? :rolleyes: Strobel! :dubious:
The Case for Easter, well, I guessed the author (don’t be sleeping when ya should be posting!), but not which book.
If there was a “god” surely it’d send us apologists with better arguments!
(Strobel would have a hard time convincing me that water was wet.)
CMC fnord!
You would have to ask them, but as a minimum I am sure they believe that Jesus is the Messiah based on what the old testament says in pointing to Jesus and the new testament account of Jesus’ life and statements.
No, there is a claim that “500 of the ‘brothers’” witnessed something . . where are the statements of these 500?
CMC fnord!
Wait a minute. MY scripture says it was Jessica Lange.
Well, sure. But if I’ve already read that stuff, and I didn’t find it to be a convincing case for Christianity back when, then why the heck would I get won over if such folks (a) point at that same stuff and (b) loudly announce that it won them over?
God could use more Billy Graham’s, for sure.
Someone made up a story about what the angels said when Jesus ascended into heaven:
The angels asked Jesus who would take his place to spread the work of God. Jesus replied, “Well, I left my 11 disciples to build my Church.” The angels replied, “but they are just men, and they only followed you for 3 years. How can they take your place?” Jesus replied, “They have to. They are all I have.”
I believe each follower of Jesus should do what he can to spread the same message of Jesus. It was not left originally to seminary-trained men and women, and the job still isn’t limited to them. So, Lee Strobel is doing what he can, I believe. Good for him.
No, you have to extend the metaphor. Eating the forbidden fruit symbolizes mankind discovering morality. Before eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we could not sin, because we did not understand right vs. wrong. Once we did have that knowledge, we could sin, because we would know that it was wrong to do that. And humans are imperfect creations, so you can count on us to do that.
Maybe the writers were sitting around and postulated: how many people did the Romans crucify? 10,000? What is there was this one guy who didn’t die but came back to life instead. Do you think people would believe it? Just for the sake of argument? And—get this—this one guy turns out to be the Messiah. Wouldn’t that be the greatest story ever told?
Study Bible
The Resurrection of Christ
…(5) and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. (6) After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (7)Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.…
1 Corinthians 15: 5-7
That’s all well and good, but Original Sin as defined by the Catholic Church refers specifically to that act of defiance in the Garden of Eden. The Catholic Church also looks at the Adam and Eve story as metaphor, meaning there was no actual serpent or tree or Adam or Eve. You can figure out the rest.
I’m not sure you get it. What you have here isn’t “hundreds of eyewitness statements”. You have one secondhand account that claims there were hundreds of eyewitnesses.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone says that all of Hogwarts saw Harry catch the Golden Snitch in his first quiddich match, but that doesn’t comprise hundreds of eyewitness statements either.
Secondhand at best. Paul didn’t talk to the 500 himself, relying on oral accounts of others.
Similarly, I’ve observed before that you can tell a lot more about someone’s religion from what they pray for, than whom they pray to. A Christian praying for world peace is a lot closer to a Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist praying for world peace, than he is to a Christian praying for his team to win the Superbowl.