Naturalistic explanation for the resurrection of Jesus

[Minimalist]

Is it not possible that jesus just didnt die on the cross.

The punished often took days to die and he was only up there for about five minutes.

Who declared him dead and how qualified were they?

If someone was declared dead and then sat up, my first thought would be that the doctor made a mistake and not that a miracle has occurred.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/man-wak...21109.html

Yes, DBP, but not even the xtian gospels make such a claim. All that they say is that when 1 (or 2, or 3 or 4) people went to the tomb it was empty. The one gospel account which claims that jc walked out of the tomb was too absurd even for the church and it was voted out of the big book of Holy Horseshit by the committee.

[Captain Scarlet]

The most likely explanation is that someone made it up. Here is one explanation, far from convincing but more believable than the existence of a demi god, who rose from the dead.

The ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric perspective) the sun makes an annual descent southward until December 21st, the winter solstice, when the sun stops moving southerly for three days and then starts to move northward again. During this time, the ancients declared that "God's sun" had "died" for three days and was "born again" on December 25th. The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to return every day and that they would be in big trouble if the sun continued to move southward and did not stop and reverse its direction. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the "Sun of God's" birthday on December 25th. The selection of the twenty-fifth of December as his birthday is not only an arbitrary one, but that date, having been from time immemorial dedicated to the Sun, the inference is that the Son of God and the Sun of heaven enjoying the same birthday, were at one time identical beings. The fact that Jesus' death was accompanied with the darkening of the Sun, and that the date of his resurrection is also associated with the position of the Sun at the time of the vernal equinox, is a further intimation that we have in the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable historical events."

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE "SUN OF GOD":
-The sun "dies" for three days on December 21st, the winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.
-In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin."
-The sun has a corona or halo. Many of the sun-gods, including Horus, Buddha and Krishna (as seen in is ascension), are depicted with halos, hundreds to thousands of years before it became fashionable in Christianity.
-The sun's "followers," "helpers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun must pass.
-The sun is hung on a cross or "crucified," which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then resurrected.

[OnlyNatural]

The fact that Jesus' death was accompanied with the darkening of the Sun, and that the date of his resurrection is also associated with the position of the Sun at the time of the vernal equinox, is a further intimation that we have in the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable historical events."

Sounds just like what the Zeitgeist movie was talking about. I thought this theory was pretty compelling too. It makes sense that the earliest cultures would revere the great celestial bodies and events that they witnessed in the sky. And Christianity has been building on past myths ever since its inception.

[Watchman]

Personaly I think Downbeatplumb may have it....

"Is it not possible that jesus just didnt die on the cross."

"If the victim is crucified with a small seat, a sedile, affixed to the uptight for minimum support in the region of the buttocks, death can be prolonged for hours and days. In fact, Josephus reports that three friends of his were being crucified in Thecoa by the Romans who, upon intervention by Josephus to Titus were removed from the crosses and with medical care one survived."

http://www.centuryone.org/crucifixion2.html

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

"Is it not possible that jesus just didnt die on the cross."

I found this interesting when I read it in about 1968.

The Passover Plot (ISBN 1-85230-836-2) is the name of a controversial, best-selling 1965 book, by British Biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield who has also published a translation of the New Testament informed with a Jewish perspective.

Schonfield's conclusions

Based on scholarly research into the social and religious culture in which Jesus was born, lived and died, into the source documents of the Gospels, and into other literature, Schonfield reached the following conclusions:

* That Jesus was a deeply religious Jewish man, probably well-versed in the teachings of the local northern sects such as the Nazarenes and Essenes.
* That growing up in Biblical Galilee he had a skeptical and somewhat rebellious relationship to the hierarchy and teachings mandated by the authorities (the Pharisees) of the Temple in Jerusalem.
* That Jewish Messianic expectation was extremely high in those times, matched to the despair caused by the Roman occupation of the land, and by their subjugation of the Jews.
* That he was in many ways both typical of his times, and yet extraordinary in his religious convictions and beliefs, in his scholarship of the Biblical literature, and in the fervency in which he lived his religion out in his daily life.
* That he was convinced of his role as the expected Messiah based on the authority of his having been descendant from King David (the royal bloodline of David), and that he consciously and methodically, to the point of being calculating, attempted to fulfill that role, being eminently well-versed in the details of what that role entailed.
* That he was convinced of the importance of his fulfilling the role perfectly (after all prophesy and expectation), and that he could not allow himself to fail, as that would undoubtedly lead to his being declared a false Messiah.
* That he was perfectly aware of the consequences of his actions all along the way, and that he directed his closest supporters, the original twelve Apostles, unknowingly to aid him in his plans.
* That he involved the least possible number of supporters in his plans ("need to know" basis), therefore very few knew of the details of his final plan, and even then only the least amount of information necessary.

The culmination of his plan was to be his death (the crucifixion), his resurrection and his reign as the true Kingly and Priestly Messiah, not in heaven but on earth— the realized King of the Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passover_Plot

[Edwardo Piet]

There once lived a man named Jesus, he was really popular and his popularity got exaggerated.

[Anomalocaris]

Personaly I think Downbeatplumb may have it....

"Is it not possible that jesus just didnt die on the cross."

"If the victim is crucified with a small seat, a sedile, affixed to the uptight for minimum support in the region of the buttocks, death can be prolonged for hours and days. In fact, Josephus reports that three friends of his were being crucified in Thecoa by the Romans who, upon intervention by Josephus to Titus were removed from the crosses and with medical care one survived."

http://www.centuryone.org/crucifixion2.html

What is the reason to give resurrection story with any grain of truth such that one would need to hypothesize his failure to really die on the cross? Seems to me much more plausible that he died and rotted while his besotted followers made up a story to make themselves feel the least stupid for their miserable bisotten state.

[Minimalist]

And from there it is but a short step to "it never happened at all."

[downbeatplumb]

And from there it is but a short step to "it never happened at all."

True. This is may favourite answer, but not the only one possible.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

There once lived a man named Jesus, he was really popular and his popularity got exaggerated.

I think you might find there may have been even hundreds of people called Yeshua* or Yoshua in Judea at the the time. (Jesus (Iesus*) is a Romanised version of the Greek name Iesous) Probably more than one was a wondering rabbi. Probably more more than one had a mother called Miriam and a father called Yusuf.





*There was no letter 'j' in the Roman alphabet,nor in written Hebrew. Also vowels are not written in Hebrew,but are implied by context. Hence the actual name of the person we call 'Jesus' is unknown for a fact.