Why do you believe that Jesus was physically Resurrected?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Diletante]
However, many believers talk about their faith as though it is largely or entirely supported by empirical evidence. That’s something I’d argue against (except for the fact DtC does it better than I do, so I just watch).
[/QUOTE]

I agree…in which case I try and just nod and not noticably roll my eyes at the faithful. When one looks closely, there simply is NO empirical evidence even for Jesus’ existance at all (aside from the possiblity of a certain tomb…and the jury is definitely still out on that :wink: ), let alone for something like the ressurection. Its entirely faith based.

The lack of historical evidence isn’t a show stopper IMHO…at least for the principal question of Jesus’ existence. A lot of historical figures have little or not physical evidence after all…afaik there is no physical evidence for the existence of Homer, or even Plato (not sure about this one…maybe there is a tomb or something I’m forgetting…just picked some famous historical figures off the top of my head), yet we can reasonably say that they probably existed. The ressurection though…thats fully and entirely faith based. Even if thousands of people witnessed the event, it would still be faith based because we would have no physical evidence (unless the ressurection left something we could examine behind to make a scientific study)…it would still be based on the writen anecdotal accounts of all those people who supposedly witnessed the event. As DtC says however, no one actually witnessed the event at all…not that this would matter of course if they did, it would still be anecdotal…so we don’t even have that much.

I’m willing to give people a pass on their faith for my own part…as long as, like you said, they don’t try and tell me that its based on anything other than faith. And as long as they don’t attempt to shove it down MY throat of course…

-XT

22

Why do I believe that Jesus was physically Resurrected? Well, I’m not completely sure that he was; or that Christianity is literally true at all. But if anyone cares to read the following personal account, I’ll try to explain just what I do believe and how I came to where I am:[witnessing]

I was raised generically Protestant (mostly Presbyterian but no particular adherence to exact doctrine). By the time I was twelve I realized something relatively obvious: merely believing something is true doesn’t mean it is. The ancient Greeks, Romans and Norse had “faith” in their gods, and they couldn’t be right if Christianity was true, so belief alone doesn’t mean anything. Given that and a fascination with science and I could never afterwards accept Christianity (in the church-going, Gospel- preaching, “Praise the Lord” sense) uncritically. By my teens I was effectively an atheist. At the same time however, I guess I sort of regretted that Christianiy didn’t seem to be true, and I had no patience whatsoever with the crowd that said you could accept Christianity as symbolically or metaphorically “true”. If it wasn’t literally true, than what was the point?

By early adulthood the depression and dysfunctionalism that I’ve pretty much spent my entire life battling had reached a crisis point. It was at this stage that I discovered the writings of C.S. Lewis. Now I’m aware that plenty of people think that Lewis’s arguements aren’t as convincing as some believe, and I admit freely that my own life would seem to be an example of religion being a “crutch” for people who can’t cope with life. But I was strongly impressed simply because here seemed evidence that a person could be intelligent, rational and educated, and yet still accept Christianiy as literally true. You could be a Christian without being a fundy yahoo or unreservedly swallowing a bunch of fables.

Which is not to say that my life radically altered at that point. I was still pretty much the screwed up person I was before. And after that first “rush” that people get when they first discover religion, things pretty much went back to the way they had been. But now I was willing to accept Christianity at least provisionally, as a starting point for figuring out my life. And based on personal experiences and reflections, I would have to say that I began to believe in something, exactly what I’m not even sure of myself. Something outside myself, something bigger than I am. You could maybe call it Truth, or Reality, or Tao, or even that generic “Higher Power” that AA goes on about.

And the thing is, far from “proving” anything to me, my experience has been that I myself am the subject of judgement, rather than the one fit to do the judging. It wasn’t a question of logically assessing evidence; it was a matter of reexaming the fundamental axioms I had always assumed were true. It’s been a decades-long, slow and painful process, but I have (often rather bitterly) had to accept that I have been fundamentally wrong about myself and my outlook.

So at this point it’s hard for me to confidently state that I know anything for certain about what’s true and what isn’t, when I have had to accept just how wrong I can be. If the truth is something that I have previously been unable or unwilling to accept, then it is something that I’m still working on being able to fully comprehend. I still don’t know if Christianity is literally true, but that could well be a fault of mine. Or it could be that the whole thing is a psychological, spiritual inner journey that we use Christianity as our symbols for. The jury’s still out. [/witnessing]

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[QUOTE=FriarTed]
…as compelling as this Jesus character is, if he is NOT raised from the dead, not Lord, not God’s Right-hand Man/Logos/Son/Avatar, he has no more authority to tell us how to live than do Buddha, Mohammed, Nietzsche or Ayn Rand, perhaps even less.
[/QUOTE]

For me, therein lies the proverbial rub.

If, hypothetically speaking, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, why should that give him authority to tell me how to live? Count Dracula and a legion of undead zombies may rise from the dead, hypothetically speaking, but their ability to do that kind of thing doesn’t seem to have landed them any claims to any such authority.

If, hypothetically speaking, Jesus of Nazareth speaks as God’s Avatar (&etc), it’s deferred authority: what gives God authority to tell me how to live? Granted, even Zeus, Cthulhu, and Superman may fall short in claims-to-power terms of that attributed to God (all hypothetically speaking, once again), but surely the lack of moral authority possessed by Cthulhu is not merely a consequence of Cthulhu’s not being quite powerful enough to say “Let there be light” – ??

I say the authority of God is contingent upon God’s being able to comply when I say “OK, if this is what you want of me, explain to me why; I want to understand from my own perspective what makes that right, I want to see its rightness for myself”

Furthermore, it is my interpretation of Jesus and his teachings that he expected people to understand and follow as a consequence of understanding, not as a consequence of relinquishing their right and authority to reach their own understanding. (And if it is not what he intended, it is what he should have intended).

Beyond the narrow confines of wiggle-room created by fuzzy definitions of “dead” and “alive” and things that may or may not occur with brain and heart within a very narrow window of opportunity, I do not believe anyone has ever been individually alive again after having been dead.

More to the point, though, I just don’t think it matters, except from a gee-whiz amazing-stuff Ripley’s Believe It Or Not perspective. Neither Jesus nor Lazarus are walking around in the flesh now, and if they were they would still have to sway me with the compelling vitality of their message, same as any live person would have to do.

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I think it’s the only reasonable way to explain why the Apostle Paul and James, the brother of Jesus, were converted shortly after Christ’s death. Both of these facts are pretty much uncontested, even by skeptical historians.

IMO, none of the popular alternative hypotheses – theswoon theory, the hallucination theory, or even the identical twin theory – can explain away these facts. In most cases, proponents of such theories don’t even try.

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[QUOTE=JThunder]
I think it’s the only reasonable way to explain why the Apostle Paul and James, the brother of Jesus, were converted shortly after Christ’s death. Both of these facts are pretty much uncontested, even by skeptical historians.

IMO, none of the popular alternative hypotheses – theswoon theory, the hallucination theory, or even the identical twin theory – can explain away these facts. In most cases, proponents of such theories don’t even try.
[/QUOTE]

There is no direct evidence that either James or Paul believed in a physical resurrection.

The “theories” debunked on Holding’s site are strawmen attacks on arguments that no critical scholar actually makes and which are based on unproven premises about what the direct followers of Jesus claimed or believed.

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
What is your evidence that they were martyred for their beliefs? Putting aside the issues of Gospel provenance, the alleged martyrdoms of the apostles are not even found in the Gospels but in 2nd century patristic tradition.
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The martyrdoms of Peter and Paul are pretty much uncontested by historians. You also have James, the brother of Jesus, whose martyrdom is likewise accepted by historians. It’s generally accepted that John was not executed, but he’s an exception to that rule, and it’s commonly believed that he was at least imprisoned and persecuted.

As for the rest, we do have early evidence (early by the standards of ancient history) that they were martyred, though the precise details are less certain. There is also an absence of claims that dispute their martyrdom, even from skeptics such as Celsus. Even if they were not actually martyred though, they were still persecuted heavily, and by all indications, were willing to risk martyrdom. They would have had to be, in order to continue preaching despite the murderous persecutions under Emperor Nero.

I’m sure that some of you would say, “Well, maybe they were just insane! Every single one of them!” or “Maybe Josephus was wrong when he recorded the martyrdom of James” or somesuch rot. Some would even say, “Well, you can’t prove with absolute certainty that the Apostles were willing to risk martyrdom.” I think that’s a misguided way to reason, though. As far as I’m concerned, the bulk of the historical evidence indicates that they were willing to risk martyrdom, so the question of how they actually died is ultimately beside the point.

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
There is no direct evidence that either James or Paul believed in a physical resurrection.
[/QUOTE]

And I strongly disagree with that claim. In particular, Paul’s use of the Greek words “soma” and “anastasis” strongly indicate a physical body, and thus, a phsyical resurrection. Other aspects of Paul’s writings indicate a physical resurrection as well. In addition, the concept of a non-physical resurrection would have been alien to the Jewish culture of the time. Nor would a non-physical resurrection have been likely to sway their beliefs.

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The “theories” debunked on Holding’s site are strawmen attacks on arguments that no critical scholar actually makes and which are based on unproven premises about what the direct followers of Jesus claimed or believed.
[/QUOTE]

So you assert… and yet Gerd Lüdemann is a well-known critical scholar and a prominent member of the Jesus Seminar of which you often speak so highly. He’s also one of the foremost proponents of the aforementioned hallucination theory. You can find numerous other well-known critical scholars who support these various alternative hypotheses.

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Does it bother you that the “Doubting Thomas” story is found only in a single account (the Gospel of John) which is of unknown provenance, which is not written by a witness, and which was written 60-70 years after the crucifixion?
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I think it would be more conclusive if the other three had covered it. John is of course unique but I think he is no less authoritative than the other three. In some matters he was even more clear such as the doctrine of the divinity of Christ (In the beginning was the Word…). So an oral tradition endured for 60-70 years before being written. That isn’t beyond my realm of belief.

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So anyone who’s willing to risk martyrdom is right, and this actually is supposed to prove something?

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[QUOTE=JThunder]
The martyrdoms of Peter and Paul are pretty much uncontested by historians.
[/quote]

This is incorrect or, at least, misleading. The circumstances of their deaths are unknown. Historians do not tend to “contest” their martyrdom traditions in that they do not tend to posit any competing scenarios, but is only because nothing is known about how, when or where they died so no data exists to conclude anything at all. They would NOT tell you that the martyrdom traditions are accepted as historical fact.

James is the only one for whom we have anything resembling historical corroboration for martyrdom. Josephus says that someone he calls “James, the brother of Jesus called [or so-called] Christ” was executed by the Jewish high priest but he doesn’t say why and the appellation of “called Christ” to the “Jesus” of this passage is of disputed (though mostly accepted) authenticity. It also doesn’t say that James volunteered to die, that he died for his beliefs or what his beliefs consisted of.

“Commonly believed” ≠ historical evidence. Nothing of the sort is known to be historically true.

No, what we have is 2nd century tradition and folklore. Not evidence.

There is no evidence that the apostles (if they existed at all) were even noticed by Roman authorities, much less that they were persecuted.

Nero isn’t said to have persecuted any apostles. Tacitus says he scapegoated Christians after the fire, but they were not apostles and we don’t know exactly what their beliefs were at the time. They also weren’t targeted for their beliefs per se but because they were an unpopular group in Rome and made a convenient scapegoat. We also have no evidence that they were given any opportunity to rexcant their beliefs or that the Romans would have cared if they had. Most importantly, they had no firsthand knowledge of Jesus so their alleged conviction in their beliefs (whatever they were) would not actually prove anything about him.

Even if you could prove the martyrdom traditions (which you can’t), we still have no idea what the apostles actually believed or claimed about Jesus. You’re taking it for granted that they believed in a physical resurrection. We don’t actually know that.

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In my opinion nobody believes in Christianity because of the evidence, since the evidence is pathetic given the extreme nature of the claims. Few here are even claiming to believe it because of the evidence.

Many instead claim to believe because of faith. Given that virtually every religion is believed because of “faith”, and every religion except your own is wrong, it should be very obvious that faith (whatever it may actually mean) is pretty much unconnected to what is actually true.

So the crux of the matter to me is the question of why do people actually believe what they do? If we look at what people believe because of “faith” we find that 90% of the time they just happen to believe what they were brought up to believe. So as badchad said in the quote in the OP, people believe it because it’s what their parents and preachers told them or because it’s in the Bible, which people think is true because their parents and preachers told them it is.

There’s more to it that that, though. Most of the time other authority figures and friends also agree. Preachers are very skilled at making their pronouncements with such utter conviction we can’t imagine what they say could be in doubt. Since most of us don’t know much relious scholarship, we tend to assume that
religious authorities have some sound basis for what they believe. As Diogenes has done a good job of showing, they don’t.

In addition to telling us that the Bible is the “word of God” (despite powerful evidence that it is not), they also tell us we are good people if we have “faith” (in other words we believe what they say), and that people like atheists who disagree are unsavory people with sinister motives. They play on guilt - Jesus died an agonizing death because WE are unworthy sinners but he endured it because he loves us. “They” includes not only the clergy, but our families and many of the people in the community we trust the most. It’s not that they want to mislead us, it’s just that they are influenced by the same factors as we are, which unfortunately have nothing to do with whether the beliefs are true.

The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is even worse than that for alien abductions or a faked moon landing or Laetrile as a cancer cure, but unlike these other cases, believing in it gets you respect in the community and pride in yourself that you are a person of faith. It is powerful social and emotional influences like these that allow all sorts of completely false religions to thrive for thousands of years.

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[QUOTE=Hilarity N. Suze]
So anyone who’s willing to risk martyrdom is right, and this actually is supposed to prove something?
[/QUOTE]

No, which is why I never made such a claim. Rather, I was addressing the statement that we don’t KNOW that the Apostles were martyred for their faith. My point is that whether they were actually martyred or not is irrelevant, since they were clearly willing to be martyred.

As for the objection you raised… No, being willing to risk martyrdom does NOT automatically make someone right. Rather, it shows that these people sincerely believed that they had witnessed the resurrected Jesus. It would be rare indeed for one person to risk being killed for something that he knew to be false. It would be even more unusual for multiple individuals to engage in such foolhardy actions.

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[QUOTE=JThunder]
No, which is why I never made such a claim. Rather, I was addressing the statement that we don’t KNOW that the Apostles were martyred for their faith. My point is that whether they were actually martyred or not is irrelevant, since they were clearly willing to be martyred.

As for the objection you raised… No, being willing to risk martyrdom does NOT automatically make someone right. Rather, it shows that these people sincerely believed that they had witnessed the resurrected Jesus. It would be rare indeed for one person to risk being killed for something that he knew to be false. It would be even more unusual for multiple individuals to engage in such foolhardy actions.
[/QUOTE]

It has yet to be shown either that they were willing to be martyred or that they ever expressed a belief in a physical resurrection.

B the way, Joseph Smith was jailed and murdered for his own claims. Does that make them any more likely to be true?

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Even if you could prove the martyrdom traditions (which you can’t), we still have no idea what the apostles actually believed or claimed about Jesus. You’re taking it for granted that they believed in a physical resurrection. We don’t actually know that.
[/QUOTE]
“We have no idea” is too strong. The New Testament book of Acts purports to show what the apostles and the early Christian community believed, said, and did. If/to the extent that its description is accurate, they did believe that Jesus was resurrected. For example, Luke (i.e. the author) has Peter say things like “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” (Acts 2:32).

You can argue that we can’t know how far the Biblical accounts such as this accord with reality. But since Acts and other New Testament books arose out of the early Christian community, I find it plausible that they give a not totally inaccurate view of what that community believed, going back to the time of the events they describe.

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
It has yet to be shown either that they were willing to be martyred or that they ever expressed a belief in a physical resurrection.
[/QUOTE]

Nonsense, for reasons that we’ve already gone over. It would have been foolish for ANYONE to continue preaching under the persecutions of Nero, for example. And, as I’ve already emphasized, we even have evidence from secular authorities, e.g. Josephus testifying to the martyrdom of James. Scholars may admit that there is sketchy evidence regarding the deaths of Matthew or Bartholomew, but virtually nobody denies that Peter, Paul and James the brother of Jesus did indeed die a martyr’s death.

You’re not paying attention. I specifically and emphatically said that sincere belief does NOT automatically make someone’s belief correct.

More importantly though, you’re misrepresenting the nature of Joseph Smith’s death. Smith was not martyred for what he taught; rather, he was lynched by an angry mob for his crimes. He was not forced to recant his teachings, nor was the threatened with death lest he stop preaching his gospel.

And even if your claim were true, the martyrdom of one man does not compare to the willingness to die of multiple individuals. Could one man knowingly die for a lie? Unlikely. Multiple individuals? Even more implausible.

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[QUOTE=JThunder]
No, which is why I never made such a claim. Rather, I was addressing the statement that we don’t KNOW that the Apostles were martyred for their faith. My point is that whether they were actually martyred or not is irrelevant, since they were clearly willing to be martyred.

As for the objection you raised… No, being willing to risk martyrdom does NOT automatically make someone right. Rather, it shows that these people sincerely believed that they had witnessed the resurrected Jesus. It would be rare indeed for one person to risk being killed for something that he knew to be false. It would be even more unusual for multiple individuals to engage in such foolhardy actions.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry but your conclusion here simply does not follow. Their willingness to be martyred if necessary might be simply because of their passion for the masters teachings, or a spiritual resurrection, a vision of Jesus, rather than a physical one.

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[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
I’m sorry but your conclusion here simply does not follow. Their willingness to be martyred if necessary might be simply because of their passion for the masters teachings, or a spiritual resurrection, a vision of Jesus, rather than a physical one.
[/QUOTE]

Passion for what? For something that they knew to be false? People do not normally act in that manner. People commit their lives to something that they passionately believe to be true.

I’ve already explained why I reject the notion that they experienced a visionary experience. It simply does not accord with the wording used in the New Testament or with the Jewish expectations of what a resurrection would be.

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[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
“We have no idea” is too strong. The New Testament book of Acts purports to show what the apostles and the early Christian community believed, said, and did. If/to the extent that its description is accurate, they did believe that Jesus was resurrected. For example, Luke (i.e. the author) has Peter say things like “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” (Acts 2:32).

You can argue that we can’t know how far the Biblical accounts such as this accord with reality. But since Acts and other New Testament books arose out of the early Christian community, I find it plausible that they give a not totally inaccurate view of what that community believed, going back to the time of the events they describe.
[/QUOTE]

Acts was written by Luke in the late 90’s or early 2nd century. Luke was not a witness and did not know any witnesses. Acts is no more a reliable a source of information about the earliest Christian beliefs than his Gospel is.

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[QUOTE=JThunder]

More importantly though, you’re misrepresenting the nature of Joseph Smith’s death. Smith was not martyred for what he taught; rather, he was lynched by an angry mob for his crimes. He was not forced to recant his teachings, nor was the threatened with death lest he stop preaching his gospel.
[/QUOTE]

Got a cite for that bit about Joe? I haven’t done the research but in the story I heard he was jailed several times on trumped up charges which also true on the night he was killed {shot in the report I read}

Perhaps you’ve noticed the news lately?

40

I’m about to start reading the book Misquoting Jesus and am curious to see what the author has to say about this particular aspect of the Bible (per the OP).