DEBUNKING THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

[KevinM1]

Wait, wait, wait, wait... people won't die for a lie or delusion?  Care to explain Jihad, then?

Kevin-

You're either not paying attention or not thinking or both.

It has been said by me and others MANY times that people die for their belief all the time.

What is not common is for people to lay down their lives for what they know to be a lie.

If the apostles made up the story of Jesus' resurrection, then they KNEW is was a lie. No one dies for what they know are lies.

Except that the apostles' deaths are mostly shrouded in mystery, AFAIK.  Judas hung himself/committed suicide due to his betrayal.  Beyond that, it is believed that Peter, Paul, and James were martyred (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostle_(C...e_Apostles).  And there's nothing about the others.

Indeed, your favorite quote mined source, Ehrman, talks about this on his blog (behind a pay wall: http://ehrmanblog.org/were-the-disciples...urrection/), dismissing your line of reasoning as a standard, and flawed, line of apologist reasoning.  "They wouldn't die for a lie" assumes that they were captured, tortured, and then put to death, or faced that as a punishment.  Yet, there's no evidence that the bulk of apostles died like that.  

And, indeed, people do risk themselves for a lie if it's a way to maintain/increase power.  Never forget that religion and politics were the same thing back then.

[abaris]

Except that the apostles' deaths are mostly shrouded in mystery, AFAIK.

Oh, give it a rest. To be dead one has to be alive before. Not even that is proven.

Randy likes to pull what he calls facts out of brother anus. So the whole OP is the expected product of it's source.

[KevinM1]

Except that the apostles' deaths are mostly shrouded in mystery, AFAIK.

Oh, give it a rest. To be dead one has to be alive before. Not even that is proven.

Randy likes to pull what he calls facts out of brother anus. So the whole OP is the expected product of it's source.

Oh, I know that.  The thing is, I have no problem allowing that these people actually existed because it doesn't help his argument at all.  The biggest flaw with his approach is that he's essentially saying:

If all these other things are true, then it's likely this last thing is true.

Except, those other things aren't really related to that last thing (what do people's changed outlooks have to do with someone coming back to life?  if their outlooks even changed at all (where's the proof?)?), and they're also subjected to different standards of supporting evidence needed to make the claims plausible, let alone likely.  

A local cult leader who constantly ran afoul of the local authorities, got betrayed by one of his own, and was killed via crucifixion is a much more mundane claim than the guy was actually the son of god and was resurrected on the third day after his death.  And what sparse evidence points to the former does not automatically point to the latter, no matter how much Randy demands it.

So, yeah, I'm willing to accept, for argument's sake, that the apostles were real people because their existence is immaterial to the matter at hand.  We don't know how they died, or what threats they lived under while alive (if they were indeed alive), so the standard apologist wish casting and psychoanalysis of straw men still doesn't get him anywhere.

[Longhorn]

Except that the apostles' deaths are mostly shrouded in mystery, AFAIK.

Oh, give it a rest. To be dead one has to be alive before. Not even that is proven.

Randy likes to pull what he calls facts out of brother anus. So the whole OP is the expected product of it's source.

Bbbbbut NT scholars Abaris! What's YOUR theory??

-_-

[robvalue]

I think it's sad that Randy pulls out atheist scholars to show how reliable they are when they believe in all the "facts" he wants to establish, and then quickly shoves them under the bus before any of us notice that all this understanding still doesn't cause them to believe in the resurrection. This second part validates our position, using his own chosen historians.

Why are Ehrman and O'Neil still atheists, if you respect their historical study so much?

[Chas]

Actually, this is the same thread all over again.
In the end, it can be broken down to:

'BBBBBUT THE TOMB WAS EMPTY!!!!1!1!1 WHAT'S YOUR THEORY HUH?!?!?!!'

All the objections to this line of thinking notwithstanding. I guess they're not in his scenario.

The apostles began to preach the resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified and buried.

If the tomb wasn't empty, why didn't the authorities simply take the body from the tomb, parade it through the streets, and silence the Apostles?

Since the Gospels were written years and decades after the alleged events by unknown authors who were almost certainly not eyewitnesses, there is no reason to believe in their literal truth. 

[robvalue]

Heya Chas

[downbeatplumb]

The fact that you can no longer see a six mile high bean stalk is evidence that it was cut down, therefore jack and the bean stalk is true.

Odins defeat of the ice giants is proved by the continued non-existence of ice giants.

An empty tomb (that on one can find) somewhere in the middle east is evidence for a series of improbable events as mention ad nauseum by our favourite whatever Randy is.

[Randy Carson]

Kevin-

You're either not paying attention or not thinking or both.

It has been said by me and others MANY times that people die for their belief all the time.

What is not common is for people to lay down their lives for what they know to be a lie.

If the apostles made up the story of Jesus' resurrection, then they KNEW is was a lie. No one dies for what they know are lies.

Except that the apostles' deaths are mostly shrouded in mystery, AFAIK.  Judas hung himself/committed suicide due to his betrayal.  Beyond that, it is believed that Peter, Paul, and James were martyred (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostle_(C...e_Apostles).  And there's nothing about the others.

Indeed, your favorite quote mined source, Ehrman, talks about this on his blog (behind a pay wall: http://ehrmanblog.org/were-the-disciples...urrection/), dismissing your line of reasoning as a standard, and flawed, line of apologist reasoning.  "They wouldn't die for a lie" assumes that they were captured, tortured, and then put to death, or faced that as a punishment.  Yet, there's no evidence that the bulk of apostles died like that.  

And, indeed, people do risk themselves for a lie if it's a way to maintain/increase power.  Never forget that religion and politics were the same thing back then.

You seem to be hedging when you wrote, "There's no evidence that the bulk [emphasis added] of apostles died like that." That sounds like an admission that at least some of them undeniably did. Indeed, the death of Stephen by stoning is recorded in the book of Acts authored by Luke in the middle of the first century. The beheading of James, the Apostle, is also recorded in the book of Acts. The death of James, the brother of Jesus (and leader of the Church in Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15)) is recorded by Josephus. The deaths of Peter and Paul was recorded by Clement of Rome (Clement, Letter to the Corinthians, 5) before the end of the first century. Further, since Acts and subsequent non-canonical writings also record arrests, beatings and other unpleasantries heaped upon the earliest followers of Jesus, the pattern of persecution is undeniable. All of this could have been avoided if the disciples had simply gone back to their fishing boats in Galilee.

Finally, you speak of "power" as if the apostles were somehow the lords of some great empire, vast wealth and prestige. Really? The apostles lived out their days travelling on foot from city to city, under constant threat of arrest and death, despised by Jews, mocked by Romans...when and how exactly did the apostles enjoy this "power" of which you speak?

[Randy Carson]

So, yeah, I'm willing to accept, for argument's sake, that the apostles were real people because their existence is immaterial to the matter at hand.  We don't know how they died, or what threats they lived under while alive (if they were indeed alive), so the standard apologist wish casting and psychoanalysis of straw men still doesn't get him anywhere.

The "matter at hand" is whether these "real people" conspired with regard to what they reported:

1. that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried,
2. that Jesus appeared to them alive again after his death
3. that Paul, the persecutor of the early Church, was converted
4. that James, the unbelieving brother of Jesus, was converted
3. that Jesus' tomb was found empty.

The Conspiracy Theory states that the apostles agreed to lie about all of these points.

Do you believe that this theory is the best explanation for the five points listed above?

If not, what is?